Obama Backs Down, Moves Speech; Obama to Tour New Jersey Sunday; Political Challenges Ahead for Libya
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: And T.J. Holmes, our good friend, is taking over in the CNN NEWSROOM. If you're good to me, I'll send you a bottle of</s>T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: That's all right my hairy friend. I am good to go on the chest right now. All right? Good to see you guys, as always. The crew. We'll talk to you soon. But hello to you all. I am the aforementioned T.J. Holmes, sitting in today for Kyra Phillips. What -- Is this a bad sign, folks? They are debating about the president's jobs plan coming up, but they can't even agree on when he should deliver the plan. That's where we are now, folks. The president asking to address Congress on one night. The Republican speaker of the House says that night doesn't work for us. You know the story by now. Obama requesting the joint session for Congress on Wednesday -- the same night, though, that the presidential candidates -- the Republican presidential candidates are holding a debate. So, Speaker John Boehner says, do it on Thursday, Mr. President. But we got a problem there, too. That's the night the NFL is kicking off its season. Now trivial maybe you'll say, but the White House is saying that would be a distraction the White House wants to avoid, wants the country focused on what the president has to say. But the president did, in fact, agree to move his speech to a week from today. Next Thursday, yes, the same nights the Saints and the Packers are kicking off the season. The focus of the speech, as you know, is going to be jobs and the economy. But this bickering now raises even more doubts on whether the two parties can agree on anything. Brianna Keilar is with me from the White House now. Brianna, this is a bad sign or are we making too much of this? OK, they switched the day. There's a little back and forth, but this is not the biggest deal right now.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's not the biggest deal, T.J., but it is a big deal because this speech that the president is going to give, laying out this plan. This is intended to be a pivotal moment for him, a very important moment -- and already this setup to that pivotal moment is essentially being botched here. It's not surprising that the White House had to bend here and move from Wednesday to Thursday because there really wasn't a lot of coordination, if any at all, with Congress. We are talking Democrats and Republicans as well. The White House says it consulted with Republicans. We are hearing from White House P Secretary Jay Carney they were given about 30 minutes notice. I heard from a Republican aide it was more like 60 minutes notice to the speaker before this was announced yesterday, this letter that came out. But that's not really a lot of time when the protocol is something like this, a joint -- an address to a joint session to Congress, which is a very big deal, quite the spectacle, T.J., on Capitol Hill, normally, there's a lot more time that's put in to coming up with the date on something like that.</s>HOLMES: Brianna, the other thing here -- is this just how it's done? A lot of people don't know the behind the scenes of the president setting up an address like this, but how does it go? It seems like the president asked to come by on one day. It doesn't seem like you should have the option of saying that day doesn't work for us.</s>KEILAR: Well, let's talk about, say, the State of the Union, which at least -- I mean, the State of the Union is a very, very big deal and quite the formality. But what you would see with an addressed session to the Congress is very similar. And you would have the White House and Congress and in this case, the folks who are in charge of the schedule for the House and the Senate. So, Republicans in the House, Democrats in the Senate -- you'd have them working on this for some time. They would probably go back and forth about days that worked and then there would kind of be this invite, this letter which would be the request of the president, or in this case, simply the invitation coming from Congress -- because really this is Congress, T.J. This is really Congress' imperative to invite the president to do something like this. That's why when he sent his letter, it was a request for the opportunity to address Congress.</s>HOLMES: All right. Brianna Keilar giving us some of the inner workings of Washington. It's not always pretty. Brianna, good to see you as always. Let me turn to Jim Acosta. Jim, we are talking about the night that the president originally wanted. The Republican candidates will have their debate, but they are starting to weigh in now on this back-and-forth on this speech. What are they saying?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, T.J., it should come as no surprise that this has already becoming a political football, if you will, out on the campaign trail. Take, for example, Michele Bachmann. She was at a Tea Party Express rally in Iowa last night and she couldn't resist poking the president on the timing of this big jobs speech.</s>REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now, does this show maybe a little insecurity on the part of the president? Either A, he wants to distract the American people so they don't watch him, or B, he doesn't want the American people to hear what the next president of the United States is going to say about the president's job plan!</s>ACOSTA: Another Republican candidate, Jon Huntsman, he was unveiling his jobs plan yesterday up in New Hampshire. And he was asked about the president's controversy over the timing of this speech and he said, T.J., that when you don't have a jobs plan, you sometimes resort to political theatrics -- accusing the president of basically scheduling this speech on the night originally of the GOP debate, purely for political reasons --</s>T.J. HOLMES: And, Jim, this doesn't look too good right now -- the latest numbers at least on the president's job performance.</s>ACOSTA: That's right. I mean, there is a good reason why the president has scheduled this jobs speech or was trying to schedule this jobs speech yesterday and now finally has a date and time nailed down. And all you have to do is look at the latest CNN/ORC poll that came out this morning. How is President Obama handling the economy? T.J., you know, we look at a lot of poll numbers every day and sometimes our eyes glaze over and we wonder, boy, does this mean anything? Take a look at this number. No eyes should glaze over. They should be popping out of the skulls at the White House when these numbers come out. Thirty-four percent approve of the president's handling of the economy, 65 percent -- that's two out of every three Americans disapprove of the president's handling of the economy. And how do Americans feel about the economy right now? Not very good. Even wider margins when it comes to how Americans feel about the way things are going in the country right now. Badly, 73 percent, well, 28 percent. T.J., these are terrible numbers going into a re-election year. And the reason why people like Michele Bachman are feeling pretty good about the Republicans chances next year.</s>HOLMES: All right. Jim Acosta, thank you as always.</s>ACOSTA: You bet.</s>HOLMES: Six minutes past the hour now. We will have your next political update in one hour. And a reminder as well, for the latest news, political news -- you know where to go, CNNPolitics.com. Well, five days now since Hurricane Irene first made landfall. And still, from North Carolina to Maine, we got about 2 million homes and businesses still without power. A lot of towns and communities still cut off. Bridges washed out. Roads impassible and, in some cases, food is running low. In Vermont, the National Guard there are providing air drops of food and water and medicine. And on Sunday, President Obama will travel to New Jersey to view the damage. New Jersey is where we find our Susan Candiotti now. Susan, tell us where you are and what you're seeing.</s>SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All right, T.J. I'm in Wayne, New Jersey, right across the bridge from Little Falls. And just to give you an idea of a high water mark here. Look at the top of that car vacuum. We are in the parking lot of a car wash. I'm going to step down this curb here very slowly because the current here runs pretty swiftly. Here is a leaf to show you how normally it floats away. I am told normally, it is very calm here. Under normal circumstances, this is great real estate because it's on the banks of the Passaic River, but if you look over that way, we are 30 yards or so from where the river starts. And, obviously, as you can see, it's hard to tell where the Passaic River starts and where the parking lot begins. A lot of businesses and, obviously, a lot of homes, sections of Wayne in falls river remain under water and remain cut off unless you have a boat. If you swing over this way, you can see a street. There is a neighborhood back there that we toured yesterday because someone had a boat with them and we went down there. There are some people that have refused to leave, absolutely refused to leave. The National Guard is also there, standing right by here. They've got boats that they are taking back to those areas. Never during the nighttime because it's far too dangerous even for them; and they will only go in now more or less to look around, but also if someone needs rescue. Obviously, it's taking up a lot of their time and effort also being out here. So, T.J., they are hoping that the water will continue to recede and perhaps go down far enough by the weekend to allow far more people to go in and start the cleanup --</s>T.J. HOLMES: All right. Susan Candiotti for us there -- thank you. At 10 minutes past the hour. We're going to turn overseas where they are trying to put Libya on a path to democracy. Representatives from 60 countries, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are gathering in Paris today. They are meeting with Libya's rebel leadership and discussing everything from establishing a constitution, to rebuilding that war-torn country. So big challenges certainly lie ahead for the Libyan people and the Libyan leadership now. CNN's Max Foster is joining me now from London with that. Hello to you, Max.</s>MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, T.J. Yes, it's interesting. We had an interview earlier today with David Cameron, the British prime minister. He is co-hosting this event in France with the French president. He was very keen to point out they learned the lessons from Iraq and after the Iraq invasion, you had the situation where the reconstruction and the security wasn't handled properly. And a lot of aid money actually went missing. So, as you say, a lot of challenges for the rebel leadership. They're really going to get this right. They've got to convince the likes of Secretary Clinton that they are safe to hold this money. Let's have a look at what the papers are saying about this, because "The Wall Street Journal" refers to this in an editorial saying, "The Libyans are lucky. They have wealth and a favorable location close to Europe. And, for what it's worth, they have the Iraqi example of what works and what doesn't once the tyrant and his statues have fallen." A slightly more spiky comment in "The Gulf News" in the United Arab Emirates, with the headline, "Libyans Must Fully Liberate Themselves." "While U.S. yet to offer rebuild Libya, NATO seems giddy to get involved in charting the course of the new Libya with France leading the way on that front. It might not be along before NATO's victory in Libya becomes a political-military doctrine in its own right." So, it's going to be interesting, T.J. This is the first step really of the new future for Libya and it's going to be interesting to see what Secretary Clinton makes of those rebel leaders as the new controlling force in Libya.</s>HOLMES: All right. Max Foster for us in London -- thank you, as always. Well, coming up, Steven Lynn was planning to take some pictures of his house as he flew overhead. But when he looked down, what he saw was somebody robbing him! Coming up, he is going to join me right here to tell us what he did next. Also, Prince Harry is coming to America, but this is no vacation. He is going to be training on a helicopter gunship. All of the details ahead. Stay with us. It's 11 past the hour.