let's go to cnbc's chief washington correspondent john harwood.d evening once again, john. >> good evening, larry. this was a very well-kept secret by the white house. there was a tweet earlier today from someone connected to afghan television that triggered a denial from the white house that the president was in kabul. he may not have been in kabul at that time, but he was headed that way. and the one-year anniversary of the death of osama bin laden is a powerful moment for him. he also, of course, his aide said on the way over that what drove this trip principally was the completion of the strategic partnership agreement with president karzai about what's going to happen once those 90,000 remaining american troops leave afghanistan in 2014. there's going to be defense cooperation and training. but the president is going to address osama bin laden in the speech, larry. >> john, do you think there's going to be bipartisan support for the strategic partnership you mentioned a moment ago? >> i do, we heard that from john mccain earlier today. he pra

and we brauntd to bring in now john harwood, chief washington correspondent, gives perspective on this. hollande is farther to the left, he wants to push back against the austerity measures. what's the potential fallout with international markets and diplomatically with the u.s.? >> reporter: well, we've already seen today the euro fell to a three-week low. i think most people expect european markets to open somewhat lower tomorrow, and the united states markets to follow suit. although there has been considerable expectation as we've watched the story unfold in france that it would lead to this result, and cast some cloud over the efforts to enact austerity measures. and solve that debt crisis. >> of course, these austerity measures are being driven largely by the germans. is this creating a ripple across europe and more pushback against this concept? >> reporter: you are seeing a pushback against that, you're seeing it in the united states diminution for the republican zeal for the cuts. and you can expect democrats and president obama to go hard after them in the election on medicar

cnbc's own john harwood joins us with the details. good evening, john. >> reporter: we've gonged the start of the general election campaign more than once before but today president obama himself gonged the start of it by calling mitt romney and congratulating him on the republican nomination and setting the stage for what both sides expect is going to be a very close campaign. now, why did the president do that? it's because mitt romney went over the top. as you mentioned. here are the delegate totals. 1,144 is what he needed for nomination. mitt romney's well over that. 1,191 at this stage. newt gingrich, rick santorum, ron paul, all the people with you once thought were going to threaten him, way behind. it's going to be a tight race all the way through november. look at these poll numbers from the averages of realclearpolitics.com. two-point advantage for president obama right now. that is within the margin of error. not a presumptive huge advantage for the president at all. there are mountains of cash that are going to be spent i

john harwood is going to tell us all about the monetary details.ening, john. >> good evening, larry. they're reading the same polls that you're talking about showing that swing states are very close, the national race is very close and so george soros, one of the major financeers of democratic get out the votes advertising in 2004 is stepping up to provide financing along with other liberal donors. soros has pledged $1 million to each of two major democratic groups. all told, liberal donors are talking about raising $100 million to finance democratic get out the vote efforts. to some degree television advertise persian gulf that that's expected to be dwarfed by the 3d 00 million that republican groups are talking about raising and it's all enough money to make john boehner today say the financial arrangements of this election have simply gotten out of control. >> the campaign system frankly is out of control. the amount of money that is flowing into these races are numbers that are beyond anybody's imagination. >> of course that's not going to stop

cnbc's john harwood joins us with the details, good evening, john. >> reporter: good evening, larry. i don't think the white house is thrilled but won't surprise you they don't have the same spin on the numbers that you do but we have to get used to that because this is the kind of jobs report that is weak enough it can be spun any way you please. let's start with the top line numbers. first of all the overall unemployment rate went down from 8.1 -- 8.2 to 8.1%. so far, so good. 115 non-farm payroll jobs added. the household survey, household survey shows 169,000 fewer people with jobs, and 342,000 people leaving the labor force in part because of retirements in part because of the expiration of unemployment benefits which require you to search for a job. so president obama was out on the campaign trail and he had to take ownership of both sides of that to take credit for progress that has been made but also acknowledge that more has to be done. here is the president. >> 4.2 million new jobs over the last 26 months. more than one million jobs in the last six months alone. so that's t

john harwood is down there with senator levin. >> i'm here with the chairman, chairman levin. what do you know about how and why this debacle occurred? >> i know only what i hear and read, and that's more than enough because we have heard enough from jamie dimon himself that he basically was betting on an economic direction. he lost $2 billion on that bet. in terms of what the direction of the economy would be. and i know because we wrote the law senator americamerckley and myself wrote the law, the volcker rule. >> the roll we are rule is still in the process of being developed. do we know if jpmorgan was in violence of prior regulations and does it indicate failure on the part of regulators? >> i don't have any evidence that it violated the previous law, but it is clearly inconsistent with what we did in so-called dodd frank bill or the volcker rule, which is to say to the big banks, you cannot take these big proprietaries. you cannot bet on the direction of the economy. you can hedge. but this was not a hedge. this was a bet on the direction of the entire economy. a hedge a

john harwood joins us now with all the details. good evening, john. >> i hate to tell you they are not going to make that deal before the election. if anybody doubted it, it was on display. the distance between the parties today. first, president obama held a private meeting with congressional leaders to talk about his priorities on the budget and other issues, but only after calling them out publicly in a visit to a small business in washington about his to-do list to help the american economy. >> we want to sustain momentum, and one of the ways that we can sustain momentum is for congress to take some actions right now, even though it's election season, even though there's gridlock, even though there's partisanship, take some action right now that would really make a difference. >> of course, congress was doing nothing of the kind. in fact, as you alluded to, the senate had a series of votes defeating budget proposals, including president obama's budget, which got zero votes. house speaker boehner continued to press the white hou

cnbc's own john harwood. this is an amazing story. can you give me a preview?s an amazing story, larry. and you've got two worried investors there onset with you. the obama administration's got a major public relations problem in the handling of this dissident. we'll talk about what has played out on capitol hill and the campaign trail today. [ donovan ] i hit a wall. and i thought "i can't do this, it's just too hard." then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going. go for olympic gold and go to college too. [ male announcer ] every day we help students earn their bachelor's or master's degree for tomorrow's careers. this is your moment. let nothing stand in your way. devry university, proud to support the education of our u.s. olympic team. this is the first car that i've been totally in love with in every way, shape, and form. it's my dream vehicle. on a day to day basis, i am not using gas. my round trip is approximately 40 miles to work. head on home, stop at the grocery store, whatever else that i need to do -- still don't have to use

john harwood joins us live with the details. john, what does that survey say? >> brian, one of the things it says is that voters are so locked in that even big news like the gay marriage announcement, like the jpmorgan trading debacle have not significantly shifted the numbers. let's look at the horse race between mitt romney and barack obama. by 47-43 the president hold as 4-point edge over mitt romney if the election were held today. that's slightly smaller than what he held last month. when you look at what weighs down president obama, number one is declining confidence in the economy. just 33% of americans expect the can economy to get better over the next 12 months. that's down 5 points from a month ago. when you look at who has the best prescriptions from the economy. president obama, 3 2% of the americans have confidence that obama can physical the economy. but that number is more inconsequential for the incumbent. when you look at the romney business experience, when you ask voters if s that an asset or liability? the obama campaign has been going after

richard haass and john harwood still with us. at nyu, former democratic congressman harold ford jr. >> good morning. >> good morning. and in washington, columnist for "the washington post," david ignatius. >> we were talking about that being a hostage video. richard, it had all the makings of one, didn't it? >> how many hours passed between the first and the second? but it's too bad because the substantive points the first time around were actually good. and it's too bad he thought he had to walk it back. >> it was a 12-hour lapse. he was on "meet the press" at 9:00 in the morning and that came out last night. he continued to defend his comments throughout the day p, t obviously, john harwood, if you have somebody connected to the campaign like cory booker is coming out saying it's ridiculous, which a lot of obama's biggest contributors agree with, you just can't have your guy out there saying that your main campaign strategy is terrible. >> no. and they obviously came down quite hard for that to happen. >> yeah. are you surprise

joining us is john harwood.s chief washington correspondent and author of "the political memo." great to see you. thanks for being here. >> hey, rachel. >> is it too much of a stretch to see him saying the bailout was a mitt romney success and mr. romney saying he would have ordered the assaults on bin laden's compound? are they going after that line that gm is alive and bin laden's dead? >> absolutely they are. both of the items of the rather concise formulation as you mentioned are pretty powerful. it's an unimpeachable fact that osama bin laden was gotten under president obama after not having been gotten under president bush. that doesn't mean with the same set of circumstances that president bush might not have made the same decision. you can't take away the fact obama did it. romney's strategy on that part of the situation is to say, any president would have done that. on general motors, again general motors has recovered under president obama and so what mitt romney is doing is looking at the end stage of

many thanks to john harwood. now, let me talk just a moment about this whole massachusetts business of the attacks on romney's record. here's my take. instead of worrying about massachusetts economy ten years ago, then despite the brutal bursting of the tech bubble that decimated the whole boston area, mitt romney comes out of it with a 4.7% unemployment rate, a balanced budget with no tax hikes. that was his record. obama should be so lucky. instead, president needs to be worried about today's 1.9% anemic gdp. and a high potential for a third straight poor jobs number and the fact that the u.s. could conceivably be on the front edge of another recession. now, that is obama's job, not ten years ago in massachusetts. this is the part i just don't get. maybe my panel can help me. we have former clinton white house aid keith boykin, wabc talk show host march simone, and conservative attorney and blog founder john hinderracker. thank you very much. it's great to have you back while i'm here. what is -- what is this a

first up, cnbc's chief washington correspondent john harwood joins us now with all the details. good evening, john. >> reporter: larry, it will be months before washington deals with the so-called fiscal cliff of expiring tax cuts, automatic spending cuts an the need to raise the debt limit. but today many of the biggest players in washington at least began talking about it at a fiscal summit sponsored by the foundation of former commerce secretary and wall street executive >> peter: son. treasury secretary tim geithner led off by repeating the administration's call for a balanced deficit reduction plan that would call on wealthy americans to pay more. >> this set of expiring tax measures and automatic spending cuts should be a very powerful incentive for people on both sides of the aisle to figure out a balanced package of deal with these kind of things. again, it is not -- it's not that complicated. we can do it without asking americans to bear an unacceptable burden, unacceptable pain for an economy still healing from a crisis. if you do it in a balanced way with the reforms

cnbc's chief washington correspondent john harwood joins us now with all the details. good evening, john. >> good evening, larry. there's good reason for the obama campaign to start advertising because the numbers we saw last week on jobs, which underscored the softness in the economy, are plainly going to have their consequences in the election. look at these two new polls out today showing barack obama and mitt romney neck and neck in two different dimensions. nationally, the polls showed mitt romney up 48-47, a tie with barack obama. and in a smaller poll of just the dozen battleground states, barack obama had a narrow two-point lead. that suggests it's going to be close right to the end. it's why mitt romney's out with an ad talking about the suffering people are undergoing in this economy, and barack obama's new ad go talks about how far we've come. >> instead of losing jobs, we're creating them. over 4.2 million so far. we're not there yet. it's still too hard for too many. but we're coming back because america's greatness comes from a strong middle class. becaus

john harwood, we appreciate it. looks to me speaker boehner and mitt romney are beginning to box president obama into a corner on this. the president can't get a deal done in time. let bring in joy reid, manager editor and a miami columnist and bob terrell, founder and editor of the "american spectator" and author of "the death of liberalism." tony, you have romney on the campaign trail making really good sharp edged speeches about debt, spending and damage to the economy. you have boehner almost heroic in washington saying let's get these tax cuts extended sooner rather than later. what's obama going to do? they're boxing obama in, are they not? >> first of all, any time you mention a pinscher maneuver, three chairs to you. you have romney finding his voice, especially a couple weeks ago when he started talking about a government censored society. with boehner, we saw what he did last time around. we don't mind that he forces the democrats, hard core leftists in the conversation, oh, they're trying to scare everybo

thank you, john harwood. here now to hash through this whole deal, we have keith boykins, former clinton white house aide. tony katz is a tea party supporter and radio talk show host. heather higgins, independent women's chairman. heather higgins, i just want to ask you what you think about obama coming out in favor of same-sex marriage. is this a distraction from the economic issues, or what, heter? what what do you think? >> absolutely. obama coming out of the closet is nonnews. there was always a wink and a nod this is where he was and he was only saying for political reasons that he was on the other side of the issue. he's very much hoping that romney takes the bait. he's also hoping to make his deep pocketed extreme left wing of his base very, very happy with this issue. and so it's a political dodge. it's about avoiding economic issues, which is really what this is about. >> by the way, senator jim demint later says exactly what you said. mitt romney is much smarter than your man on this, keith, because

john harwood.o see you. thanks for being here. >> hey. >> is it too much of a stretch to see him saying the bail out was a mitt romney success and mr. romney saying he would have oerded the assaults on bin laden's compounds. are they going after that line that gm alive and bin laden is dead? >> absolutely. both of the items are pretty powerful. it's an unimpeachable fact that bin laden was gotten under president obama after not having been gotten under president bush. that doesn't means there were the same set of circumstances that president bush might not have made the same decision but you can't take away the fact that obama did it. romney strategy on that part of the situation is to say well any president would have done that. on general motors, again general motors has recovered under president obama and so what mitt romney is doing is looking at the end stage of that process which was a managed bankruptcy and say he did my plan. what he omits there is the fact that president bush of his own pa

john harwood's live in washington. simon hobbs is with me here at headquarters. john, take it away. >> reporter: look, tyler, there's a lot of concern within the obama administration about a slowing of economic growth. the fact that the job gains that we've seen over the winter may be slowing down and that creates a more difficult situation for the president politically. but they realize that there's no appetite in the congress for additional stimulus. and certainly the posture of the fed indicates that they're standing pat. i talked to tim geithner, the rshry secretary, last week and he said it would be a mistake for us to lurch to what he called severe austerity. and look at the experience of britain which is now in recession. but that doesn't mean they can move in the other direction and they're not going to. >> simon, you've got six or seven countries in the eurozone in recession right now. including britain, spain, portugal and several others. wasn't it predictable that austerity was not going to pull -- was not going to pull anybody out of recession? >> wel

cnbc's john harwood joining us now live from washington with more. good evening, john. >> good evening, brian. the president wrapped up a weekend of diplomacy where he was dealing with things like the wind-down of the afghanistan war and what to do about the eurozone and that austerity versus growth debate. but his closing news conference today was dominated by the news on bain capital. the president rejected the criticism from the likes of cory booker that you just played and defended his attacks on bain capital, said he would continue talking about that, because they show that the preparation that mitt romney had at bain is simply not adequate for the job as president. >> if your main argument for how to grow the economy is i knew how to make a lot of money for investors, then you're missing what this job is about. it doesn't -- it doesn't mean you weren't good at private equity. my job is to take into account everybody, not just some. >> now mitt romney hit back harder after the president's news conference, said the president had failed to take mo

john harwood joins us now, live from washington with all those details. john. >> good evening, larry. you know, this brought into sharp focus the conflict between one of the authors of the so-called volcker rule, senator carl levin, who chairs the permanent subcommittee on investigations, and jamie dimon, one of the chief of those rule. he told me this afternoon that the jpmorgan trades were clearly in violation of the volcker rule, and warned against people like jamie dimon lobbying regulators to weaken the rules even before it takes effect later this year. here's carl levin. >> mr. dimon has argued that the activities which occur outside of the united states should not be subject to dodd/frank or to the volcker rule. this was a lond activity. but, boy, that's a huge loophole as well. so he's fighting for two or three loopholes and just this little bit of language. and we hope that the regulators will not give him any of the ones he's fighting for, because it would undermine the very purpose of dodd/frank. >> senator eleven also criticized republican pre

john harwood there in washington.ry rare you see the sort of emotion that you see today surrounding what has happened with the facebook ipo and the way in which the nasdaq handled that. bear in mind, we're talking here at the rival nyse. bob has the very latest. i'm also joined here by matt cheslock, who is a trader with virtue. there is palpable nature. >> we put in preorders to buy and sell facebook. we're not getting any con for mags back. we don't know where we stand. if i had an order to sell 100,000 at the open, i don't know if i've sold it or not. you need to get a fill. you need to get a confirmation. they're not getting that right now. i know bertha was just saying they're going to be sending out manual orders. that still leaves you with some risk here in terms of time risk. that's part of the problem today. another issue i've been constantly pinged on is what happened at zynga. zynga had what was called a single stock circuit breaker fault. normally that would happen and be halted for five minutes. but this

but john harwood in washington joins us with all the details. good evening, john. >> reporter: good evening, larry. team obama wants to beat this subject a little bit more. you know, last week was distracted by the gay marriage debate. now team obama squarely back on economic concerns with this blistering ad going after bain capital, accusing the former governor of massachusetts of being part of a company that shut down a steel mill and sucked money out at the expense of the workers. here is the ad. >> bain capital walked way with a lot of money that they made off of this plant. we view mitt romney as a job destroyer. >> to get up on national tv and brag about making jobs when he has destroyed thousands of people's careers, lifetimes, just destroying people. >> he is running for president. and if he is going to run the country the way he ran our business, i wouldn't want him there. >> now bain capital put out a statement this afternoon saying the ad had oversimplified a very cosm plex business transaction. romney was gone from bain capital when

cnbc's john harwood has all the gory details. good evening, john. >> reporter: good evening, larry. this is the night that mitt romney is going to go over the top, but he's not in the state, texas, that is going to put him over with its primary. he is instead in nevada. i think you can see a live picture of him now. he is trying to keep the focus on why he would be a better steward of the economy than barack obama. >> we need to have presidents who understand how this economy works day to day, small business, middle size business, big business. i do. i want to use that experience to get us to work again. a. >> now, of course, team obama is trying to make mitt romney pay a price for the fact that he's attending a fund-raiser with donald trump tonight. donald trump was on our air this morning on "squawk box" repeating his questioning of president obama's birth certificate. but this is not a subject that mitt romney wants to deal with. in fact, he put out a statement saying he believes barack obama was born in the united states and he himself put out a new ad today that focuses squarel

david wessel of "the wall street journal," and john harwood from cnbc. >> live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week with gwen ifill," produced in association with corporate journal and provided by -- >> since 1875 we've been there for our clients through good times and bad. when we need change, we were there to meet them. from real estate to retirement solutions, we've developed new ideas for the financial challenges ahead this rock has never stood still. and that's one thing that will never change. prudential. >> we know why we're here. to connect our forces to what they need, when they need it. >> to help troops see danger before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe, the people of boeing are working together to support and protect all who serve. that's why we're here. >> corporate funding is also provided by norfolk southern, at&t, rethink possible, additional funding is provided by the annenburg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you, thank

reported hailstones the size of golf balls here's how it looked and sounded in northwest suburban harwood heights is rain and hail storms pounded neighborhoods people there also reported hailstones the size of golf balls as did some residents in the northwest side of the chicago the bulls and the philadelphia 76ers' playoff series resumes tonight and joakim noah and company have to find a way to win without derrick rose ... dan roan is live in philadelphia ... >>to come back and reassert control of the series the team will have to make changes before game 3 tactical and emotional >>with or without derrick rose seeing the bulls get run out of their own building was a stranger took everyone by surprise especially the team ... >>i don't want to take anything away from the philadelphia 76 years they played a good game they came out with a good plan they did a good job we did not. but honestly that is over we have to focus on tonight's game and put all of our energy into how we will win tonight's game >>if you put the effort and ... you get what you put out ... we're not gonna go in and reinve

. >> we got to talk to harwood after the break now. think if harwood and this book got together, the universe might end. it might be like matter running in to each other and we -- there may be nothing left. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about the personal attention tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you and your money deserve. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, that means taking a close look at you tdd# 1-800-345-2550 as well as your portfolio. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 we ask the right questions, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 then we actually listen to the answers tdd# 1-800-345-2550 before giving you practical ideas you can act on. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck online, on the phone, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 or come in and pull up a chair. >>> john harwood joins us from washington. i don't know how much of that last conversation you were listening to. >> i think that joe is totally expense ing that check. >> all part of it. i'm justified to do that, right? it is a business expense. my accountant is looking into it. how about andrew trying to get me for the f

wgn news @ 9 harwood heights police looking for armed robber cigarettes from harlem avenue tobacco store travel to other suburbs to do the same thing. surveillance tape from old chicago tobacco showed a gun and demanded money suspect ran south believed the same man struck again at this time with an accomplice. they tied up the store clerk. new tonight police awarding of robberies chicago north side surveillance video caught a crook salon on webster and lincoln park. five businesses hit this small cash taken from the register and leaves described male white 25-30 years old. sometimes wearing black sunglasses or a white woman long blond hair. sounded like a bomb how the owner of a calumet city house described an accident late yesterday semi truck plowed into her home driver of the truck loaded with florida oranges was killed 11 year-old daughter survived truck across center line hitting the car on their way home from bible study mother calls survival a miracle. >> amazing to see the car and note the two kids are in their ad did not get hurt at all. >> 37 year old joseph foster pronounced d

let's get to john harwood with the latest. >> president obama has take answer risk by coming out in an interview with robin roberts who says he believes same-sex couples should be getting married. he said that his views are evolving on this issue. vice president biden said that he was comfortable with same-sex marriage. this puts him in a place that no other president has been. the question is going to be whether the dynamics have changed so much that this becomes an issue that barack obama can score points with or whether mitt romney will be able to, in some states, where the democrats hold their convention, to pick up the incremental votes that he needs to carry with that state that obama carried four years ago. >> john, thank you very much. >>> about 45 minutes left in the trading session. time for a quick market stat check. a familiar trading pattern lately. we've been cutting the losseses thanks to some strength among other sectors. utilities doing pretty well. the financials weighing down on course for the first six-day losing streak since the fiasco of last august during the deb

joining us from the kennedy space center is cbs news space consultant bill harwood. good morning, bill. >> reporter: good morning. >> how many people there are saying this morning, you get what you pay for? >> reporter: well, you know, that occurs to people whenever they think about this commercial endeavor but that's not the case here. i think they accurately stated this this morning. the mistake had been if they launched with an engine problem. they didn't. the software caught the problem before takeoff. they aborted and they'll fix it and try again. in that sense it all worked as it's supposed to. rockets are complicated things. we always joke about things that are rocket science. in this case it really is. they'll get it right and make another try at it. >> that's a good point. their next try comes on tuesday, as i understand it. what are the chances they solve this problem by then? >> reporter: well, they don't really know what caused it. they got down to 0.5 second before the clamp released the rocket to go. one of the nine engines in the first stage, the cente

joining me for more front-page politics, cnbc washington correspondent, political write, harwood and the reporter for the "washington post," niyamalik henderson. this announcement the resolution from the naacp and the board voting to endorse marriage equality as a civil right. what do you make of this move? and ha do you make of the timing of the decision of the board on the heels of president obama's historic announcement? >> this is obviously big news. you've seen the naacp and some prominent civil rights leaders being on the side of this issue. on this side of the issue for quite some time. al sharpton campaigned for same-sex marriage in 2004. i think you're seeing a coalescing around this issue. civil rights leaders coming out and saying this is a matter of marriage equality. and that it isn't correct to write discrimination into the constitution. you have seen from the white house some effort as well to reach out to these civil rights leaders to reach out to pastors, to also come out and essentially support what the white house's position on this, is that two people of the same

john harwood joins me now. >> morning, richard. >> what are we expecting to hear from the president?he's going to reiterate the item related to housing. that is to cut what he calls red tape and financing. the documentation lenders require. it has been difficult for a lot of people who would benefit by several thousands dollars a year from lower interest rates to get the refinancing. banks are reluctant to land in there because of the risks by the financial crisis. they're reluctant to take the steps to refinance. and the president's trying to help that along. unfortunately for him, the bill's not going anywhere in congress because republicans say it will be ineffective like other policies proposed by the president. he's also trying to draw a contrast with the republican nominee who earlier in the year when he was out in nevada said he wanted the housing market to hit bottom and not get in the way of foreclosures because that would speed the recovery of the housing market. >> basically saying get the bad out so it can heal the housing market. when we look at these ideas that are bein

clarence page, john harwood, our political writer for the new york time, and here with me in new york, msnbc contributor joe-ann receive receive who is the managing editor of the agreeo.com. we're in the first week of the general election campaign. but romney wants to talk solely about the president. i mean, it's nothing else but the president and the economy. what about romney? what about selling something about himself? >> right. for mitt romney, he wants us to be solely a referendum on barack obama's performance on the economy. he wants to crowd out everything else. foreign policy. >> don't ask don't tell. don't talk about anything but just the economy. that's really what he staked his entire campaign on. the problem with that and the challenge for him is that it depends on the economy being bad. his message is sort of a negative message. things are awful. you have to get rid of this guy because it's horrible. it's bad. if people don't feel that way in november then he hasn't left himself any positive message for people to say i'll still switch to that guy. >> that's why he approac

we're going to get to john harwood who has breaking news. president obama is in afghanistan. >> we just got confirmation that president obama has been in kabul, afghanistan, to sign a joint partnership agreement with president karzai. he's doing this on the one-year anniversary on the raid that kill canned osama bin laden. he's gotten some criticism for making too much of that politically. he may get some more criticism. he's going to give a speech to the nation at 7:30. our colleagues say it will be ten to 11 minute long. the president is going to make comments about the war on terror one year after osama bin laden's death. back to you. >> thank you very much. >>> let's get to the "closing bell" exchange in light of the 12% rally so far this year. of course, everyone is wondering if stocks can keep this positive momentum going, right? >> but this is something that was mentioned that could have a big impact on the bulls. the biggest bond fund cautioned that the u.s. could get another downgrade to its debt if it doesn't get its financial hous

. >> john harwood, thank you very much.rk, the president came to the city to deliver the commencement address. he in fact just wrapped up that speech at the top of hour at the all women's school within the last hour. >> indeed, we know we are better off when women are treated fairly and equally in every aspect of american life. whether it is the salary you earn or the health decisions you make. today women are not just half this country. you're half its work force. more and more women are outearning their husbands, you're more than half the college graduates and master's and phds. >> he replaced the jill abramson as the commencement speaker. the change in plangs ws was out looped in march. let me bring in nbc news editor mark muiry. we're talking about a compare and contrast at the all women's university. and mitt romney's commencement address over the weekend at liberty college. first let's talk about the president. the timing of it and really the effectiveness of it. you heard the young women going out to face the world f