>>> thomas roberts . topping the agenda the 60 day sprint to election day is on and opened with a weaker jobs report than expected. unemployment ticking down to 8.1% but the number of jobs added takes a dip as well. the question s-whiis, which number will matter more. stocks are mixed right now after this morning's news. we've seen them go back and forth based on the jobs report. the first of three in this final stretch before election day . now at this hour of the campaign, the president and vice president are en route to new hampshire for a post-convention campaign rally. but it was last night on the convention floor that the president redefined hope and change and america 's future.
>> times have changed and i no longer just a candidate. i'm the president. if you turn away now, if you buy into the cynicism we talked about is not possible, then change will not happen.
>> the president attempted to make the case as a choice in this election, using the words choice or choose more than 20 times. what did the president accomplish or not accomplish?
>> ten minutes into the president's speech last night, again, a speech not deep on substance, a speech with no surprises and i just sat there thinking game, set, match, barack obama connected himself with the american dream .
>> president obama following joe biden who gave a heart felt speech to some americans on four more years.
>> it's never been a good bet to bet against the american people . never. my fellow americans , america is coming back. and we're not going back. and we have no intention of down sizing the american dream .
>> let's say good morning to our friday political power panel. we have matt miller . karen finny. and susan . gang, it's the morning after. karen i start with you because the romney camp released a statement on the jobs report not wasting any time on this. saying if last night was the party this morning is the hangover. paul ryan also taking to taxpayer waves this morning on cnbc. take a look.
>> this is not what president obama promised. i would argue this is the result of failed leadership in washington, bad fiscal policy coming from the administration and that's where we had this very tepid report.
>> nbc's first read calls today's jobs report a win for romney and the gop. is anything over 8% bad news for the president with two more jobs reports left between now and election day ?
>> well, i know susan is going to say it's these jobs reports that will matter more than the speeches and actually i agree with that. here's the piece i think that this week the democratic party did a good job of making the case that, again, congressman ryan as you say seems to forget he works in that building behind me and the reason that we are where we are is largely due to the fact that frankly we haven't had the opportunity to see all of president obama 's ideas and policies implemented because of the level of obstruction from republicans. you've got these guys talking out of both sides of their mouth and you can't have it both ways. you can't attack the president and say his ideas aren't working when you never actually gave those ideas the opportunity to work. they blocked the jobs bill. they blocked the infrastructure spending that he wanted to do which would have created jobs. time and time again they have obstructed and blocked the things that the president wanted to do. he's been able to get some things done and largely the things he's gotten done have worked.
>> susan , i'll let you jump in a second. i want to play an interview with krueger and chuck todd . take a listen.
>> you said we're healing, is the patient out of the hospital at least?
>> you know, i think we're providing the patient the right medicine. i think it's important that we continue with that medicine.
>> okay. let's continue with this narrative.
>> the patient is in icu right now. we're in intensive care. no doubt about it. politically speaking, a tick down point two is great news for president obama . i do believe it's going to rest on the job numbers and this is, in fact, good news for him. it's what people feel. at the end of the day it's not what we tell the american people it's what they are going feel and they will vote with their pocketbook.
>> last night the vice president made this really great point that it seemed as if republicans were talking through their convention about the demise of america and now we have this jobs number out. okay this, is good news. this is the right direction. they are not poo-pooing this. we're adding on to the fact we're above 8% for 40 plus months. they are talking we're adding private-sector jobs for 30 months.
>> it's a sobering reminder to everybody with less than 100,000 jobs when we're talking about millions upon millions of people who are under employed or looking for work. so, again, both sides will spin what they will do. they can't convince the person who is at home who has been out of work for two years that things are better off for them.
>> matt, you wrote in the "the washington post " that the president's speech made you a little bit depressed, you didn't think the president went big enough. with monday morning quarterbacking what we saw last night what would you recommend he have changed to be bigger.
>> first you have to note that when it comes to the jobs report today, it's absolutely the fact that barack obama sent the jobs bill up to the hill a year ago that all the independent analysts said would have added up to 2 million new jobs, so the republicans have been playing this game of be a struobstructionism. the reason i was depressed last night, progressives need to understand the way obama framed that speech last night and the choice, this election is defensive. it's about stopping bad things from happening. if mitt romney and the republicans get in and try and keep promises they made to roll back some of the gains, the idea that 30 million americans who were slated to get health coverage would never get that. the where that aid to college would be slashed, that aid to the poor would be slashed, all the tax cuts for the top. those are bad things. obama didn't call to us try and reach a new set in his second term of progressive solutions to big problems. so on college tuition , for example, obama said that we should rally around the goal of slowing the growth of tuition over the next ten years but that means student debt still going rise, tuition is still going rise. i think that's much too timid an aspiration for a second term. obama has trimmed back his aspiration and made this a choice between something very bad that could happen and stay the course on a more modest set of goals. it seems hope and change we have to reap what we sow. we have to remember we're in this together. i want to play this part of the president's talk. take a listen.
>> we also believe in something called citizenship. citizenship. a word at the very heart of our founding. a word at the very essence of our democracy. the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and future generations .
>> is this the next degree of hope and change?
>> well, absolutely. look, the president said four years ago as he reiterated last night, as he has a number of times throughout his presidency, he can't do it alone. congress has a role to play. they have responsibility that they have largely, led by the republicans beabdicated. it's not about who built it, it's about we did it together. and his point is we've got to continue as citizens to help to apply the pressure to make sure that the things that we want happen because he can't to it all by himself. i take a little bit of issue i guess with what matt was saying because i think the whole point that the president is making is look, we set a course. we're trying to dig our way out of this hole. we got keep going. that's largely when you're talking about a president in a re-election mode when you have a dramatic choice between are we literally going to just jump back down into that hole or keep going he's saying we still that have right ideas, we got to make them happen.
>> matt you said you were depressed after the president's speech. you look at the dnc as a whole. are you more optimistic about the show they put on as compared to what the rnc did in tampa.
>> the democrats did a great job with their convention. the bill clinton speech the other night was the highlight at least for me because he made the case in ways that really are better than the president makes about why the entire republican critique that we saw in tampa point by point can be rebutted in ways that reasonable people, that swing voters, that anyone -- clinton treated people as adults who could listen to a policy discussion and hear this and i think the democrats, the way they framed all of that, even john kerry i thought hit it out of the park yesterday on foreign policy , the democrats did very well for themselves and yet we're still headed to a very close race for the next couple of months.
>> susan , you're shake being your head. a lot of people said this show was better produced, inspirational leadership for casting the sfrigs the dnc. the debates are coming up. that's a critical time when we see these two men come together.
>> a month ago wait until the conventions now it's wait until the first debate because that's going to be it. that's the defining moment. i don't think there will be a defining moment unless one side or the other messes up big time . the debates are important. some say it favors governor romney , others say it favors president obama . at the end of the day , the first debate will be interesting because there are longer answer times so it will be interesting to see how they use their time.
>> thank you so much. greet to have you all here.
>>> so, if the markets are reacting like this to the jobs numbers, well what can we expect them to do next week after we have ridden this week out on a market high? as we mentioned 96,000 jobs added for the month of august but the number that many americans will be reacting to the unemployment rate ticking down to 8.1%. i'm joined by senior analyst and commentator for cnbc. ron, first your reaction to the numbers.
>> it's not a good report. the consensus expectation for 125,000 jobs created was fewer than that. the reason the un. employment rate went down is labor participation rate has fallen. people working as opposed to those that could has fallen. it's the type of report that may prompt the federal reserve to take steps next week to stimulate the economy further. while the unemployment rate came down that's a politically sensitive number. the economic numbers themselves are still disappointing on their face.
>> some sectors are doing better than others. manufacturing took somewhat of a hit. what's behind that number
>> that's a result of a weakening global economy . europe is in shashles. china is decelerating than people realize. our export growth is flagging. that's the area that's affecting manufacturing. some can get fixed with a weaker dollar. thomas, oil take issue with one thing susan said in your political discussion which is that the patient, i.e., the economy is not in the icu any more. gdp is above the 2007 peak. retail sales above the 2007 peak. auto sales have gone from 9 million units to 14.5 million units. the economy is recovering. it is not fully recovered. there's large swaths of people hurting. that shows up mostly in this labor data that we got this morning.
>> we have the markets all three reporting these record highs.
>> not record highs. about four year highs.
>> let's call four year highs a four year high. people will take it. we remember what happened in october of '08. we're doing pretty well. when we think about the private-sector and trillion of dollars of cash that they are sitting on they don't want to reinvest because they feel unstabilized. why.
>> there's sufficient demand in the united states but insufficient overseas. everyone continues to worry that another recession may very easily be around the corner given the slow down we're seeing. china has slowed down. brazil has slowed down. the big bric countries are not growing as rapidly. corporations are shepherding that cash. not willing to make full time commitments. the fed may try the stimulate next week, european central bank made a big announcement yesterday. this may help to turn things around.
>> ron, always great to see you. breaking the unemployment rate down by race. african-american unemployment stands at 14.1%. unchanged from last month, down a year ago when it was in the 16% range. hispanic unemployment at 10% down by 1.1% from a year ago and .1% from last month. back
>> times have changed and i no longer just a candidate. i'm the president. if you turn away now, if you buy into the cynicism we talked about is not possible, then change will not happen.
>> the president attempted to make the case as a choice in this election, using the words choice or choose more than 20 times. what did the president accomplish or not accomplish?
>> ten minutes into the president's speech last night, again, a speech not deep on substance, a speech with no surprises and i just sat there thinking game, set, match, barack obama connected himself with the american dream .
>> president obama following joe biden who gave a heart felt speech to some americans on four more years.
>> it's never been a good bet to bet against the american people . never. my fellow americans , america is coming back. and we're not going back. and we have no intention of down sizing the american dream .
>> let's say good morning to our friday political power panel. we have matt miller . karen finny. and susan . gang, it's the morning after. karen i start with you because the romney camp released a statement on the jobs report not wasting any time on this. saying if last night was the party this morning is the hangover. paul ryan also taking to taxpayer waves this morning on cnbc. take a look.
>> this is not what president obama promised. i would argue this is the result of failed leadership in washington, bad fiscal policy coming from the administration and that's where we had this very tepid report.
>> nbc's first read calls today's jobs report a win for romney and the gop. is anything over 8% bad news for the president with two more jobs reports left between now and election day ?
>> well, i know susan is going to say it's these jobs reports that will matter more than the speeches and actually i agree with that. here's the piece i think that this week the democratic party did a good job of making the case that, again, congressman ryan as you say seems to forget he works in that building behind me and the reason that we are where we are is largely due to the fact that frankly we haven't had the opportunity to see all of president obama 's ideas and policies implemented because of the level of obstruction from republicans. you've got these guys talking out of both sides of their mouth and you can't have it both ways. you can't attack the president and say his ideas aren't working when you never actually gave those ideas the opportunity to work. they blocked the jobs bill. they blocked the infrastructure spending that he wanted to do which would have created jobs. time and time again they have obstructed and blocked the things that the president wanted to do. he's been able to get some things done and largely the things he's gotten done have worked.
>> susan , i'll let you jump in a second. i want to play an interview with krueger and chuck todd . take a listen.
>> you said we're healing, is the patient out of the hospital at least?
>> you know, i think we're providing the patient the right medicine. i think it's important that we continue with that medicine.
>> okay. let's continue with this narrative.
>> the patient is in icu right now. we're in intensive care. no doubt about it. politically speaking, a tick down point two is great news for president obama . i do believe it's going to rest on the job numbers and this is, in fact, good news for him. it's what people feel. at the end of the day it's not what we tell the american people it's what they are going feel and they will vote with their pocketbook.
>> last night the vice president made this really great point that it seemed as if republicans were talking through their convention about the demise of america and now we have this jobs number out. okay this, is good news. this is the right direction. they are not poo-pooing this. we're adding on to the fact we're above 8% for 40 plus months. they are talking we're adding private-sector jobs for 30 months.
>> it's a sobering reminder to everybody with less than 100,000 jobs when we're talking about millions upon millions of people who are under employed or looking for work. so, again, both sides will spin what they will do. they can't convince the person who is at home who has been out of work for two years that things are better off for them.
>> matt, you wrote in the "the washington post " that the president's speech made you a little bit depressed, you didn't think the president went big enough. with monday morning quarterbacking what we saw last night what would you recommend he have changed to be bigger.
>> first you have to note that when it comes to the jobs report today, it's absolutely the fact that barack obama sent the jobs bill up to the hill a year ago that all the independent analysts said would have added up to 2 million new jobs, so the republicans have been playing this game of be a struobstructionism. the reason i was depressed last night, progressives need to understand the way obama framed that speech last night and the choice, this election is defensive. it's about stopping bad things from happening. if mitt romney and the republicans get in and try and keep promises they made to roll back some of the gains, the idea that 30 million americans who were slated to get health coverage would never get that. the where that aid to college would be slashed, that aid to the poor would be slashed, all the tax cuts for the top. those are bad things. obama didn't call to us try and reach a new set in his second term of progressive solutions to big problems. so on college tuition , for example, obama said that we should rally around the goal of slowing the growth of tuition over the next ten years but that means student debt still going rise, tuition is still going rise. i think that's much too timid an aspiration for a second term. obama has trimmed back his aspiration and made this a choice between something very bad that could happen and stay the course on a more modest set of goals. it seems hope and change we have to reap what we sow. we have to remember we're in this together. i want to play this part of the president's talk. take a listen.
>> we also believe in something called citizenship. citizenship. a word at the very heart of our founding. a word at the very essence of our democracy. the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and future generations .
>> is this the next degree of hope and change?
>> well, absolutely. look, the president said four years ago as he reiterated last night, as he has a number of times throughout his presidency, he can't do it alone. congress has a role to play. they have responsibility that they have largely, led by the republicans beabdicated. it's not about who built it, it's about we did it together. and his point is we've got to continue as citizens to help to apply the pressure to make sure that the things that we want happen because he can't to it all by himself. i take a little bit of issue i guess with what matt was saying because i think the whole point that the president is making is look, we set a course. we're trying to dig our way out of this hole. we got keep going. that's largely when you're talking about a president in a re-election mode when you have a dramatic choice between are we literally going to just jump back down into that hole or keep going he's saying we still that have right ideas, we got to make them happen.
>> matt you said you were depressed after the president's speech. you look at the dnc as a whole. are you more optimistic about the show they put on as compared to what the rnc did in tampa.
>> the democrats did a great job with their convention. the bill clinton speech the other night was the highlight at least for me because he made the case in ways that really are better than the president makes about why the entire republican critique that we saw in tampa point by point can be rebutted in ways that reasonable people, that swing voters, that anyone -- clinton treated people as adults who could listen to a policy discussion and hear this and i think the democrats, the way they framed all of that, even john kerry i thought hit it out of the park yesterday on foreign policy , the democrats did very well for themselves and yet we're still headed to a very close race for the next couple of months.
>> susan , you're shake being your head. a lot of people said this show was better produced, inspirational leadership for casting the sfrigs the dnc. the debates are coming up. that's a critical time when we see these two men come together.
>> a month ago wait until the conventions now it's wait until the first debate because that's going to be it. that's the defining moment. i don't think there will be a defining moment unless one side or the other messes up big time . the debates are important. some say it favors governor romney , others say it favors president obama . at the end of the day , the first debate will be interesting because there are longer answer times so it will be interesting to see how they use their time.
>> thank you so much. greet to have you all here.
>>> so, if the markets are reacting like this to the jobs numbers, well what can we expect them to do next week after we have ridden this week out on a market high? as we mentioned 96,000 jobs added for the month of august but the number that many americans will be reacting to the unemployment rate ticking down to 8.1%. i'm joined by senior analyst and commentator for cnbc. ron, first your reaction to the numbers.
>> it's not a good report. the consensus expectation for 125,000 jobs created was fewer than that. the reason the un. employment rate went down is labor participation rate has fallen. people working as opposed to those that could has fallen. it's the type of report that may prompt the federal reserve to take steps next week to stimulate the economy further. while the unemployment rate came down that's a politically sensitive number. the economic numbers themselves are still disappointing on their face.
>> some sectors are doing better than others. manufacturing took somewhat of a hit. what's behind that number
>> that's a result of a weakening global economy . europe is in shashles. china is decelerating than people realize. our export growth is flagging. that's the area that's affecting manufacturing. some can get fixed with a weaker dollar. thomas, oil take issue with one thing susan said in your political discussion which is that the patient, i.e., the economy is not in the icu any more. gdp is above the 2007 peak. retail sales above the 2007 peak. auto sales have gone from 9 million units to 14.5 million units. the economy is recovering. it is not fully recovered. there's large swaths of people hurting. that shows up mostly in this labor data that we got this morning.
>> we have the markets all three reporting these record highs.
>> not record highs. about four year highs.
>> let's call four year highs a four year high. people will take it. we remember what happened in october of '08. we're doing pretty well. when we think about the private-sector and trillion of dollars of cash that they are sitting on they don't want to reinvest because they feel unstabilized. why.
>> there's sufficient demand in the united states but insufficient overseas. everyone continues to worry that another recession may very easily be around the corner given the slow down we're seeing. china has slowed down. brazil has slowed down. the big bric countries are not growing as rapidly. corporations are shepherding that cash. not willing to make full time commitments. the fed may try the stimulate next week, european central bank made a big announcement yesterday. this may help to turn things around.
>> ron, always great to see you. breaking the unemployment rate down by race. african-american unemployment stands at 14.1%. unchanged from last month, down a year ago when it was in the 16% range. hispanic unemployment at 10% down by 1.1% from a year ago and .1% from last month. back