i think chuck todd is terrific.c-span is the gold standard when it comes to hard ns and a serious questions and looking into issues. respectfully, i am asking you to look more closely at your own station and ask this woman that appears with chuck todd, savannah, is she really of hard news person or is she there just to balance off a morning program? host: do you watch fox as well? do you get the same sense when you tune in to bill o'reilly or you see laura ingram on fox, of karl rove? caller: i am a c-span junkie. in fact, whenever anybody asks me that question, i say i watch c-span. when you watch c-span, what you get is your morning program, you go through the newspapers. on msnbc in the morning, the only highlight "thnew york times" and "the washington post". you go through everything. it is about balance. it is about getting to the core questions that are appearing ily. one thing that i think shows a bias of msbc, and keith olbermann is absolutely offensive in his name calling of people, calling them a stupid or

>> chuck todd at the white house tonight. chuck, thanks. >>> on wall street today, stocks fell sharply after the jobs report. but they bounced back in the last hour of trading. the dow rallied more than 130 points. it finished down just over 21 points for the day. >>> overseas tonight, a major world capital like we have never seen it. gripped by smoke and smog, so bad, people there say it is as if there is no air to breathe. again, tonight, nbc's jim maceda reports from the front lines of the russian wildfires burning out of control. tonight he is in kremlin square. >> reporter: today, moscow was a city under siege. its most iconic landmarks, red square, the kremlin, all consumed by a thick, soupy cloud of smog and smoke. part of an 1,800 mile long swab of choking pollution from hundreds of wildfires many raging out of control. >> translator: it reminds me of the fall of pompeii, it's just awful, said this woman. leaving a capital city of 11 million who had seen hard times before, in shock. >> translator: the country is in rui

our chief white house correspondent chuck todd traveling with the president. he's in wisconsin tonight. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. well, the president planned a week of campaigning on his accomplishments, but words he used over the weekend have stepped on that message. president obama in wisconsin today launching a three-day cross-country campaign blitz. >> good to be back in the midwest. good to be out of washington once in a while. >> reporter: a trip intended for the president to showcase things like this -- a start-up advanced battery manufacturing plant that got off the ground thanks to money from mr. obama's $800 billion stimulus plan. over the weekend there was another firestorm. >> this is such a raw wound and they are just pouring salt into it. >> it was very unnecessary. he shouldn't have said what he said friday night. >> this wouldn't be a controversy if it was a proposal to build a synagogue or church. >> reporter: clouding his intended message on the campaign trail. this began friday night at a white house dinner markin

chuck todd tonight. thank you so much for crunching the numbers for us, chuck. >>> as for the anxiety on wall street today, the dow was down more than 265 points on the day. we've got cnbc's david faber joining us now. is it safe to say what we see on main street is also what you are seeing on wall street? >> no doubt about it, ann. in fact, that uncertainty so many americans feel in terms of where they are going to spend money and where this economy is headed is certainly something we have seen on wall street. yesterday, the federal reserve board which sets interest rate policy in this country, came out and essentially said what many people already felt which was the economy and the economic recovery was not going quite as fast as had been anticipated. the market didn't really respond negatively yesterday. very different story today with the s&p 500 off 2.8%. the dow jones industrial average off 2.5%. while corporate profits have been very strong we have just finished what we call our earnings season on

our chief white house correspondent chuck todd with us from our washington newsroom. chuck, i'll say it with sarcasm, this is what people love about washington, isn't it? >> yeah, that's right. it is finger pointing time. john boehner is the house republican leader. and he gave a big speech on what he would do if he were speaker of the house, should republicans get control of the house in november. and here's what he had to say about the president's economic team. >> president obama should ask for and accept the resignations of the remaining members of his economic team starting with secretary geithner and larry somers, the head of the national economic council. >> reporter: well, vice president biden served as the surrogate for the obama administration, and here's what he said in response to boehner's call. >> they took a $237 billion operating surplus, inherited from the clinton administration, and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit. and in the process, quadrupling the national debt, all before we literally turned on the lights in the west wing. >> now, it doesn't

let the campaign season begin. >> chuck todd at the white house tonight. chuck, thanks. >>> our nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is back in iraq tonight, a place where he spent much of the last eight years. he's with us from baghdad for a closer look at the fragile state of things, again, after seven or so years of war. richard, i talked to you today and you had the rare distinction of hearing the president's speech from baghdad. what is the state of life there these days? >> reporter: many people here don't share the same kind of optimism that was expressed not only by the president but by analysts across the united states today. life in baghdad right now is very difficult. this is not what you could consider a normal or a stable city. just coming in from the airport this morning and driving to our bureau, it's about a 12-mile journey along a short stretch of road. we had to pass through six different checkpoints. there is a curfew in place tonight, as there is every single night. that gives you an idea of how much stability there is her

>> all right, chuck todd in our washington newsroom on that big number out today. chuck, thanks. >>> still ahead as our broadcast continues for this thursday night, a flight into the flood zone. ann curry with a rare perspective on this crisis in pakistan. she asks the man in charge if he is to blame for any of this ongoing misery. >>> and later in this country, how one man decided he could make a difference for many people who fall on hard times. difference for many people who fall on hard times. . so now, i can join the fun and games with my grandchildren. great news! for people with copd, including chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or both, advair helps significantly improve lung function. while nothing can reverse copd, advair is different from most other copd medications because it contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator, working together to help you breathe better. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumo

one of them still up in the air at this hour and our chief white house correspondent chuck todd, who is also our political director, is with us tonight with what we have learned from all of it so far. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: it's been a wild, wild year so far. anyway, let's get to the latest numbers out of alaska. tea party and sarah palin-backed newcomer joe miller is now clinging to a 1500 vote lead over alaska senator lisa mur cow ski, someone with a famous name in alaska. her campaign believes as many as 15,000 uncounted absentee ballots. we may not know until after labor day. that's when all the votes could be counted. even in limbo what happened is resonating in washington in both parties as they are taking lessons from her campaign. she made a decision to run a record, talk about what it was like to bring federal money back to alaska. it didn't resonate with alaskans or her opponent as he explained last night at his semi-victory party. >> it is not a partisan republican message. it is a bipartisan message that, look, the federal government is open. we need to get back

i think chuck todd is terrific.c-span is the gold standard when it comes to hard news and a serious questions and looking into issues. respectfully, i am asking you to look more closely at your own station and ask this woman that appears with chuck todd, savannah, is she really of hard news person or is she there just to balance off a morning program? host: do you watch fox as well? do you get the same sense when you tune in to bill o'reilly or you see laura ingram on fox, of karl rove? caller: i am a c-span junkie. in fact, whenever anybody asks me that question, i say i watch c-span. when you watch c-span, what you get is your morning program, you go through the newspapers. on msnbc in the morning, the only highlight "the new york times" and "the washington post". you go through everything. it is about balance. it is about getting to the core questions that are appearing daily. one thing that i think shows a bias of msbc, and keith olbermann is absolutely offensive in his name calling of people, calling them a stu

. >> let's talk more with chuck todd nbc's political director and white house correspondent. he joins me from our washington news room. good evening, chuck. what about the political implications both for the president and for democrats as a whole? >> well, kate, i talked to one very senior democratic strategist and asked, what do you make of all of this. and they said, where to begin. bottom line, they don't understand why the white house politically chose to step into a story which was basically a debate in new york city and among the conservative opinion elites. and some fox tv shows. but he stepped in and chose to do it. now the concern among the democrats that it's going to follow them. not only do they have to figure out a way to answer the question on the campaign trail. it's going to pop up on debates and you saw how republicans are going to talk about it. senator john cornyn, campaign stath strategist at this point, saying this is part of the picture that we're trying to paint to show that democrats are simply out of touch with middle america. that's the big concern am

nbc's chief white house correspondent chuck todd is in columbus, ohio. chuck, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, natalie. well, it's day three of the president's cross-country fund-raising and campaign tour. while he saw some of the friendliest crowds he's seen yet in seattle, the question still looms do these stops help or hinder his fellow democrats. >> you remember our slogan during the campaign, "yes, we can." their slogan is "no, we can't." >> reporter: in washington state tuesday the president was clearly testing some new lines of attack against republicans. >> i bring all this stuff up not because i want to relitigate the past. i just don't want to relive the past. >> reporter: outside a fund-raising for embattled patty murray, protesters gathered angry about obama administration paul seechlt while inside the president appeared to acknowledge that his position on the mosque near ground zero is not popular. >> i have pollsters. i know when things don't poll well. but i wasn't sent to washington. you did not send me to the oval office to just d

wall street journal" poll, we've got nbc's political director and chief white house correspondent chuck toddere in the studio. hey, chuck. thanks for being here. >> good morning. >> so, even though jim cramer sounds very positive, there's a lot of pessimism, as we've seen in the market, but also on wall street, but also on main street according to this new poll. >> americans are feeling doom and gloom. he may not be seeing doom and gloom but look at those numbers about where people feel like we're still in a recession. 64% say we have yet to hit bottom. it's an unbelievable number. nine months ago in january, only 53% had that. so here we were the obama administration told us that this was going to be recovery summer. we've had the administration arguing that the recovery is on their way. jim cramer was telling us that the financial numbers say that. the american people don't feel it. >> and they don't feel like the country is heading in the right direction, which is even more -- they're really concerned about where it is going. >> and 58% say we're headed in the wrong direction. this is t

nbc's chief white house correspondent chuck todd is traveling with the president. he's in los angeles, chuck, good morning to you. >> good morning, matt. well president obama's in the midst of this five-day campaign swing, excuse me, five-state campaign swing. he hits seattle, washington, and columbus, ohio, today. but he brings with him out west this controversy about what he said about building a mosque a few blocks from ground zero. all of this has made republicans believe it's an issue they can use on the campaign trail. >> gearing up for a tough fall election, president obama spent monday night in los angeles raising money for democrats. >> president barack obama. >> reporter: earlier on monday the president spoke to democrats at another fund-raiser in wisconsin presenting a case for his party keeping control of congress. >> this nation is moving in the right direction, we are moving forward. and the most important thing we can do right now, is to keep moving forward. >> reporter: but the president's campaign swing is still being overshadowed by comments he mad

i watched mark murray on msnbc and i watch chuck todd, and it is laughable the way they report the news. i would like the audience to listen closely to how they report the news and what they neglect to report. it is not only what the report and this been a put on it, but what they neglected to report and how they choose not to report things that could be or would probably be damaging to this particular administration. guest: steve, i appreciate you're pointing out that a republican is part of the poll. there are a lot of people in the political community, the nbc-"the wall street journal" poll, one of the gold standards. the view or ended up making a point, and there are some people who talk about msnbc because of keith olbermann, that they are a liberal-leaning their work. it is true that keith olbermann, some of the opinion people that are in prime time, come from the news from a certain point of view. i will speak for myself and truck todd. we try to be as fair as possible. we chat with republican sources. as journalists, what we have is our credibility. what i write or in appearance

comeback is being attempted by mark dayton, he's trying to become his party's nominee for governor. >> chuck todd in washington for us. thank you, chuck. >>> uss john mccain docked in vietnam today as two former enemy nations mark 15 years of renewed diplomatic ties. the destroyer is named for admiral john mccain sr. and junior, the grandfather and father of arizona senator john mccain who was held as a p.o.w. during the vietnam war. >>> now 7:12 pacific time. back to meredith, matt and al. >> thank you very much, natalie. mr. roker here with the first check of the weather. >> in dillingham, alaska, 48 degrees and raining. you see on the satellite, we haveot chauds and showers, nothing horrible right now, but the weather isot deteriorating, expect showers right over the next 36 hours there. as we take a look at the rest of the west, you see things fairly clear. showers in the pacific northwest on into the central plains. reno, nevada, 89 degrees and sunshine. l.a., sunny and 74. 107 in phoenix. denver going to be toasty, a temperature of 90 degrees with 91 in salt lake city. boise, a high of 89.

senate, matt, in connecticut. >> chuck todd at the white house. chuck, as always, thank you very much. >>> former virginia governor tim kaine is the chairman of the democratic national committee. governor kaine, good to see you. good morning. >> matt, good to be back. >> so the president is out campaigning for some candidates, others don't want anything to do with him. i want to take you back to election night 2008 and that scenic grant park when the president walked out on the stage. can you imagine back then, democrats had to hope this was going to be a president who was going to open up new political territory for the party and here you've got a president and some candidates don't want to be seen with him. what happened? >> well, i think the candidates who are worried about it are making a mistake because i think this president still is doing the great work that the americans expect of him. the president and i met a month after that in grant park and we talked about the fact that mid-terms will be very tough because they always are, since teddy

chuck todd joining us with the latest. good morning. >> washington is still shell shocked from the latest political upset four time zones away, and while alaska senator lisa mercowsky is still clinging to a victory by recount, the message is clear: no one is safe from the wrath of the voters in 2010. >> it ain't over until it's over and there is much, much yet to be counted. >> senator mercowsky still confident friday as she waited for the last votes to be counted, against jim miller who held a slim lead. he was put on the map thanks to a stamp of approval from sarah palin who has a history of retention with the family. he ran against tension and washington anger. >> the federal government is broken. we need to get back in control here in this state. that's a message that carries to both parties. >> that message carried a tax on mercowski's record. >> she has voted with the democrats more than any democrats up for reelection this year. >> murkowski ran for eight years in the senate, which proved risky. john mccain was just

chuck todd is nbc's political director and chief white house correspondent for nbc news. chuck, good morning. >> good morning, ann. >> we just heard from kelly that john mccain is ahead, at >> we just heard mccain is ahead according to polls but had to spend like $20 million but his opponent spent about three million. what does that tell us about what is going in arizona, chuck? >> he had to do this the old-fashioned way in politics, winning ugly. the $20 million was necessary. he always had about 35 to 40% of the republican conservative electorate down there that wasn't crazy about him upset about him on immigration, taxes, a number of issues. so mccain had to disqualify j.d. hayworth. what we found out as upset at voters are these days about washington politicians infomercial hucksters are worse. that's what mccain did, completely disqualified him. the big question people have in washington which john mccain comes back to washington, the new consistent conservative and a consistent thorn in the side of president obama, or is it the guy from the early part of this decade

nbc's chief white house correspondent chuck todd is also our political director. chuck, good morning to you. >> reporter: well, good morning or good evening, as they might say this alaska. >> exactly right. let's start there. that's where the drama is this morning in the race between joe miller and lisa murkowski. it's too close to call. about four percentage points separating them right now. how long is this going to go? >> reporter: look, this could go a week. it took more than a week when about 3,000 votes divided the u.s. senate race that ted stevens, the late senator, ended up losing. he had about a 3,000-vote lead at about this time the day after the election. then all of the vote came in from the most rural and remote parts of the state. perhaps murkowski had the resources to contact those folks and miller didn't. but there's a bigger thing going on here and that is contrast lisa murkowski and how she ran versus john mccain and how he ran. they both have similar resumes. i've gotten a lot done in washington, this or that. john mccain didn't bother to tell pe