thank you, valerie jarrett. >> thank you, reverend sharpton. thank you very much. see you soon. >>> joining me now is richard wolffe, also with me msnbc analyst and former rnc chair michael steele. michael, can speaker boehner get his votes he needs for his plan? >> yeah, i think he can. i think that you're seeing some of the machinations used in that direction despite some of the pronoun pronouncements about this part of the caucus. harry reid had similar responses to the plans he proposed that had no revenue enhancements or tax increases or whatever they want to call them. i think the bottom like, particularly after listens to the president last night and seeing and hearing ms. jaret, that the president will sign the boehner plan when it gets to his desk. >> let me be clear, that what you're saying, so i'm not taking away the wrong message. you're saying that you do think the president will sign it. >> yeah. >> even though there's reports now that he's saying that if it got that far, that some of his senior advisers would advise against it. you're saying he'll si

. >> reporter: since 2009, penn has worked under obama senior adviser valerie jarrett as associate directorpublic engagement, focusing on young americans. slaving away in this small office with five co-workers. working with president obama, talking to students here and across the country. >> our offffe doesn't handle policy but we help kind of bridge the gaps between policy so we -- >> reporter: you explain what's going on in policy to the public? >> exactly. and then vice versa. so if there's a group of young folks that are particularly concerned about an issue and they want to bring in, you know, 10 or 12 folks, we'll put them in a room with some of our policy team and kind of link up that way. >> reporter: one of his jobs, engaging those elusive young voters who turned out in droves for obama in 2008. he acknowledges that the young idealistic throngs have changed in attitude a bit, though he insists they're not less inspired. >> i think what i've seen is that there is a realization that change is not a light switch, that if it was easy to just flip on a light switch and change everything

people that have been with obama for a long time, valerie jarrett, his close friend, talks about this. with barack obama, of course, and he talks about this a lot, the idea that he could not have become president without the advances made in the past by the civil rights movement and so on. a lot of household staff, the african-american staff, felt an emotional high just when he was collected, serving an african- american president, because they felt it would never happen in their lifetime. there was a poignant moment when all of these african american people on the staff felt they never would see this, and some of them postpone retirement just so they could work for the first african-american president. i found it a very moving moment. >> george? >> this is absolutely fascinating. what prompted you to do this book? was it something about your interaction with the staff? >> i have been covering politics for almost three decades, and the white house, for a very long time. the first african-american president raises the question of what role african-americans have played in the white hou

here wondering what matters to the community, so we had president obama's top senior advisor valerie jarrettked her some questions about that, about the economy. we had other white house officials and we had two mayors, we had the mayor of atlanta, kasim reid, he was talking about the pension plan. and we had the mayor of new orleans mitch landrieu. he said this essence celebration is very important but there's things that are going to happen after essence as well. new orleans is coming back, it's unemployment is now 8%, that's less than the national average. >> we saw last year amazingly that our unemployment rate is actually two points below the national average. our property values went up 9% when everybody else's went down. all of the scores in our schools that we're reforming from top to bottom have closed the achievement gap between kids in the city and kids in the state. so they're great economic indicators, forbes magazine has now highlighted us as the second best place in america to have jobs. >> reporter: and a lot of it is about tourism, bringing people back to new orleans. we tal

i thought the same about watching valerie jarrett and some of the obama other friends. way i saw senator obama and mccain were the least fascinated. how this turned their lives upside down fascinated me and that's what i wanted to write about. >> talk about the spousal relationship. you get into that as well. has should people expect, without any spoiler alerts what should people be thinking about? and what got you intrigued to make it part of the story? >> this idea that, running for office is one of the few professions where you are asking people to sacrifice to keep your job but to get a job interview essentially. i wanted to do something on a loving couple, but how the spotlight effects their relationship. >> keli goff, "the gq candidate." i'm looking forward to finishing. it's absence the "l.a. times," they've called this a recommended summer selection, and another side of keli, which we needed to see.

profile through the crisis and it has worn through a full-blown conference and one of his aides valerie jarrett, said that the president has had sleepless nights and so involved in it to the extent that he was up around the clock was the impression that was left. well, today, press secretary jay carney said he was in fact well rested, but what you saw the president today do was the stay above it all, and go back to his stance asking for bipartisanship, because he is clearly making a virtue of necessity herings because bipartisanship is the only thing to happen with the demise of john boehner's plan and the strategy to jam the senate, and jam the president, and force them to sign the only viable thing that had passed either house of congress come tuesday night and that is the house plan. john boehner similarly regarded not just from the democrats b tow save face and the whole thing would crash and burn and he threw something in there the balanced budget amendment to get it out of the house of representatives, but in the process foresaking or casting aside any pretense of putting forward what cou

valerie jarrett one of his top advisors did an interview saying the president is not sleeping a lot. this is weighing on him. this is a big, big deal. he has had a lot of important moments in his presidency. there is a lot riding on this moment right now, laura. >> laura: all right. well, when we come back, i want to get more from both of you, james. i want to talk about the presidential contenders out there. we haven't heard from a lot of them. although michele bachmann, many people say, scored a big win in last-minute input from the tea party. mitt romney not saying much. what does that mean? when we come back we will give you all the angles and latest from the senate vote that's going on. all the sausage making behind closed doors. now for all the country to see. we will continue to track it here on the o'reilly factor on the fox news channel. stay with us for all the details. oday. automotiveerformance is gone. and all we have left are fallen leaves and broken dreams. oh. wait a second. that is a dodge durango. looks like american performance is doing just fine. ♪ carry on. ♪ >>

senior level people to positions on this council and the highest positions, the chair is held by valerie jarrett as you may know and the second highest is executive director held by i can't remember her first name. she is an asian-american woman. we have women of color occupying influential positions in this particular council. what is significant to me also is the fact that obama however hasn't done anything similar in terms of race. so there is no white house counsel on racism in the united states of america. now, i think he should address some racial issues with american women being on the council. where are they in terms of giving input into these policy decisions? you can think about eric holder who of course is in the justice of -- department who is going to have some influence but you know we also have to think about the fact that people of color within the administration even though they have been assigned to some high-level positions, most positions are still held by men. so still you have -- at the highest level of decision-making when it comes time to make policy decisions. >> dr. hor

been you have women, then present it is surrounded by women like valerie jarrett, senior advisor, alsoa rosenthal and there is a white house advisor and violence against women. that is the firstw time to create a position like thatw and obviously the president and vice president care about the issues of violence against women so they have someone in the white house by team for us. [applause] women obviously have very unique, healthy and one of the major pieces of legislation the president was able to get enacted was the affordable health care act o which nowec th affects 39 million people who have health care who do not have a before the passage of the legislation. [applause] in 2014 it will be illegal for insurancel companies tosu deny women in the coveragese because of preexisting illness is third to charge more just because they are women. also up that 15 million uninsured onsu news be there for them to prevent it. >> that expands that william of family is indeed and a great thing is that allows kids, if you have kids in college or not, they could p stand to plan with their 26 and a