maryland. more so than other events. no indication if that is related to what happened in arizona. this is locked down. the press not allowed inside at all except with the exception of joe biden speak. lock down mode here security wise, thomas. is this a real venting opportunity for those in atte attendance to have the president s ear, not in a mean capacity, but in an expectation capacity of what they want to see in his next two years? reporter: well, thomas, as you know, the president s harshest critics after cutting that tax cut compromise with senate republicans at the end of the lame duck situation were the house democrats. a lot of them were in the caucus room in december saying no we can t, no we can t accept this deal. there is going to be some lingering tension. but most of that dissipates when the president actually goes in the room, puts his arm around more liberal members and say, look, i got health care path. i have don t ask don t tell
washington. mark, what s crossing now? hey, carol. yes, good news from president obama and the white house this morning. the poll shows that president obama s approval rating is at 53% now. that is a 5% increase from back in december when he was at 4%. it begs the question, why did we see this bump? we probably see the bump for a couple of reasons. he had a successful lame-duck sessi session, including getting through the tax cut compromise that helped americans across the board. we helped see him differ a pretty strong teach in tucson after the shooting of gabrielle giffords and the koiflg six people in that rampage. president obama we ve seen move over the 50% mark. then we re going to go into the state of the union next week. this question is, will he deliver a strong enough speech to see the bump get higher? potentially he could do that, carol. moving on, senate democrats get very bad news in the past couple hours. senator kent conrad from north dakota announced he s going to
president obama s job approval ratings are on the rise. even despite all of this criticism. mark preston is here to break down the numbers for us. yes, great news for president obama. back in december his approval rating was at 48% which was higher than what we saw before the elections but in the new cnn research corporation poll out this morning it shows his approval rating is at 53%. he had a very successful lame duck session where, in fact, he got through the tax cut compromise. he was probably able to pull over independents on the fence whether they thought he was doing a good job or not doing a good job. in addition to that, he had that speech in tucson and a lot of people took that faverlly. a new ad coming out. just today it s on health care
will do a terrific job is because he s going to have jason furman working with him. i m pleased to elevate jason furman to be principal deputy. give jason a big round of applause. over the past two years, i ve relied on jason s advice and expertise on a range of issues. over the steps we took to prevent our economy from sinking into a second depression to most recently working with gene and the economic team to pass the tax cut compromise. i m confident he will continue to do terrific work in this greater capacity. we re also joined by somebody i ve come to rely on as an adviser and friend since my first days. heather higginbottom is currently the director of the domestic policy council and has
during the clinton administration. i m confident she provides the kind of unbiased, unvarnished advice to help us develop the policies to strengthen this economy in years to come. now, part of our mission, part of this team s mission in the months ahead, will be to maximize the steps that we ve taken to spur the economy. and one of the most important is allowing businesses to immediately deduct the entire costs of certain investments like the new equipment that i was taking a look at. this is a policy, i fought for over the past two years. we were able to pass it, finally, as part of the tax cut compromise. it is going to make a real difference for our economy. so talking to rick, i know tom san creek will help renovate, expand and add another 100 new