those were the president's words and the white house economic adviser jared bernstein relayed the same message in answering some of your questions. take a look. how much did this dip in the unemployment rate become the catalyst for the president saying the worst may be behind us? >> probably less the dip in the unemployment rate because that was driven not by adding jobs, but by folks leaving the labor force, no longer looking for jobs. remember, you only get counted as unemployed if you're actively seeking work. i think what the president was reflecting on there are a couple of very important data points showing what we would characterize as less bad news. not good news. because you lose 247,000 jobs, that's not what we call good news. but when you compare the rate of job loss, which is about half now of what it was a few months ago, when you compare the rate at which the overall economy is contracting, which is about 1% in the second quarter, compared to 6% in the first quarter, you really see the fingerprints of our program taking hold, hoping to stabilize the economy. but stabiliza

all right, dan, talked to jared earlier, jared bernstein. house is not trying to gloating but don't want to undersell these glimmers of hope. >> reporter: that's right. there is no celebration going on at the white house. they have always been cautious when talking about the direction this recovery is going in. it was interesting to listen to the president, the remarks that he made, not long ago, really striking what sounded like a very strong, optimistic tone about the direction of the economy. i just wrote down some of the quotes that jumped out at me. today, we are pointed in the right direction. as we begin to put an end to this recession, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. certainly, the president, this white shohouse everyone encoura by the white house numbers. >> we have a lot further to go. as far as i am concerned, we will not have a true recovery slons we are losing jobs. we will not rest until every american looking for work can find a job. i have no doubt we can make these changes. it won't be easy. change is hard, espe

with us now, vice president biden posset chief economist, jared bernstein.hy should we believe this? >> what he said a second ago but cbo numbers being just about where our numbers are on the budget deficit for fiscal year 2009, the cbo is widely regarded as an independent unit. you made an important point, worth emphasizing -- we were expecting a budget deficit closer to 1.7 trillion dollars this year. that is far too large a deficit. shepard: 2 trillion higher over the next 10 years than first estimated. every time a government program comes down a line, i cannot find one that ends up costing less than or the same as they said it would cost. history tells us that that is hard to do. >> we actually cut $260 billion of spending off of this budget for fiscal year 2009 in mid- session review because of some of the early successes of the financial stabilization plan. less spending on tarp and little less spending on fdic insurance. so that enables that deficit number to come down a little bit. but you are right. the 10-year number is higher than it was, reflect

. >> reporter: now, the vice president's top economist, jared bernstein, was a bit less optimistic than the president, an interview on cnn radio with me today. he's not at all confident that the unemployment rate will chont to go downward. instead he said it could very well start going back up next month and could reach 10% by the end of the year. a little bit of a mixed message. you have the president saying, look, the worst of it may be over, and you have white house aides saying, well, maybe not, lou. >> it's not the first mixed message this week from -- from the white house, is it? >> reporter: well, no. i mean, look, on the economy, they are going through a balancing act here. they are trying to, as you heard the president say, maybe the worse is over, maybe talk up the economy a bit, so they're not accused of pessimism, but on the same token, they don't want to look like they are celebrating or suggesting that the recession is over yet, because still there are a lot of people hurting right now. >> certainly no one could accuse them of that. ed, thank you very much, from the white

. >> reporter: the vice president's top economist jared bernstein was a bit less optimistic than the president during an a peerns on my radio show saying the white house is not entirely confident unemployment will keep trending downward and it's still entirely possible it will reach 10% by the end of the year. ed henry, cnn, the white house. >>> connecticut police say the diagnosis is impersonating a nurse. the pro notices could be time behind bars. a woman was arrested this week on charges of pretending to be a nurse. authorities say the 56-year-old betty liechtenstein had worked in a doctor's office. the doctor she worked for believed she was a registered nurse, you know, especially after a 2008 dinner honoring her as the connecticut nursing association's nurse of the year. but, that association doesn't even exist. prosecutors say liechtenstein spent more than $2,000 of her own money to stage the whole event. she could be sentenced to five years in prison if she's convicted. >>> people in hawaii are getting ready for hurricane felicia. fortunately forecasters say the storm will lik

i remember quizzing one of their economist, i think it was jared bernstein.ther recession we faced in a long time. you don't know. there were three or four theories of the case, this will be a recession, the spike down will spike up and jobs will just come in a hurry. we'll see. at the end of the day, they will get judged on the jobs number, not now, not in three months, in september 2010, if they don't have those job numbers and not seeing 150, 200,000 jobs added a month at that point, then i think you will see a political firestorm. >> remember, chuck, these polls are merely a snapshot. it's what's happening this time next year with job numbers that will affect polls that will affect mid-term elections. right before we go really quickly, is the white house blaming the town hall meetings, the chaos that's out there, talk radio for these falling numbers? what are you hearing? >> they're upset at the media coverage a little bit. when you look, we test ed it an threw up the graphic there. majorities believe some of these things that somehow health care will go

academic work and see what she says about the taxes and what she says when she does the paper with jared bernstein. i understand on and on their falling austan goolsbee on the position of firing by donner. he was as nervous as i would have been defending that silly thing but you've got to win you understand politics is not academics come it's not independent research. it's where you go along the political line and that to the large extent is why there is so much debate. >> except there are -- i would say the huge percentage of academic honors who don't have relationship with obama are seeing -- [inaudible] >> if you think universities or independent agents they are not. universities are very political organizations even when i wasn't officially with the white house there were other groups of you that hang together and it is us versus them and it becomes a very political process for economists and that's what happens and whether it should or shouldn't it does and that is how we get along. we do is we see each other as part of a different team and steve there are not many things you and peter could

jared burn stein. just over an hour ago bernstein told our own ed henry the white house still expects the unemployment rate to reach 10%. we shouldn't start celebrating today's number to them. send us your questions, or tweet us at career racnn. that kyracnn. that's in the 1:00 p.m. eastern hour. >>> hillary clinton's 11-day trip to africa, it's what we're talking about today in our "what matters" segment in partnership with "essence" magazine. she arrived in south africa last night on the second leg of her seven-nation african tour. and she met today with south africa's foreign minister. clinton urged south africa to keep the pressure on robert mum gaby to stick with a power-sharing agreement reached last year. clinton later called on south africa to help lead the continent out of its financial mess. she also met with former president nelson mandela. >>> a new federally funded ad campaign is encouraging more black families to adopt from foster care. the donaldson adoption institute said 500,000 of the adopted children are black and these are less likely than whites to be adopted. the new ads out this

. >> reporter: the vice president's top economist jared burnstein was a bit less optimistic than the president on cnn.com. bernsteine is not entirely confident that unemployment will keep trending downward. he said it's still entirely possible it will reach 10% by the even of the year. ed henry, cnn, the white house. >>> meanwhile, overseas a top taliban chief is killed. >>e iing on less than $1 a day. my trip to vietnam to help the hungry. >>> a successful strike in pakistan. a u.s. drone attack has apparently killed the top taliban commander there. there are still questions surrounding. >> how confident are you, is your government, that he is dead? >> 100% certainty, margaret, can only be achieved after dna testing and a lot of physical evidence has been processed. but other than njzq1ñ there area lot of pointers that most people believe he is indeed dead and his own group has anoubsed that. >> if they can indeed confirm the death, it would be a major victory for american and pakistani forces there. eliminating a man who ordered attacks. cal perry has more. >> reporter: the face of terror in pakistan. his resume