and we begin our coverage of all of all of it tonight with white house correspondent kristen welker traveling with the president in iowa city tonight. kristen, good evening. >> reporter: good evening to you, brian. well, president obama left charlotte this morning with the vice president and first lady to hit pivotal swing states, and he tried to cast that jobs report in a positive light. campaigning in new hampshire, mr. obama took the long view on jobs. >> today we learned that after losing around 800,000 jobs a month when i took office, business once again added jobs for the 30th month in a row. we know it's not good enough. >> reporter: behind the scenes, white house officials and campaign operatives echoed senior white house adviser david plouffe who told supporters we come out of the convention with momentum. but the jobs report threatens to slow that momentum only hours after the president addressed the democratic national convention, what most were describing as a successful week. >> know this, america, our problems can be solved. our challenges can be met. the path we offer may be ha

we'll begin with kristen welker on the trail with the president in sioux city, iowa. kristen, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, lester. with the democratic national convention just a few days away, president obama is aiming to build momentum in key battleground states like right here in iowa where he's making his seventh visit so far this year. >> hello iowa! >> reporter: president obama kicking off his road to charlotte campaign in iowa, the state that first launched his presidency four years ago. >> it was you, iowa, who kept us going when the pundits were writing us off. and it will be you, iowa, who choose the path we take from here. >> reporter: polls show a tight race here as some white working class voters who gave him an edge four years ago now aren't so sure because of the economy. >> iowa is important, and i think other states will look at iowa and say, if they're turning away from barack obama, that is a harbinger for the rest of the country. >> reporter: today the president reached out to those disaffected voters by slamming mitt romney's convention

kristen welker is traveling with the president in las vegas. >> reporter: with four mock debates underelt, the president will rally in nevada before jumping into the ring with his sparg partner mitt romney. president obama got another boost, leading governor romney by four points, 49% to 45%. >> i want to see us export more jobs, export more products -- excuse me. i was -- i was channeling my opponent there for a second. >> reporter: last week romney hinting at his debate approach. >> he's trying to fool people into thinking that i think things i don't and that ends, i think, during the debate. >> reporter: for days both sides have been tamping down expectations, today on the sunday talk shows. >> he's prepared more than any candidate, maybe in history, certainly in recent memory. >> sometimes we expect a major break through, the comment, that doesn't happen very often. >> reporter: but on "meet the press," new jersey republican governor chris christie had a different take. >> come sunday morning, the entire race is going to change. >> i think my biggest concern now would just be for t

kristen welker is traveling with the president and joins us from new orleans. good evening, kristen. >> reporter: good evening, kate. we are in new orleans where president obama took a detour from the campaign trail to meet with those affected by hurricane isaac and to survey the most heavily impacted areas. louisiana is a republican stronghold. he has no chance of winning this state in november but if the lessons of katrina taught this administration anything it's that mishandling this type of crisis could be politically damaging especially two months before election day. >> i want to commend everyone here for the extraordinary work they've done in making sure lives were saved, that although there was tremendous property damage people were in a position to get out quickly and as you can see folks are on the ground already clearing out the debris and making sure that they're able to recover as rapidly as possible. i want to particularly thank fema and the state and local authorities because sometimes in the past we haven't seen the kind of coordination that is n

it's a debate that was on full display and our white house correspondent kristen welker begins our coverage from boulder, colorado tonight. >> reporter: good evening. in 2008 president obama became the first democrat to win colorado in 16 years. now that winning coalition isn't as strong so he is aiming to get women and young voters like the ones on this college campus to turn out in force. >> hey, guys. hello everybody. >> reporter: in boulder, president obama took his case to voters one by one at a local restaurant and later told a crowd of about 13,000 -- >> this is a region settled by people who understand we are not looking back, we are going forward. >> reporter: as delegates and protesters began to gather in charlotte ahead of the democratic national convention, president obama supporters spent their sunday morning trying to plug any bounce they got from the convention last weeks. >> it was a week of personal attacks, empty platitudes. the one thing you were left with is they think lying is a virtue. >> people want to know about the first term. very simple. general motors is alive an

he voted for president obama in 2008 and plans to do so again this year. >> kristen welker, thank you. >>> on the trail in florida. we want to bring in cnbc chief washington correspondent john harwood. the conventional wisdom has been that the economy was going to drive this election. is that still the case? >> it is still the case though not in the way it was earlier in the year. democrats work hard to turn this from a referendum on economic management to a choice between two visions. he has gotten a home made bounce firming up support with young voters, women. >> do the debates become more critical for romney assuming this bounce lasts a little longer than he would like? >> no question about it. i talked to a senior republican strategist today who said it is hard to take out an incumbent president who is personally popular. the last chance for romney to do that will be in the debates in october. >> john harwood, thank you. >>> another big story. the severe weather that struck the eastern seaboard this weekend including tornadoes here in new york city. we have a report from michelle

our report tonight from nbc's kristen welker. >> the republican party convenes to nominate its choice for president. >> reporter: from the bold pacs to the zany signs and wearing pins bearing slogans nothing has rallied the party faithful over the years like a political convention. ever since 1988 when george h.w. bush took on michael dukakis, two other guys, harry rubenstein and larry byrd, have been on a mission to save the party swag for posterity. >> to me this is really what democracy is all about. >> reporter: harry and larry are in charge of preserving political artifacts at the smithsonian and every four years they go on a road trip to the primaries and conventions making sure all this history doesn't get swept away with the confetti. >> i'm looking for something that is almost iconic, you know, a piece of americana that is representing an individual's activism. >> reporter: in charlotte this week they convinced some delegates to send them their glitzy hats and shirts and donkeys aplenty. >> it would be a real honor to have them in the collection. >> oh, really. >> it would be

kristen welker is traveling with the president and joins us from new orleans. good evening, kristen. >> reporter: good evening, kate. we are in new orleans where president obama took a detour from the campaign trail to meet with those affected by hurricane isaac and to survey the most heavily impacted areas. louisiana is a republican stronghold. he has no chance of winning this state in november but if the lessons of katrina taught this administration anything it's that mishandling this type of crisis could be politically damaging especially two months before election day. now, earlier today president obama spoke at a labor day rally in the must win swing state of ohio. >> after the convention governor romney came here to ohio and he said he's going to be the coach that leads america to a winning season. the problem is, everybody has already seen his economic playbook. and i've got one piece of advice for you about the romney/ryan game plan, ohio. punt it away. >> now, president obama will spend the evening at the white house then tomorrow he heads down to anoth

kristen welker, nbc news, charlotte, north carolina. >> and on that note, that is our broadcast on aight. thank you for being here with us. one more note about tonight. we will not have our usual prime time coverage tonight because of that nfl season premier. msnbc, of course, will offer complete coverage, complete coverage on your late local news. we'll see you from here during halftime of the game. tomorrow night we'll be on here with two hours of convention coverage in prime time. so i'm brian williams. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. good night for now from here tomorrow evening. good night for now from charlotte. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

kristen welker, nbc news, charlotte, north carolina. >> and on that note, that is our broadcast on aight. thank you for being here with us. one more note about tonight. we will not have our usual prime time coverage tonight because of that nfl season premier. msnbc, of course, will offer complete coverage, complete coverage on your late local news. we'll see you from here during halftime of the game. tomorrow night we'll be on here with two hours of convention coverage in prime time. so i'm brian williams. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow evening. good night for now from here tomorrow evening. good night for now from charlotte. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com prcandidate is more likely toion return us to full employment. this is a clear choice. the republican plan is to cut more taxes on upper-income... people and go back to deregulation. that's what got us in trouble in the first place. president obama has a plan to rebuild america from... the ground up, investing in innovation, education...

nbc's kristen welker joins us live from charlotte. of us are aware that the president is one of the finest orators of the 21st century. frankly, he's got his work cut out to match the first lady's delivery last might, doesn't he? >> well good afternoon, martin. after the first lady wrapped up her remarks last night, people started tweeting michelle 2016. so i think that says it all. she set the bar pretty high for president obama. i spoke with one of his aides last night that said his speech is in good shape. he has been practicing it. he has been working on this speech for several weeks now with his team of speech writers. so they are feeling really good going into tomorrow night. of course, there is a lot riding on this speech. if mitt romney's challenge was to really introduce himself to the american people, to make people like him, president obama's challenge is to make people fall in love with him once again to remember why they were so excited about him back in 2008. and also, convince them to stick with him, despite the fact th

nbc bay area's kristen welker reports. >> reporter: campaigning in the battle ground state of floridaoday, president obama tried to turn the focus from friday's poor jobs report to medicare. >> i want you to know, florida, i will never turn medicare into a voucher. >> reporter: the president is enjoying a post-convention bump, the latest gallop polls showing him ahead of mitt romney by five points, his biggest lead since july. meanwhile, romney appearing on "meet the press" disclosed he would preserve the most popular parts of the president's health care plan. something he said before, but went into more today. >> i am not getting rid of all of health reform, there are things i likes, one to make sure people with pre existing conditions can get coverage. >> reporter: he said he would allow the policy with people at a certain age, he targeted the overall tax proposal, and romney replied. >> people at the high end will have higher exemptions. >> reporter: but he gave no chance for president obama to take a swipe. >> that is not bold leadership. that is bad math. that gets a failing grad

>> kristen welker,hank you.r, thanks. >>> let's turn now to the massive cleanup effort taking place along the gulf coast in the aftermath of hurricane isaac. nbc's gabe gutierrez is in laplace, louisiana, and joins us. gabe, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, jenna. as you can see behind me, there's still patches of standing water in a few parts of louisiana, but for the most part, the floodwaters are receding. the biggest problem today, power outages. nearly four days after hurricane isaac first slammed into the gulf coast, much of laplace, louisiana, is still under water. and gweneth nelson is still overwhelmed. >> because i haven't been in this situation. i can't take it. i hope it never happens again, and i pray it never happens again. >> reporter: with the water slowly receding, bob haskell has seen his share of hurricanes come ashore, but this storm packed a punch he wasn't ready for. >> in 27 years, we've never had that much water in the street. >> reporter: after isaac dumped up to 20 inches of rai

kristen welker is on the road with the president in boulder, colorado. kristen, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, lester. president obama will campaign here at the university of colorado a little bit later on today. it's a part of his four-state sprint to the democratic national convention, this after he and republican challenger mitt romney traded fresh barbs on saturday. >> i need your help. >> reporter: in iowa for the seventh time this year, the president tried to renew some of the excitement that unpredictably won him the state four years ago, taking direct aim at his republican challenger and his nomination speech. >> they were going so far backward you might as well have watched them on black and white tv. put some rabbit ears on the convention hall. when governor romneyed had a chance to let you in on his secret sauce, he didn't offer you a sing null idea. >> reporter: back in florida and back on stage together for the first time since tampa, mitt romney and paul ryan aimed to harness the momentum from their week in the spotlight. >>

kristen welker is traveling with the president so she's live in urbandale iowa with the latest. what's the latest from that part of the country? >> reporter: well, good morning to you, alex. president obama has a very busy holiday weekend. he's campaigning trying to build momentum ahead of the democratic national convention. this is a state that of course holds special meaning to the president not only is it a key battleground state but helped propel him to the white house in 2008. from here president obama heads to colorado then he's going to step back from the campaign trail temporarily on monday to visit louisiana to meet with folks who were impacted by hurricane isaac to meet with officials there as well. now, of course, this comes on the heels of mitt romney visiting louisiana on friday. both campaigns were asked if it was a problem that romney went to the region before the president and both campaigns essentially said there was no problem in that. a republican governor bobby jindal is appreciative that both candidates, both men are taking the time to come and visit the reg

>> kristen welker with the president. thank you so much. joining us now, our monday political power panel, "washington post" reporter nia-malika henderson, susan del percio as well as morris reid. nia-malika, i'll start with you. watching the papers all morning, several news outlets, politico, "the new york times," "usa today," talking about mitt romney's resal brags -- recalibration of his campaign strategy. what have you been hearing? how are things for the campaign right now? >> well, 50 days out, he had who was a bombshell of a story in politico, really detailing some of the chaos that exists in that campaign. at this point, you have a campaign that's been losing steam, a lot of republicans offering all sorts of advice about how they can retool. and now you have this infighting exposed by politico. at this point, they've got 50 days to figure out how to turn this thing around because you do have many people questioning not only the folks who are surrounding mitt romney but the way he's run his campaign. any presidential campaign itself

nbc's kristen welker is in seminole, florida, traveling with the president. kristen, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, jenna. well, president obama begins a two-day bus tour here in seminole. he's hoping to build on any bounce that he may have gotten from the democratic national convention, despite the latest jobs numbers. campaigning in iowa with the first lady and vice present friday, president obama continued to paint the disappointing jobs report in a positive light. >> today we learned that after losing 800,000 jobs a month when i took office, businesses added jobs for the 30th month in a row. we've added more than 4.6 million jobs. but we know that that's not good enough. >> reporter: but the stubbornly high unemployment rate didn't stop the president from mocking republicans over what he said was their reliance on tax cuts. >> tax cuts when times are good, tax cuts when times are bad, tax cuts to help you lose a few pounds, tax cuts to improve your love life. >> reporter: republican challenger mitt romney seized on the weak numbers to try

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>> kristen welker at the white house.nton, her statement from the treaty room of the state department. we should mention, matt, that u.s. officials are telling nbc the state department has requested additional units of marines to be airlifted to libya to bolster security at the u.s. embassy there, the air force preparing to send a couple of aircraft to libya to supply medevac flights. >> one of the things this brings up. a lot of people hear about diplomats and diplomacy and think that this is a situation that only involves sitting around a table or making phone calls and forging personal relationships, but you have to remember, and this is evidence of that situation, that these diplomats are placed into very dangerous situations on a daily basis, and so these attacks in libya and egypt will be watching very closely by u.s. diplomats in other parts of the world. >> well, incredibly, hot spots to be posted, too. in fact, important to go back to richard engel on that. here we have libya and egypt, two centers of revolutions

kristen welker joins me live from the white house. i want to talk more about the numts, the new nbc/"wall street journal" poll the president closing the gap on the question of the eeky and basically tied now with mitt romney when it comes to what americans think both candidates can do to turn things around. how is the white house reacting? >> reporter: the white house, obama campaign officials aren't making too much of these numbers. they say, look. these numbers are going to go up and down and will probably narrow between now and election day. but undoubtedly there are some positives for president obama when you look at the internals of this poll. take a look at the economy and optimism about the economy. 42% now say the economy will get better within the next 12 months. that's important because it's a six-point jump from august and a 15-point jump from july and of course the economy is the big central issue for voters. however, thomas, there are also some concerning things within this poll. take a look at foreign policy. 49% now app

nbc's kristen welker is there. kristen, good morning. what can you tell us? of this violence in libya and cairo from the president. he'll be joined by the secretary of state. he'll also likely talk about the fact they're increasing security at u.s. thembassies worldwide. he's going to essentially say this cannot stand, that the united states cannot stand behind this type of violence. the president was informed yesterday afternoon about the violence in benghazi and in cairo, and then last evening he was informed that ambassador stevens was missing. it was not until this morning that he learned about his tragic death. he echoed some of comments of the secretary of state hillary clinton when he said that ambassador stevens was dedicated and really one of the great servants for the united states. matt and savannah. >> all right. kristen welker, as we await word from the president. we have one other of the names of the victims who fell. it's sean smith, who was a diplomat, who had been with the foreign service about ten years. he's an air force veteran, somebody w

nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker is racking up the frequent flier miles and she's withsident in irvin dale. hi, kristen. >> reporter: good afternoon, alex. it's symbolic that the president is kicking off his road to charlotte tour in iowa, a state that obviously holds a lot of significance for president obama. it helped launch him to the presidency back in 2008. it also really represents some of the voters that he needs to win over or win back and hold on to in this year, white working class voters, independent voters who may feel disappointed in the economy right now, feel as though it's not getting back on track quickly enough. i'm going to step out of the way, alex, so you can see the scene behind me here at this rally in irvindale. you can see folks starting to gather, getting in place right now. we are listening to a band called the national, and this is the living history farm. so a lot of folks coming out to hear what president obama has to say on this saturday. this entire weekend and week is crucial for the president. he's really trying to build momentum and ex

hi there, kristen welker. >> reporter: hey, craig. good afternoon. high school in just a few hours. this is his eighth trip to the key battle ground state of nevada. our latest poll shows him with a slight lead, however it's the state with the highest unemployment rate. the obama campaign certainly not taking this state for granted. that's one of the key reasons why they have decided to hold debate preparations here in nevada. they're hoping to generate a little bit of buzz and voter excitement while president obama's hunkering down, preparing for the debates. looking ahead over the next couple of days, president obama will be debating with john kerry. of course, he is someone who is no stranger to presidential debates. now, campaign officials tell us that so far they have had four mock debates. not as many as they would have hoped. they say president obama had to cancel a few given he's dealing with issues like the unrest in the middle east. that's what they're telling us. we can also tell you they're trying to tamp down expectations ahead of wednes

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president claiming nomination for a second time, we want to bring in white house correspondent kristen welkers mercifully in from the road as long as the president is in from the road. no rest for the weary. she's out first thing in the morning. kristen, column in "the new york times" this morning and i read this back to the first lady during our interview today described the president as proud yet humble, confident yet scarred, a dreamer, mugged by reality. and if all of thats true and if the democrats have done their best possible job laying out the predicate to go forward, starting with your road trip tomorrow, what can't they control as they leave charlotte? >> well, brian, good evening. i think the one thing they think they can control is the president's message. they think the president has done a pretty good job staying on message for the past several months for the most part. they think that his message about economic fairness is resonating with middle class voters, with voters in swing states like florida. florida's delegation is right behind me. so they're hoping to build on that wi