[inaudible conversations] thank you all for being so patient. Im along with my wife, and on behalf of the entire staff, thank you very much for coming out on this afternoon. A few quick administrative notes, now would be a good time to turn off any cell phones or something that might go beep. When we get to the q a part of the session, because we are recording this for our Youtube Channel and and cspan book tv is here, we appreciate it if you have a question, if you would step up to this microphone here so it can be recorded and also heard by everybody else in the audience and at the end normally for those of you who have been to events before we would like to ask you to fold up your chairs, well, dont do that today because we have another event coming up. Its not often that we have a head of state here at politics and prose. In fact, its pretty rare and at the moment its pretty rare because shes not with us yet. [laughter] but shes on her way with an escort, so she should be here shor
Now the republican measure got fewer votes than the democratic one. He talked about that, and also about his decision to do what House Speaker nancy pelosi wanted him to do, which was postpone the state of the union message. We begin, though, as we did last night, and as well keep on doing by bringing you the state of the union as seen by our fellow americans. Well bring you that and the let them eat wall message theyre getting from the president and members of his administration. Message one from the commerce secretary, youre nobody. Put it in perspective. Youre talking about 800,000 workers. And while i feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers, if they never got their pay, which is not the case, they will eventually get it. But if they never got it, youre talking about a third of a percent on our gdp. So its not like its a gigantic number overall. Not like its a gigantic number overall. This message came to you from commerce secretary wilbur ross, whod