so the white house can still point to job growth. a number of aides have been texting the "new york times" story with the headline that the job numbers are still pretty good, but this was not the report that they were hoping for. >> they were bracing for better numbers. and even last month that is exactly how president biden did react when those lackluster numbers came out from the month of august and the president said look, i wanted to see something better here. we all did. acknowledging that because of the surge in the delta variant at the time that this was the economic picture of where we are. but that is something that the white house has been stressing all summer long, that these jobs reports are a snapshot of where we are and it is important to add context to what was going on and what was driving what is this weaker report. and what we are seeing clearly here is that as students were going back to the classroom, as some parents were going back to work, because of the number of delta cases and just how transmissible it was, a lot of that got derailed. so parents had to stay at home taking care of kids for whom school districts actually had to shut down. or for those parents who hadn't wanted to enter the workforce. all of those very real world experiences that people are seeing, that has contributed to all of this. so the president will talk about that, but he is going to i'm told frame this as if we're lucky delta is in the rearview mirror. and he will make the case that that is encouraging for a number of reasons but that also october then could really be a turning point in terms of the economic recovery which has been incredibly uneven and which the president said would not be like a light switch on and off. so i think that he will set the broader context, the bigger picture and then make two very political arguments. as he usually does, he pivots to his own policies and what he would like to see passed with his build back better agenda, and he will also talk about the looming issue of the debt ceiling that has been punted to december. and i think that you can make expect him to make the case imagine what would happen if we don't have a solution for that in december, what kind of fiscal crisis and disaster the country would face when there is already so much that is so delicate in this uneven recovery. >> yeah, a good point. and i think the atlanta laid bare the degree to which the u.s. economy is so dependent on low wage workers. and a lot of the discussion was about the misalignment in the labor force that is keeping so many positions open yet there are americans who don't apparently want those jobs. you have some fast food places that are offering $15, $17 an hour and people just are not willing to take those kind of positions right now. >> absolutely. and i mean the word on the street is this is basically a speed bump in terms of the economic picture and hopefully it will get towards proper recovery. but i think that it is more like someone is driving through a landscape ripped up by potholes, and you are navigating around it. because what you are really seeing is that the pandemic turned so many things upside down in the american economy that essentially getting back to anything like normality is an incredibly uneven process. and some parts of the job report while encouraging, the jump in demand for i.t. workers, construction doing well, some parts of the jobs report were disappointing like the educational aspect because it seems that schools are not hiring as many teachers. but although the payroll numbers are disappointing, household survey actually points to a much more optimistic picture and if you look at the actual unemployment rate, that is continuing to fall. the reason that matters is that that is a number that the federal reserve has a mandate to watch. and as long as that number is going down, it makes it more likely that the fed is going to start raising rates pretty soon. >> so robert gibbs, politically how can the president change the narrative here? i'm sure, you know, he would like to, certainly the white house would like to talk more about his social spending plan and talk about the ways in which that will change the lives of everyday americans. and yet there seems to be this compounding optics problem for president biden. you have the jobs report today, all of the debate among democrats about his spending bill and the infrastructure bill. >> no doubt about it. i think what you have are two big events that we've seen for quite a long time. covid which we see in this report is a bit of an economic hangover from what we saw in august. but i think what you saw the president do this week is what he will do today in his speech. he did events outside of washington both on how do we get covid under control and therefore how do we get the economy moving. and how does he support and build support for build back better agenda. and look, i hope that every congressional democrat that is passionate about both of those issues understands and watches what the president is doing. he is out talking about not a number of 3.5 or 2.1 or 1.5 trillion, but about what is in the plan, the tax fairness, the making health care more affordable, the fighting climate change, the things that quite frankly democrats ought to be talkingabout. not a number, but a system of values. i think that that is what he has to continue do. that shows the democratic party quite frankly where he needs to go and it helps build his case among the broader public. >> david jolly, i have a bit of a thought experiment for you. i was talking to a hill source last night and we were talking back and forth about the predicament in which the president seems to find position himself and he said it would have been better for biden to have had a divided congress. because if he had a republican senate you could make the argument that by now he would have had the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed. and then he could just blame republicans for their obstruction and recalcitrants and all the other stuff that he is trying to do. but when you control all the levers of power in washington, you control really all of the blame. >> yeah, geoff, you are right. and quickly on the jobs report, i would say the numbers are going in the right direction. we are experiencing job growth and i think that the biden administration should sell the american people on that. it is only the markets that worry about the expectations game but right now we're still going in the right direction. the notion of the legislative agenda and the fact that democrats can only blame themselves in the house is exactly right because understand the alternative universe where house democrats are actually unified. and in that universe, joe biden and democrats right now are taking a victory lap on a trillion dollar infrastructure bill that donald trump couldn't get done for four years. plane, train, automobiles, waste water, the senate passed that with 69 votes including mitch mel. and so all the democrats would have to do in the house is keep their whole caucus together and they could pass it. probably even pick up about 20 republican votes. and that would change the national conversation. that makes joe biden and the democrats victorious in delivering for the american people. and then you can wrestle with the human infrastructure bill. it is an interesting formula that the democrats have put in place to couple these together. obviously the internal dynamics of the house democratic caucus right now require coupling that, but i think that the democrats might be wise to consider decouple it, take a victory lap on something that for the american people that trump could not deliver on and then get back to the table on the larger human infrastructure bill. >> and as we await the president's remarks here any minute i'd imagine this hour, can you help us understand the degree to which the supply chain problems pose an economic problem if you go to costco, you can't buy more than one pack of paper towels. if you go to buy a couch, the sales associate will tell you that that couch won't arrive until maybe january or february if you are lucky. these are sort of the real world problems that people are encountering. but what does it mean on a macro scale for our economy? >> well, it is fascinating. and welcome to the world of rationing, something which we used to talk about in relation to world war ii and things like that. because you really are seeing extraordinary supply chain problems right now. even in things as basic as getting hold of containers to ship goods around the world. and it will be with us for quite a long time because there isn't an easy or quick fix. it is partly because goods are in the wrong place. it is partly because you've had trade tensions and the pandemic has broken down so many of the supply chains and globalization links that used to work pretty seamlessly. but the other issue is also about labor to go back to what the president will be talking about. it will be worth remembering two more things. firstly, what the payroll numbers today showed us is that there are still 5 million less jobs out there in the american economy than there were before the pandemic. but secondly, it also showed us that wages are going up. and it is not just at the top end of the scale, it is primarily at the bottom end of the scale where you are seeing things like the amazon effect, the fact that they have now introduced driving up wages across the economy in the lower paid jobs. and that combined with all the supply chain bottlenecks make the picture of the economy very hard for policy makes to manage and frankly the president has his work cut out trying to decide what kind of message to sell to the american people because you have many people who have actually had, you know, their wages increase recently and they are looking at household shopping bills going up too with inflation. so are you optimistic, pessimistic, just how badly do we need the infrastructure bill after all? >> and robert gibbs, on that point the supply chain issue makes me think of when gas prices rise. these are things that the president does not have direct control over but the president gets blamed for. so how does a president, this president, president biden, the one that you served, president obama, how does a president best navigate these kinds of things, the things that they can't control but that they will get dinged for no matter what? >> yeah, i think that you have to be optimistic and i think you have to look to the future. and i think you have to describe and build a plan for how you get there. right? what are you going to do to make the country better, what are you going to do to make the economy stronger. how are you going to help families afford the things that they can't afford as easily as they would like to, whether health care or education. and that is why him talking -- continuing to talk about the build back better agenda is really important for him. it is the key to describing the world that he thinks we need to get to and then pushing supporters to get there with him. and that is the key. he has to think of this not just as a message to the american people, but also to democrats in congress. my thanks to the four of you. coming up, more on the debt ceiling issue dividing both of the parties. ing issue dividing f the parties. 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capitol hill, economic disaster averted at least for now. senators voted to lift the debt ceiling by $480 billion holding off a default on the nation's loans until december 3 when congress will need to come up with a longer term solution. now, the debt limit acts like the nation's credit card limit currently set at just over $28 trillion. and joining us now from capitol hill is correspondent ali vitali. and great to see you on this friday. so these lawmakers bought themselves some more time. my question is, it is not clear to me how anything changes because democrats don't want to use reconciliation to raise the debt limit and republicans say that they won't supply the votes to help democrats do it even though we should say this has always been a bipartisan effort at least until now. >> reporter: yeah, you're right. i think the only difference is that we'll probably be doing this with snow on the ground instead of leaves on the ground because you're right, the positions of these two parties won't change. mcconnell has said even after that passed last night, he wants democrats to move forward on this by using reconciliation. that has always been the mechanism through which he wanted democrats to do this. and the thing that has been true is that even after this deal was announced, every single democratic snar senator i spoke to said no way that we'll do it through reconciliation. but at least we won't be going off the debt ceiling cliff anytime soon. and when we hit early december, we'll do the whole quartet of crises that we had in september again because it is not just the debt ceiling, it is also government funding comes due and then the democrats will also be dealing with the bipartisan infrastructure pack think and as well as the social spending bill. >> quartet of crises, i wrote that down. so let's talk about the president's social spending plan because the hill team has some new reporting about how democrats are pretty much torn over how to scale back the agenda from $3.5 trillion since sinema and manchin won't go to that. so one idea is focus on a few programs and strip away the ability to let them expire. but then you have progressives saying do everything at once. >> reporter: yeah, you because there are some and senator durbin said this that choosing between the policy priorities are like choosing your favorite child. certainly there are democrats who feel that way. at the same time the progressive idea is that if you put an earlier sunset on some of the policy proposals, not ten years but a shorter period of time, they believe that at least they can get all of their policy priorities in and that once americans get a taste of things like universal pre-k or free community college, that they are not going to want to see a sunset on these programs so there will be a grass roots impetus for congress to further codify these into the future. and then the other school of thought is take the priorities out of the bill and advocates are starting to get nervous on this. they think that paid leave might stay in because senator manchin has the preference to be means testing a lot of these policies with something like paid leave if you are working, you get paid leave because you would be physically leaving a job during that time and after having a child. but there are others on the child care advocacy front who fear that that is a policy that could fall off. and frankly, this is something that democratic lawmakers were warning about way at the beginning of this process. they feared that just because there was some momentum around these ideas now, that when it actually came time to put them in the bill when the negotiating actually started to get tough, that these were the policy priorities that would fall off first. and the other thing that i would say is the jobs numbers do some of the work here for democrats. because the jobs numbers show that the recovery is still very uneven especially for women and women of color. we're probably going to hear lawmakers making this point more loudly now that the build back better agenda is built to make that recovery more smooth across the board demographically. >> i think that you have just previewed president biden's remarks that we are expecting any minute now from the white house. ali vitali, thanks for all that great reporting and context. and two journalists have won the nobel peace prize to taking on authoritarian leaders. the though nobel committee awarded the two. ressa is with a website often critical of the president. and muratov leads in russia. and coming up next, obstruction of justice. what former president trump is telling top aides to do about the congressional subpoenas as new ones are issued into the investigation of the capital january 6 attack. january 6 attack ♪ there are beautiful ideas that remain in the dark. but with our new multi-cloud experience, you have the flexibility you need to unveil them to the world. ♪ i just became eligible 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steve bannon is defying a congressional subpoena fro the january 6 select committee citing a letter that says to defy the subpoenas asserting executive privilege. that is despite the fact that bannon didn't even serve in an executive branch position. and questions remain about whether the former president can even assert executive privilege if the biden administration doesn't choose to assert it and instead cooperates with the committee. joining us now, joyce vance and eugene robinson. so joyce, steve bannon left the trump white house in august 2017 if memory serves after a power struggle with jared kushner. and there is this other question about whether a former president canexert executive privilege. is that not the prerogative of the sitting president? >> bannon is the weakist case and he doesn't have a case at all. as you've pointed out, executive privilege is meant to cover deliberations between white house officials to ensure that the president can get good open advice. and bannon loses on all counts. not a member of the executive branch and even if he was, trump is now a former president. and the person who can assert executive privilege is joe biden. otherwise imagine what it would look like. you would have every living president with the ability to exert executive privilege in any situation and that would be unworkable. but of course the strategy is classic trump. throw everything into the court, hope for delays, slow down procedures in front of the house committee. and so the same old strategy from trump land. >> and eugene, on that point, i'm struck by the degree to which the committee learned the lessons of impeachment for the very things that joyce just said. and they went directly to the subpoenas. they did not mess around with the request process, thinking that these folks would comply voluntarily. >> right. and now i think that this committee needs to go directly to the consequences. i mean, they need to move to enforce these subpoenas. i would think -- i don't know if they will go so far as to declare these four individuals here in contempt which theoretically could involve the sergeant at arms of the house going out to arrest them. but i do hope and suspect that they may consult with the justice department and seek to have justice help them enforce these subpoenas. these are official subpoenas of the u.s. congress. and they should mean something. >> and joyce, i also want to ask you about the senate judiciary committee which has released this new report on former president's efforts to pressure the doj to overturn the election that he lost. and there was this -- he had a threat to replace the acting attorney general with one of his loyalists. and that led to a threat of mass resignations from several top doj officials, u.s. attorneys, even the white house council. and what they called a murder-suicide pact if president trump went that route. as a former u.s. attorney yourself, how significant was that stance in preventing the potential weaponization of the doj? >> i suppose it is good to know that these folks have some standards, that at the end of the day if trump was going to fire his third attorney general, i guess actually his fourth attorney general, and replace him with someone who would do his bidding, that they were finally prepared to quit their jobs as a group. but this is really damning everything that went on. the standards here were so low for what they were willing to do to protect the justice department and the country. i think that we can all be happy that they prevented this final move by the trump administration. but where were they far earlier even if we're only thinking about the election itself, where were they when trump tried to begin an entire cadre of meritless fraud investigations. why couldn't they have spoken out during impeachment. so, yes, at the end of the day, this was effective in keeping trump was replacing jeffrey rosen at the tail end which someone who would have been much worse. but ultimately these are people in a position from at least november on to prevent the events that ultimately set the january 6th incursion against the capitol in motion. i think that it is a little bit too much to call them heros here. >> and eugene, the judiciary committee laid out a series of recommendations in the report, and we can put them up on the screen, you see them there, are these going to be significant or sufficient enough guardrails going forward do you think? >> actually, no. because they are guardrails. guardrails depend upon the goodwill and intentions of those on either side, right? and so when you have a normal president and a normal white house who respects those guardrails, then, sure, they are effective. when you have donald trump or someone like him, i don't think that they are. ultimately the president is the head of the executive branch and the justice department is part of the executive branch and that is a feature of our system. and it is difficult for me to figure out what could be done to legally separate the president from justice on a permanent way. i think that we rely on the goodwill intentions of our public officials. >> good point. eugene, joyce, thanks so much for your time. coming up, weighing the risks. covid vaccine now closer than ever for children, but will parents sign them up for the shot. people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up to what's possible with rybelsus®. ♪ you are my sunshine ♪ ♪ my only sunshine... ♪ rybelsus® is a pill that lowers blood sugar in three ways. increases insulin when you need it... decreases sugar... and slows food. the majority of people taking rybelsus® lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7. rybelsus® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't take rybelsus® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. stop rybelsus® and get medical help right away 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[swords clashing] - had enough? - no... arthritis. here. new aspercreme arthritis. full prescription-strength? reduces inflammation? thank the gods. don't thank them too soon. kick pain in the aspercreme. an fda advisory panel is set to meet on october 26 about two weeks from now to consider pfizer's application for emergency use of its covid vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11. that is happening as the american academy of pediatric report shows nearly 850,000 child covid cases in september representing more than 1 in 4 infections nationwide. joining us now are nbc news gabe guttierez live outside the pfizer headquarters in new york. and also dr. patel, physician and former white house policy director in the obama white house. so gabe, we'll start but. the return to school obviously made a big impact on the covid numbers. but pfizer executives i understand think that their vaccine can help turn the tide. >> reporter: well, that is the hope. and the good news is that overall new covid cases and hospitalizations have dropped significantly across much of the country, you know, among documents. but troubling numbers among children now making up 1 in 4 infections. the thinking has been that children are not necessarily as severely impacted by the virus as are older adults and immunocompromised people. but the fact is that they can still spread the virus. and so the concern was as school opened up that, you know, it could contribute to another wave of this pandemic. pfizer is hoping that perhaps later this month and next month that their vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 will be authorized for emergency use. and as you mentioned, this fda advisory panel is now set to meet on october 26. after that, geoff, there will be a cdc advisory panel that will make the final decision. so the thinking is that -- at least the hope is among public health experts that parents across the country might be able to get their younger kids vaccinated again ages 5 to 11 years old potentially before thanksgiving. potentially huge milestone in this pandemic. geoff. >> yeah, absolutely. and dr. patel, our team dug up this recent kaiser survey that shows that a third of parents of kids ages 5 to 11 years old will take a wait and see approach and i think that is understandable. what is your message to parents that are nervous or a little vaccine-hesitant who point out what gabe just said that kids who get covid seem to get less severe cases? >> yeah, no, first of all, perfectly appropriate question for every parent to ask. have that conversation with your pediatrician or your family physician on that you can actual ly get the responses that you need. but we've had a terrible record of counting covid cases in children from around the world anywhere from 4% to as high as 25% to 30%. any of that is distressing for someone who has covid and as you mentioned a vaccine could potentially help that. but let's talk about what is really at stake here. i think we've had 6 million children that have been infected, 10,000 hospitalized, 520 deaths. and there have been no reported adverse events in the pfizer press release. we'll be looking for some of that in the data. but if we do not have any of those serious risks, think about the benefits. and what is the benefit of vaccinaing my child. and that is where you have to weigh this. and also thinking about who is in your household, what does vaccinating your whole household mean for what you might do for your community, your school. and to some degree it is an individual decision with community inch mr. i indications. >> and if you could help us understand how long covid presents in kids. are we talking about loss of taste and smell, loss of cognitive function, how does it manifest? >> it can be. i've gone to my pediatric colleagues so i can get expert talk because i see a lot of it in adults. what pediatricians are seeing in children is incredibly variable. they do have some of the classic symptoms, loss of smell, loss of taste. kind of inflammatory reaction, joint pain. that is present. but they are also seeing children that are having reported memory issues, problems in school that they had not previously had. and they are also seeing some emotional disturbances. and here is the problem. we just don't know enough about long covid. so it begs for better research, better global cooperation. and honestly, a better understanding of how much beyond vaccines that we can do to actually help children and adults. so just a reminder that children are not little adults and so they manifest a lot of our diseases differently, long covid is one them. >> such a great point. and in the minute that we have left, dr. patel, nbc news is reporting that the number of people receiving booster shots is actually outpacing those getting their first or second dose. what new strategies can the administration, can state and local governments employ to change that? >> i think that they are doing it. mandates are a key part of that strategy. second thing that you can do is make it as convenient as possible. make it so convenient, workplaces, grocery stores, get back to some of that and figure out how to get to people so that you don't have an excuse to wait for them to get to the pharmacy or clinic. >> dr. patel, gabe guttierez, thanks to you both. coming up, party in-fighting on display after the debt ceiling vote as senators also look to cut down the multi trillion dollar spending bill by the end of the month. senator mazie hirono says that setting that deadline is setting them up to fail. she will join us next. us next. s. 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helen knew exercise could help her diabetes... but she didn't know what was right for her. no. nope. no way. but then helen went from no to know with freestyle libre 14 day, now she knows what activity helps lower her glucose. and can see what works best for her. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. freestyle libre 14 day. now covered by medicare for those who qualify. as we talked about earlier, the senate passed a short term extension to the debt limit holding off a potential fiscal and economic crisis at least until the next default deadline on december 3. after the vote chuck schumer scolded republicans for bringing the country to the brink of a crisis. >> republicans played a dangerous and risky partisan game. and i'm glad that their brinksmanship did not work. >> while schumer was speaking on the senate floor behind him you can see senator manchin putting his head in his hands. later he walked out and had choice words about senator schumer's floor speech. joining on us is senator mazie hirono. and this short term solution buys lawmakers about two months. but what will be different between now and december? in some ways won't it be more difficult to hold off a crisis then? >> one thing that will be different is that we will be totally focused to getting president biden's domestic agenda done for the american people. and that agenda is wildly popular. now that we have the debt ceiling done at least for two months, we can focus on the things that will really make a difference to the american people and that is child care, that is making medicare out there for seniors, all of the things that is in the build back better bill. >> and how will democrats try to bring down that top line number from that 3.5 trillion? would you rather focus on three or four agenda items or put in everything and make those things expire as a way to bring down the top line number? >> the kinds of programmatic areas in the build back better bill are items that people have been waiting for for what seems like forever. child care tax credits, all of that that bring the costs of living down for regular people. so i would prefer that all of the things that are in that bill get funded to a diferent degree to a degree and that is where the negotiation comes in, including by the way we need to address climate change. >> i want to ask you about the sort of state of play among the democratic caucus there in the senate. we saw that video with senator manchin with his head in his hands as senator schumer was speaking. what is the dynamic among democrats, what is the level of frustration, level of distrust such that it exists among the self-professed moderates, centrists and the rest of the caucus right now? >> i think that there is a commitment by all 50 democrats that we are going to get joe biden's domestic agenda passed and that is both the infrastructure bill as well as the build back better bill. we need to come together on a compromise as to amounts that are going to all these programmatic areas and we start with defining what areas we can agree on. and that is one of the things that i've been asking from both joe manchin and sinkyrsten sine. and there is a commitment to getting it done and that is why i believe that at the end of the day, there will be a domestic agenda that we can all support before december. >> i want to ask you about the senate judiciary committee releasing what is a scathing report as you well know detailing nine times that former president trump donald trump pressured top justice officials to overturn the election that he lost. you have said in the past that trump can't act as though the justice department is his personal law firm. what can congress do to prevent that from happening in the future? >> first of all, we need to make sure that the house can continue its january 6 investigation because all of this is part of trump's abuse of power and the fact that he didn't think the rule of law apply to the him. the big lie is still perpetuated. he is still having his rallies. and that is not going away. and he is still trying to act as though he is the president of the united states which he isn't. and so the efforts to perpetuate the big lie is still happening. what can we do? we need to make sure that there are firewalls between the justice department and the executive branch. that is supposed to be there but not under trump because he viewed the justice department as his very own law firm and pushed the acting attorney general to do his bidding. that was refused. and he tried to replace the acting attorney general with his own guy who frankly i never even heard of until this game to the public's attention, this person named jeff clarke who actually did thing like -- his own investigations, he had no authority to do. so one of the major things we need to ensure is that the department of justice is not the president's law firm. the independence of the department of justice is very critical, and if we have to pass some legislation to make that crystal clear, that's what we should consider doing. >> is congress's hands tied to the degree that the legislative branch can't really legislate with the executive branch can do. >> the three branches of government -- there are three branches of government. congress can do a lot. it would be helpful if we didn't have the obstructionist republicans that actually are willing to send this country over the economic cliff by kinds of games they're plague with the debt ceiling. so we can do a lot if there's more of an understanding that there are things we need to do, and we can do it in a bipartisan way. it takes both sides to do so and we're in a situation where it's really hard. that's one of the reasons that i support eliminating the filibuster, so we can get joe biden's domestic agenda done. that we can get the voting rights bill done. that we can get immigration reform done. and the myriad of other things that american people need in order to get on with their lives, and recover from this pandemic. >> we are within what we call the two-minute warning to president biden coming out and delivering the remarks about the monthly jobs report. if he comes out as we're speaking, my apologies for cutting you off. one more question about the last president. the house oversight committee announced when donald trump was in office he concealed millions of dollars in losses. he hid his debts and hid the fact that he was receiving millions from foreign governments. are we going to the white house now? he hid his debts and the fact that he received millions from foreign governments in relation to his hotel overseas. >> the president, again, is a con man, and he lies about how much money he has. he lies about the debt. he lies about a lot of things, and that's why there's been absolutely no transparency along those lines, and he has massive conflicts of interest relating to the trump hotel in washington d.c. and the lies he told to get his hands on that lease. so one thing that i'd like to really strengthen is the emoluments clause that will enable the senators like me who filed a lawsuit to go after president trump for his emoluments clause at obtaining a lot of benefits of foreign governments. i'd like to make that emoluments clause mean something. >> as we await the president coming to the lectern there, i want to ask about the rest of his domestic agenda. in addition to passing his social spending bill, there's also going to be movement on voting -- actually, forgive me. let's go to the president. senator, thank you for your time. >> good afternoon, everyone. today for the first time since march of 2020, the american unemployment rate is below 5%. in just eight months since i became president in the midst of a health and economic crisis, the unemployment rate is now below 5% at 4 .8 %. let me just repeat that. today's report has tun employment rate down to 4 .8 %. a significant improvement from when i took office and a sign our recovery is moving forward even in the face of a covid pandemic. that improvement was widespread. unemployment for hispanic workers was down, and the unemployment rate for african americans fell almost a full percent. and it's now below 8 % first time in 17 months. a drop of 496,000 in long-term unemployment is the second largest single month throughout since we started keeping records. the largest was in july. so in the past three months, we've seen a drop of 1.3 million long-term unemployed. that's the largest three-month fall long-term unemployment since we started keeping records in 1948. more to do, but great process. and working americans are seeing their paychecks go up as well. in september we saw one of the largest increases in average wages paid to workers -- working americans on record. today's report comes one day after the labor department found in the third quarter of this year the numb of layoffs and job reductions was the lowest in this country since 1997. overall the unemployment report shows almost 200,000 jobs were created last month. over 300,000 in the private sector and 26,000 in manufacturing offset by some seasonal adjustments in education and hiring. the monthly totals bounce around, but if you take a look at the trend, it's solid. an average, 600,000 new jobs created every month since i took office. and in three months before i got there, that was one tenth what was being created. it's 60,000 as opposed to 6,000 jobs a month. in total, the job creation in the first eight months of my administration is nearly 5 million jobs. jobs up, wages up, unemployment down. that's progress. and it's a tributed to the horde work and resilience of the american people who are battling through this pandemic j working to keep their businesses afloat. remember, today's report is based on a survey that was taken during the week of september 13th. not today. september 13th. when the covid cases were averaging more than 150,000 per day. since then, we've seen the daily cases fall by more than one-third, and they're continuing to trend down. we're continuing to make progress. right now things in washington as you all know are awfully noisy. turn on the news and every conversation is a confrontation. every disagreement is a crisis. when you take a step back and look at what's happening, we're actually making real progress. maybe it doesn't seem fast enough. i'd like to see it faster. we're going to make it faster, but maybe it doesn't appear dramatic enough. but i too would like to, as i said, move it faster. we're making consistent, steady progress. and thanks to bipartisan agreements, we're making progress on funding the government and raising the debt limit. so people continue to get their social security checks, the military continues to get paid, and so much more. we're making real progress on covid-19 as well. more than 186 million americans are now fully vaccinated. more than 75% of eligible americans have gotten at least one shot. and covid cases are down 40% in the past month. hospitalizations are down over 25%. in july when i announced the first vaccination requirement about 95 million eligible americans still had not been vaccinated. today we reduced that from 95 to 67 million americans not vaccinated. that's still much too much. there's more work to do. including getting more people vaccinated. but we continue to make progress. progress. and the american rescue plan which we passed shortly after i was elected, we made progress providing rent and mortgage relief to help keep roofs over people's heads. we provided checks in pockets and other benefits so families could put food on the table for their families. hundreds of thousands of loans to help small businesses stay open. and keep employees on the job getting paid. today towns and cities and states that were at risk of losing hundreds of thousands of jobs before because they didn't have the budget to pay, we helped make their payroll for them to keep teachers, police officers, firefighters, essential workers on the job. helping schools stay open with the equipment and resources needed to keep students and educators safe. and we finally gave a tax break -- i've been looking at this for a long time -- to families with children which as i speak is providing monthly checks for more families with for dr 60 million children. $300 a month for every child under the age of 7. $250 a month for every child under the age of 17, keeping the tax cut. it's a tax cut for these people. and cutting child poverty nearly in half. over 40%. we're make progress, protecting our air and water and natural lands. there's much more to do. and i'll have more to say about that later today. the jobs numbers also remind us that we have important work ahead of us, and important investments we need to make. america's still the largest economy in the world. we still have the most productive workers and the most innovative minds in the world. but we risk losing our edge as a nation if we don't move. our infrastructure used to be the best in the world. today according to the economic forum, the united states of america ranks 13th in the world. 13th on infrastructure. roads, bridges, ports, et cetera. we're among the first in the world to guarantee access to universal education back at the urn of the 20th century. now the organization of economic cooperation and development, catch this, ranked 35 out of 37 major economies when it comes to investing in early childhood education as a percent of gdp. 35 out of 37. on all these investments that fuel strong economy, we've taken a foot off the gas. and the world is taking notice. including our adversaries, and now they're closing the gap.