built for that was builts for the lowest possible costs and lowest possible margins. now we re seeing we need some resilience and it seems the white house is stepping in to try to provide that. nbc s jake ward, thanks for starting us off this hour. transportation secretary pete buttigieg joins us from the white house ahead of president biden s remarks. secretary buttigieg, it s good to have you with us. good to be with you. so the biden administration is stepping up its efforts to relieve this supply chain night mayor that has led to product shortages and higher prices. as you well know, the supply chain is a private sector
i m geoff bennett. of all of things on president biden s plate right now, and there are a ton of them, perhaps the most alarming is what s not on yours. and it may not be under your tree for christmas or on your plate for thanksgiving. in a country where we re accustomed to getting whatever we want, whenever we want, with the push of a button, if you ve tried to shop for anything from a new car or appliance to a book or groceries, you know there s a growing list of the things you can t find. and if you can, you re probably paying more to buy them. there are a number of reasons for the product shortages. but chief among them is the massive backlog at the ports of los angeles and long beach. they account for 40% of all shipping containers entering the u.s. at last count there are 81 ships floating off the coast right now, waiting to dock. many have been there for weeks. another 62 ships are already docked but it takes time, money,
breaking point when people will sluice back to work. and roben, we talk about people won t be able to get the gifts they want for christmas and hanukkah. more than that, this has been hard for small business owners who had to live through two years of a pandemic and now they re being hit by product shortages. insult to injury, because amazon, walmart, and target already rule the world. amazon and walmart and target are logistics companies. they re out there investing in tankers outright. mom and pop on the corner, the iphone repair business, can t do that. this is too big to fail times two, times three, while the small guy has had to survive the pandemic. and coming out of this, there s very little comfort. and general honore, as we wrap up this conversation, are there limits to what this white house, limits to what a federal government can do here? as we mentioned, the supply chain is a private sector,
abuse of power with more than just holding him accountable what they were trying to do. it was more about saving america from something worse that could happen. more from his new book next. you probably heard about product shortages, long delivery times escalating prices for food, tvst, cars, another warning about christmas, for toys. the president addressed that today. we will show you about his plan moving forward. school officials and school board members facing harassment and threats of physical violence. all of those stories and more when deadline: white house continues after a quick break. don t go anywhere today. e today. girl, i don t know, i don t know, i don t know why i can t get enough of your love babe oh no, babe girl, if i could only make you see
borger is with us. they keep saying these are temporary, but this recovery is going a lot worse than the white house had thought it would. right, i think they felt that they had turned the corner on covid, and then came the delta variant. and there were problems. there is inflation, product shortages, labor shortages, and the administration now has to convince the american public that they re going to make it better. and that s what the president was trying to do today, to say look, we understand what s going on. your christmas gifts are going to arrive on time, but i think they have a long way to go because the public is feeling the pinch, particularly of inflation. and the political fallout is pretty significant. david, our new cnn poll, and you have been working it, explaining it, take a look at this. democrats are working for months to try to ease these issues, but look at this. would your family be better off if congress passes infrastructure and reconciliation? the two bills