good morning and welcome to way too early on this friday, november 4th. thank you for starting your day us with. we begin in new mexico. president biden touted his administration s successes yesterday at a campaign rally for democrats. in albuquerque, the president focused largely on the issue of the economy and the dangers he says is posed by the republican agenda. headline new york times. flying out here. headline, gop signals plans to shrink social security. they re saying it out loud. congress, congressional republicans eye midterm victim that i could hand them control of house and senate plan to reduce spending on social security and medicare including raising retirement age. they re just saying it.
they re not even hiding it. how many of you have any student debt? say good-bye. take a look at who is complaining. this i find fascinating. this i find fascinating. the people who are complaining, the maga republicans who sit in congress had hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars in pandemic relief forgiven. but they now attacking middle class americans of student relief program. who do they think they are? let s look at the facts. when i took office, this economy was in ruins. my predecessor is the first president, first president since hoover would lost more jobs fewer jobs when he left than when he came in. unemployment at 6.4%. they closed. today we re in a much better
place. people are still hurting. there is more to do. unemployment rate, 3.5% the lowest it s been in 50 years. the president wrapped up the day near san diego campaigning for congress. during the rally, he talked about political violence a week after the attack on nancy pelosi s husband. how can you call yourself a democracy when you have a group of thousands of people storm the united states capitol. two policemen die as a consequence of it. breakthrough the house senate and doors and people cowering on the floor threatening to kill people? you saw what happened to paul pelosi and the effort to get to nancy. guess what? what do they call these guys? what is trump and all the trumpies call it? no, he said they re patriots.
not a joke, these are patriots. the president is starting his day on the west coast before a busy several days of travel. after delivering a speech at a san diego technology company high heighting the chip and science act he signed, the president will head to the windy city for a political reception. he ll start saturday in chicago and hold an official event there. before then, traveling to philadelphia for a big schapiro-fetterman campaign rally with former president barack obama. nothing on the president s schedule for sunt. the democrats try to flip the republican controlled legislature there as well. we should note, donald trump kicked off his stretch run campaign tour as well. joining us now is staff writer for the new republic covering congress and politics. grace, grate great to see you as always.
of lawmakers wrapping up a trip to ukraine. rob portman traveled to kyiv to underscore the broad support that is in congress for the ukrainian people. the trip comes amid concerns about a possible fracturing congress over additional aid to ukraine. gop house minority leader said that there will be no other blank dhekz. the senators met with ukraine s foreign minister, the prosecutor general and president zelenskyy. the senators also visited the headquarters of a ukrainian energy company damaged by russian missile strikes. russia has been targeting key infrastructure facilities throughout the country for weeks now. which is forced ukraine to ration electricity as winter approaches. joining us now, washington correspondent for bloomberg tv ann marie. good morning. let s talk about military and