jared bernstein joining us ely from the white house to answer al of your questions. red, i'll get to all of them but real quickly any update you want to share about the vice president there in iraq? we of course reported the attack on the international zone. is he safe? is he sound? >> i don't have any comments on the vice president's trip to iraq, but for sure safe and sound. >> good deal. let's get right to the questions. this tweet coming from sun devil sal wanting to know, ask the economic advisor why jobless rate is 9.7% when president said it wouldn't go past 8%. and also ask why the deficit is now at 9 trillion fr$9 trillion trillion? go ahead, jared. >> good question from sun. the forecast by the white house for the unemployment rate right now, after a mid session review from a couple of weeks ago, is actually about 10% later this year, around 9.7% right now. so we're just about where the unemployment rate. the 8% comes from an earlier forecast that the white house made back in last december and january before we really had the kind of information we needed to

. >> all right, jared bernstein, thank you so much for joining us today. >> my apologies to jarred, i think i may have referred to him as charlie there we all know his name is jared. my apologize. >>> the mix of today's focus on wall street, the administration's efforts on health care reform continue to intensify behind-the-scenes on capitol hill and also perhaps in public. the president will address the afl-cio convention in pittsburgh tomorrow and then on thursday, he will be holding a rally at the university of maryland and college park. mean time, the so-called gang of six, crucial bipartisan panel in the senate that has yet to draft a bill, they are meeting every day to try to find some common ground. senator max baucus can, the democratic chairman of the finance committee, believes republicans will wind up supporting the legislation. >> i think basically as senators, the committee and the public gets to know more about this, their comfort level is starting to come up a bit and it's -- and i -- i believe that strongly and i do believe that in the end, we will have some significan