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Campbell Brown

President Obama Set to Address the Nation

Aired January 27, 2010 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He's going to try to push for a lot more education money, we're told, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of that education, I'm -- I'm told this is one area, Ed, education, where he thinks can he work with Republicans, for example, on the No Child Left Behind law that was enacted during the Bush administration. Is there an opportunity to get Republicans on board to cooperate with this Obama administration on education?

HENRY: They believe there is.

When you talk to senior officials here, they're encouraged by the comments of a moderate Republican, Mike Castle from Delaware, a House member who is running for Vice President Biden's old Senate seat and is looking like maybe the favorite for that seat.

Now, he has already made positive comments about how the president has reached out to them privately. This is one area where, behind the scenes, while it hasn't gotten a lot of headlines, they are working together.

And what's interesting is, the president will talk about trying to pull apart No Child Left Behind, which was his predecessor's signature education reform measure. The reason why it has some bipartisan support, because a lot of conservatives don't like that law either. So this might be one of the few areas where we can see both parties come together -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes. They're hoping they can work together with a John Boehner or a Lamar Alexander, the senator from Tennessee.

Stand by, Ed. We're going to be coming back to you in a few moments. The diplomatic corps will be brought up into the chamber on Capitol Hill.

Statuary hall, that's where everyone basically has to go through to get to the rotunda to get to the chamber.

Let's go to Capitol Hill right now. Our senior congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, is up on the Hill.

It's less than an hour away from the start of the speech, the formal introduction. Dana, give us a little preview.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the preview is really that you have the same sense of electricity, the same sense of energy that you always have at this time, just before the president of the United States comes in and speaks before the entire U.S. Congress.

The difference now is that that electricity has a sense of uncertainty in it, a big sense of uncertainty, and anxiety among Democrats who didn't think that they would have this much anxiety this early in an election year.

But I got to tell you, still, the overwhelming sense, even more than a week after the election in Massachusetts, is a sense of shock among Democrats, and that is the kind of audience predominantly that the president is going to be facing here.

Ed was talking about health care. We know that that is in dire straits. All day long today, Democratic leaders have been trying to figure out how to salvage that. And then that issue of jobs, Wolf, jobs is of course what everybody here wants to hear the president talk about.

But when it comes to the Senate, because they don't have that 60- vote majority anymore, we're already hearing that they're trying to scale back that, and maybe from their perspective, call the Republicans' bluff a little bit and try to put forward some of the issues that they think Republicans can come together with them on, like some tax credits, tax cuts for small businesses.

So that's the sense here. And we already have seen many members of Congress milling around, some of the president's team making their way into the chamber. And I should point out the chamber is just behind me just a few steps away, so definitely a lot of anticipation here tonight, but very, very different from the way everybody in the Democratic Party thought it was going to be just a week and a day ago.

BLITZER: One newsy nugget from the president's speech, Dana, he will formally ask Congress to repeal the don't ask, don't tell law that prevents gays from serving openly in the United States military. He will ask Congress to repeal that law. What's the appetite up on Congress to do that right now?

BASH: You know, it is obviously a politically dicey issue, one that, when it comes to Democrats, they have not wanted to deal with, especially in an election year.

However, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin, he was already planning on holding a hearing on this. He put it off because he heard from the White House that the president was going to make this a pretty big part of his State of the Union address.

And even the Senate -- the top Democrat in the Senate, Harry Reid, he is up for reelection in the state of Nevada. He has a very tough reelection battle ahead. Even he's been trying to encourage the White House to address this.

Look, that is a sector of the Democratic base, one of the many, that has been very, very upset with the president. The gay rights movement, they have been furious because they feel that in the year that he has been in office, he has done virtually nothing to advance their causes, so that is definitely part of this.

BLITZER: And Dana will be inside the chamber throughout.

We will be checking in with you while you're inside to get a little flavor of what's going on.

Dana Bash is our senior congressional correspondent.

Let's check in with Campbell Brown right now.

Campbell, you have got some great guys and gals over there to help us appreciate the history of tonight.

CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a good point, Wolf.

And, also, I mean, hearing from everybody throughout the day, I think a lot of doomsayers tonight.

And I just do want to get a little bit of a reality check on that.

David Gergen, how much trouble is this president really in? How much is at stake tonight?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I'm in the group that's pretty bleak about where he is right now.

I think that this president faces one of the toughest environments for any president in the State of the Union in my memory. And that is in part because, his signature issues on the domestic side, they're almost on life support. Health care definitely on life support, may disappear. Cap and trade not going to happen this year. Jobs, how much can he really do, even with $150 billion? After all last year he passed $787 billion, as we have been hearing all week on the Stimulus Project here with CNN.

And then if you look at the deficits, there is not the courage in Washington that we saw yesterday in the Senate vote on a commission, as we see in the president's own freeze, which has been derided by Democrats, as well as Republicans. He's freezing domestic discretionary spending at a level 20 percent above what he inherited.

So, you know, if you look at it, Campbell, on the domestic side, I think there is a very real danger here that his program, his domestic program, is dead on arrival before he speaks. I think that challenge for him tonight is to revive it, is to revive people's belief in him, that he can actually deliver as a leader.

BROWN: And, Candy, do they get that at the White House? I mean, do they feel the same way David does?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: That the pressure is that intense?

CROWLEY: Oh, the pressure is intense. There's absolutely no doubt about that.

But let's remember, he's one quarter through his administration, so I don't think we can kiss it off quite yet, and let's also remember that the story can change. You know, there was 9/11. It totally changed George Bush's administration. Things can happen. David is not wrong. It is just a horrible picture at this moment.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He has to kind of reframe his presidency right now. And he also -- I mean, he's got to talk to his own party, by the way, because they're angry, they're bitter. He's not only got anger and bitter Republicans; he has got angry and bitter Democrats, that he has got to say, look, we now to work together to get something done, because to Paul Begala's point earlier, they run the place. They run the government.

So they don't have 60 votes now. OK, fine, but they still are a governing majority, and he's got to tell his own party, we have got to govern. And that's important for him to do tonight. One more thing, he's got to be the outsider.

It's always interesting to watch presidents after a year or two in office suddenly become the outsider again, having lived in Washington, because they discover that reformers are the people who get elected.

BROWN: But no one's better at delivering a message, right, if what you communicate and how you communicate it is so essential tonight.

Roland?

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The key really is not what he delivers. It's, what does he do tomorrow? We have heard speeches. We have heard lots of speeches.

BORGER: And he's good.

MARTIN: But the question is, what do you do tomorrow?

GERGEN: He's going to make another speech.

MARTIN: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: I mean, first of all, where does the work come in?

And I talked to Congressman John Conyers. He said, part of the problem, when Democrats are in control, they never truly have a solid 205 votes and you can really pick up 15 or 20. He said, they start with about 165. They have got to spend all the time negotiating in their own party to get something. Health care has been passed by the House. It's been passed by the Senate, but Democrats cannot figure out amongst themselves what do they like, public option, no public option.

And, so, at some point the party has to say are we going to hold onto our own personal issues and say we got to have them or are you going to get it passed? And so they have to look at themselves in the eye. You cannot blame the Republicans. The Republicans have been saying no. You got that. It's your own party that has been his downfall for the past year.

BROWN: So, let me bring in Donna Brazile. She's joining us from Washington tonight.

And I know you were at the White House just yesterday, Donna. What is on the feeling about what is mostly on the table tonight how crucial all this is?

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it starts with jobs and it ends with jobs. This is about the economy, stupid. And James and Paul, clearly, they know what I'm talking about.

This president has an opportunity to not only reset his agenda, his priorities, but to deliver them tonight to the American people with a narrative that says you are the center of my attention. I'm fighting for you. I'm on your side. He doesn't need to become a populist and be reborn tomorrow as Huey Long.

What he needs is populist results. He needs to connect the dots and show the American people that his programs are working and that he's hard at work in restoring this economy, so that we can get back on the road to prosperity. That's what the president needs to do tonight. If the president's able to accomplish that, trust me, the Democrats will join him and hopefully the Republicans will get off the sideline and support him as well.

BROWN: James Carville, what -- I mean, we know a little bit about what he's going to say. We have even some of the excerpts. But what should he say? The State of the Union is blank.

JAMES CARVILLE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Boy, I'll tell you what. If anybody wasn't depressed 15 minutes ago...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, are you in the same camp as these guys?

CARVILLE: Look, yes, I think the Massachusetts thing was significant, according to my wife, is saying that Mike Tyson -- somebody said that Mike Tyson hit you so hard, it changes the way you taste. They taste different, I suspect.

(LAUGHTER)

CARVILLE: I suspect that a lot of this speech was written after Massachusetts.

Look, I think, for me, the president has programs. He's got different programs. I don't know that the president has a plan. I hope tonight that he can tell the American people that there's something here, there's a plan, this is a tough time, we need to stay the course, this is my plan to do that.

And I think if he does that, and if he just -- this is not going to be a home run thing. We're not going to wake up tomorrow and there's going to be an entirely new political environment tomorrow in Washington, but I think if he lays out and establishes something with people and they say, you know, this guy has got something that he's trying to do, it always is tough, he inherited a god-awful recession, he came in, interest rates were at zero, the deficit was this, but he's sticking to his guns, he's got something in place, he can point to some progress -- and if he can do that he will have done a pretty good thing.

It's not going to be like it was in January or when he took office. We're not going to go back to that time any time soon, but he can do something better -- you know, where he can start. He can start it tonight. And let's see if he's able to do that.

BROWN: Let me quickly get a Republican perspective before we take a quick break.

Mary Matalin what should he say tonight?

MARY MATALIN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he can't do what Donna or James or anyone is suggesting, pointing to any accomplishment, because there are none.

The deficit is four times greater than it was. The accumulated debt, according to the CBO, is greater than every piece of debt we had since our founding. Weatherization doesn't work. Mortgage foreclosure doesn't work.

We have lost more jobs since the stimulus has been in place. There's nothing to point to, so we have to go what Roland said. Who cares what he says tonight. It's what he does tomorrow and the next day and the next day to connect where people are at. And they're not looking for global climate change legislation.

They just want businesses to get up on their feet. They want some access to capital. They want those practical things that aren't glamorous, aren't sexy. And the Republicans will be with them on cutting taxes and getting -- incentivizing entrepreneurship and growing the economy. That's what they want. That's what he needs to do.

BROWN: Will the Republicans be with him? We will see about that.

Wolf, let me throw it back to you.

BLITZER: All right, Campbell.

We're going to come back to the best political team on television.

It's a very carefully orchestrated series of events that are beginning right now. The diplomatic corps is about to be introduced in the chamber. Members of the Joint Chiefs will be walking in. You're looking at live pictures from Statuary Hall. They all go through Statuary Hall to get to the chamber. It's a magnificent chamber, indeed.

The first lady eventually will be escorted up to what is called the Executive Gallery. Members of the Cabinet will be there, the vice president, Nancy Pelosi. We're going to bring it all to you, including the president. He's going to be heading over from the White House up Pennsylvania Avenue over to Capitol Hill.

Anderson Cooper is watching all of this. He's got the latest from Haiti. Soledad O'Brien's got some new poll numbers. We're only getting started. Our coverage continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The president and first lady getting ready to leave the White House, drive down Pennsylvania Avenue up to Capitol Hill. We will have complete coverage of that. About 45 minutes from now, he will be introduced in the chamber, a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate.

Let's check in with our special correspondent, Soledad O'Brien. She's got some new poll numbers that can help us better appreciate what's going on.

Soledad, share those numbers with us.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: We were very interested in getting a sense of the polls of how people feel about how the president's speech will be tonight.

As David Gergen put it, you know, can he revive people's belief in him. And, so, when you asked the question, President Obama's speech will be, you take a look, it actually is pretty good news for the president, under excellent and good, 24 percent, 39 percent. That adds up to 64 percent. So, overwhelmingly, people are feeling very positively about the president's speech tonight.

When you ask the question in this very same poll is President Obama a strong and decisive leader, once again, how do they feel about him as a leader, overwhelmingly good news. Yes, 60 percent say the president is a strong and decisive leader. So, this is going to bode very well for the president as he goes into tonight's speech, high hopes, high expectations from the folks who will be listening.

We already know that people give him high points for being a good orator, 90 percent in an earlier poll we looked at. But of course it comes down to the specifics, the content, what he says, what's the plan, as someone on your panel said a little bit earlier.

And that's really what we are going to be gauge after the speech. As you know, we're going to be talking to some voters who will say what they think the president did, how he laid it out, how they felt his speech went after the president gives his remarks -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Soledad, we will check back with you.

It's been now just 15 days since that earthquake hit in Haiti. I want to go to Port-au-Prince right now.

CNN's Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta, they have both been there from almost the beginning.

I want you guys to weigh in.

Anderson, let me start with you.

The president's going to be speaking tonight about foreign affairs, too, not only domestic issues. He's going to speak about what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, for example. But I'm sure he's going to mention what's happening in Haiti. What are you going to be listening for, Anderson?

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Well, first of all, let me just say that Sanjay and I were listening to the panel before and we're all shocked at how squeaky-clean and fresh you guys look. So, I apologize for us not quite being up to the same standards.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: But I think there's certainly going to be some in Haiti. Most people here do not have electricity, obviously not going to be watching television or really hearing much, if anything, about this speech.

Probably, the elites in Haiti who do have access to television are going to be paying attention to what the president says about Haiti, if anything, in this speech. And particularly there's a lot of concern about the U.S. not living up to promises that it has made for the rebuilding of Haiti. And so I think there's a lot of concern what kind of commitment the U.S. is going to have long-term here on the ground.

COOPER: Yes, Sanjay, I know you're going to be listening very carefully among other things to what he says and doesn't say about health care reform.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely.

You know, with regard to health care reform, how strong is he going to be on this particular topic? Given the events of the last week, are we going to hear some of the same sort of promises and some of the same language that we heard as far back as the campaign?

We do know a couple of things. I mean, some of the basic (AUDIO GAP) this idea people that should have health care insurance, that they should not be discriminated against for preexisting conditions, and that insurance companies should be capped in terms of what they can charge for these policies.

But pretty much after that, Wolf, as we have talked about for some time, it's a little bit up for grabs. And I think that it will be interesting to see how definitive he is on some of these other things that he's talked about for so long.

BLITZER: It's amazing when you think about it. And I think about you guys, Anderson, you and Sanjay Gupta. It's been, what, 15 days. In terms of what you have gone through and the people of Haiti have gone through, it's unbelievable how painful all of that has been, but in terms of politics here in the United States these past 15 days, they have seen a pretty significant change, and the speech the president's going to deliver tonight is going to be different than the one he would have delivered before that Massachusetts Senate race that seems to have changed so much right now.

The president's going to acknowledge he bears some of that responsibility for the failure over his first year in the White House. It's going to be an interesting part of the speech.

But as you listen tonight, Anderson, let's drill down a little deeper on Haiti right now. Give our viewers in the United States and around the world a sense of what is happening right now, are things getting better, staying the same, the enormity of this crisis.

COOPER: Well, we're seeing every single day things slowly, slowly improving in the lives of people.

But, look, there's still, you know, a couple hundred people in the park behind us. They have been there since day one. There are I think more than a million people said to be homeless. At this point the death toll is anywhere from 150,000 or higher, though, frankly the Haitian government, I don't even think they're really counting the dead. They're just dumping them on the sides of the roads outside of town.

So there is still -- the needs are overwhelming. I mean, you do see people cleaning up. You see people taking matters into their own hands. You do see some bulldozers bulldozing some of these broken- down homes and tossing it out.

But the needs are overwhelming. The infrastructure is so depleted. Even in the best of times, there wasn't much of one. So, there's a long road ahead -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, Sanjay, give us a thought from you.

GUPTA: Well, we focus on acute phase of things, of taking care of patients, saving their lives, frankly, but what I'm really sort of struck by, Wolf, is that so few people have a home to go to after that.

They're not going to get any post-operative care or just post- hospital care of any sort. We talk about so many amputations being performed. Anderson and I know that, if you don't have a leg and you live in Port-au-Prince, it's essentially a death sentence for you. How are these prosthetics actually going to get fit? How are they going to get refit as kids grow older? There's a lot of long-term issues which are going to declare themselves -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, guys, you are going to be with us throughout the night. We are going to check back with you.

We're also going to check in with our national political correspondent, Jessica Yellin. She's with a focus group of citizens in Columbus, Ohio. We will see what they have on their minds.

Our coverage continues of the president's State of the Union address. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And welcome back, everybody. We are awaiting the president's first State of the Union address.

He's actually spoken to a joint session of Congress three times prior to this, but it's not officially his State of the Union address until after he has served a full year as president. That's set to begin in a little more than half-an-hour.

We want to check in right now with our own Jessica Yellin.

She is at Ohio State with a large group of voters there who are going to be watching the president's address tonight.

And, Jessica, give us a sense for what they want to hear from the president.

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Campbell, it's not surprising we're here in Columbus, Ohio, a bellwether state with very high unemployment. People want to hear about jobs.

And what we have is a dial-testing group where people can register their real-time reaction to the president's comments as he makes them. Folks can actually watch their reaction live on CNN.com. So it will be streaming there, while you can also watch the speech on television. You can have both up.

This is a scientifically selected group of 30 people, equal number of Democrats, Republicans and independents. And I'll tell you, I have spoken to a bunch of them. As I have said, they're very interested in jobs and the economy.

The other theme that has come up over and over, Campbell, is the tone in Washington. Folks here say they are very bothered by the partisanship in Washington, and they want to hear what the president personally will do to fix it. So, in addition to watching their real-time reaction, come back to us after the speech. We're going to interview some of these folks and ask them if they liked what they heard and why they're reacting the way they did.

So, it's very interesting, a lovely group of people. We're having a good time already, Campbell.

BROWN: All right, Jessica Yellin. We will see you in just a bit, Jessica.

And let's check in with our own resident independent, John Avlon, here tonight.

Is that what independent -- OK, Democrats are angry about a long laundry list of things. The Republicans are angry about their own stuff. Is that what independents are angry about, John, the tone in Washington?

JOHN AVLON, AUTHOR, "WINGNUTS": Yes. Yes.

Independents are angry because the two parties are more and more polarized and less representative of the American people. And the rise of independents -- and they're the largest and fastest-growing group of the electorate -- is in direct response to the polarization of the two parties.

Back in 2007, independents, already, their number-one issue was the economy. Democrats said health care. Republicans the war on terror. So independents have been feeling the squeeze long before Wall Street went off the rails. And if you think about what Obama has got to do tonight, he's got reconnect with independents, who he won by eight points in '08.

He's got to reconnect with moderates in the middle class, because these folks feel anger at both big government and big business. That's the thing. It's not populism on one side or the other. They're angry at the extremes on both sides.

BROWN: So, when you have heard a lot of the people at the White House, as I have, that it's really not about the president's agenda, people are angry about the way Congress is trying to address the president's agenda, is that a fair assessment?

AVLON: I think it's kind of a self-serving explanation, but there's some truth to it.

If you look at the president's poll numbers, the president is very popular personally. You know who is not popular? Congress. Lower approval ratings than President Bush had when he left office. And so I think there is a sense -- independents don't like unified control of government. That's one of the things they threw out with Bush and the conservative control of Congress. Why? Because there was ideological arrogance, legislative overreach and overspending.

And that's exactly what they see today in the Democratic- controlled Congress.

BROWN: But let me get to our guys over here, because I haven't heard yet from Paul Begala, Alex Castellanos, and Bill Bennett.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And you missed us, didn't you?

BROWN: I did, actually.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Can the president, Paul, change the tone in Washington with one speech tonight?

BEGALA: No, not with one term as president, not with two terms as president.

These are the times in which we live, and he didn't get a chance to pick them. And as I mentioned before, both of his predecessors honestly fervently, deeply, personally, tried and wanted to change the tone, and completely failed, utterly failed. So you have to succeed in the country that you're given.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: ... these voters then who are so angry about this?

BEGALA: Well, first off, let me just attack the voters for a minute. Why do they keep electing -- seriously.

BROWN: That's not a good plan.

BEGALA: They reward the most partisan screamers, and they defeat the bipartisan people who try to work together. So some of this...

(CROSSTALK)

ALEX CASTELLANOS, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: That's not true. They elected Barack Obama.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: Scott Brown won in part because he pledged to be the 41st vote to stop health care. He didn't say I will go down there and work with President Obama to fix health care.

(CROSSTALK)

BEGALA: So, I think he's just got to operate in the environment in which he exists.

As I said earlier, Democrats can pass things. They may have to use procedural movements to do so, but they can do this. And this whole myth of bipartisanship is one that, like the unicorn, that this president needs to turn loose of. There will be no bipartisanship.

BROWN: And how do you guys feel about that, Alex?

CASTELLANOS: Well, I think the president needs to move to the middle tonight, and maybe if he can get Steve Jobs to help him and come out with a new product, the iBama tonight.

(LAUGHTER)

CASTELLANOS: But it's not going to happen.

Look, the president is right that Americans hate Washington. They don't trust it. But one party and one administration wants more power in Washington, wants Washington to spend more, thinks Washington is the answer. That's why they're throwing Democrats out and putting Republicans in.

The president needs to be clear which side of that divide he's on tonight. Now what he usually does in big speeches is on the one hand and on the other hand. He usually says Reverend Wright oh, that's terrible what he did but I can't disown him. If he does that tonight, by the way, we're going to reduce the deficit but, by the way, here's a credit card and we're going to have a party, he's going to ruin himself. He needs to take a clear stand one direction or the other, either make his base happy or make the independents in the middle happy.

BROWN: Bill?

WILLIAM BENNETT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think it's a mistake to think of Scott Brown as conservative ideologue. Conservatives got behind him. It was the independents that put Scott Brown in. By the way, more registration of independents than anybody else in Massachusetts.

You've got to be working pretty hard away from the center if you can't get Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. I mean, you ought to be able to do that and again, with these large numbers you have on your own side.

Look, I think they know and misplayed health care in terms of the recommendations but in terms of the process. They couldn't get agreement among their own people. They should have been able to pick off two or three Republicans and they couldn't do that. Now, his immediate problem tonight he's going to call for a freeze. Nancy Pelosi said extend the freeze to defense. Webb --

BROWN: Spending freeze?

BENNETT: Yes, the spending freeze. Webb and Lincoln the other day signed a letter with Joe Lieberman and others saying we don't want these trials in New York of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. One of the other things that Scott Brown did was now bring Democrats out who are not happy with Obama publicly criticizing him.

BROWN: All right. Stand by, everybody. We've got to take a quick break. The president about to leave the White House. We'll be bringing that to you live along with John King with some new and interesting fun at the magic wall. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: You're looking at a live picture of the entrance from the South lawn of the White House into the White House. The president momentarily will be leaving, exiting the White House together with the first lady, getting into the limousine and heading up Capitol Hill -- heading up Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill. That's where he'll deliver the State of the Union address.

We're watching all of this very carefully, about 24 minutes and 30 seconds or so to go before the start, the scheduled start of the speech, right after 9:00 p.m. Eastern at the top of the hour.

We're keeping track of a lot of what's going on. Ali Velshi is our chief business correspondent. He's over at the CNN stimulus desk right now, working on this economic stimulus package to see if it's really creating jobs. What are you seeing, Ali?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: What we're doing, Wolf, is all week we are going through the 57,000 projects that have received government money under the stimulus act. And we're calling individual projects, we're calling business owners, we're calling government agencies to find out whether the money has been spent and whether jobs have been created.

The stimulus desk is on the job tonight. And while the State of the Union speech is going on, what we're going to be doing is listening very carefully for things and references in that speech that refer to money that's spent on stimulus and/or jobs created. Now every time we look into a single project that received money, we add that to our poll of, we add that to the number of dollars that are under review right now by CNN. And as you can see, out of the over $800 billion in the stimulus act, we are going piece by piece. We're up to about $3.5 billion that are under review by our staff.

We're going to continue doing that through the course of the evening, finding out if those stimulus projects and those dollars actually result in jobs created for Americans and that's what we're looking for during this speech.

BLITZER: We're going to check back with you throughout the evening. Ali, thanks very much.

We now have live pictures coming in from Capitol Hill. There's Nancy Pelosi. She's formally gaveling the session to order. The speaker of the House will then be there together with the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, who is the president of the Senate. They'll be sitting behind the president, of course, as he delivers the speech tonight.

We'll watch all of this together with you. They're going to be introducing shortly members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the diplomatic corps, the cabinet, and others. We'll watch it all.

I think we just saw the vice president. There's Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, escorting the vice president and others as they walk in to this chamber. The first lady will be sitting up in the gallery.

There's Joe Biden. He spent a long time in the United States Senate. He deeply appreciates his new role as the president of the Senate in addition to being the vice president of the United States.

We'll show you these pictures, but I want to bring in our Tom Foreman. He's over at the CNN fact-check desk right now.

Tom, we're going to be hearing a lot of statements, bold statements in the president's speech tonight, and your job and your team there, your responsibility is to make sure we're keeping them honest.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Those projections, whatever the president says about this, we all know there's been a tough area. There are legitimate predictions out there that we can be looking at 10 percent unemployment for the remainder of this year, maybe only nine percent after that. We want to hear what the president says about that, whether he thinks that's possible and if not, why he thinks not and what he can do about it.

We're going to look very closely for what he says about deficit reduction plans, because this is a big word here, reduction. The deficit is a big deal, and the Congressional Budget Office says it's going to remain a very big deal for a long time unless this comes under controls. So we're going to look closely at what he says and weigh it against what other experts have said on this issue.

And the last thing we're going to look at, of course, is going to be spending control, because of course many of the president's critics say that's one of the reasons the deficit is in such trouble aside from the recession. Wolf, we'll be checking the facts on all of this against what the president and the Republican response says.

BLITZER: I love it. I love it when you check the facts together with our team, and Ali Velshi checks the facts on the economic stimulus package.

You're looking once again at the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Senators are walking in. You see Chuck Schumer in the middle of the screen there, Frank Lautenberg, the senator from New Jersey. They'll be coming in, all the members, at least most of the members will be walking in, most members of the House of Representatives.

Some members of the House, by the way, have been there since 8:00 this morning. They want a good seat in order when the president comes in to shake the president's hand and presumably be seen on television as we cover all of this. You're seeing these pictures of the leadership, the Senate leadership and others as they walk in.

This is the South Lawn of the White House, where the president will be exiting momentarily. He'll get into his limousine and make that short drive up Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill. He's got his speech in hand. He's got everything ready to go.

This will be actually the third time that Barack Obama will be addressing a joint session or joint meeting of the House and the Senate. The two earlier ones were not formal State of the Union addresses. This will be his first formal State of the Union address, but when we were over at the White House earlier in the day today, we had an opportunity to hear a little bit from the president, made it clear he's a lot less nervous about the theatrics of doing this tonight, because he's had some experience. There he is with the first lady.

We'll watch this picture as they get into the limo and begin this journey, a short journey up Pennsylvania Avenue over to Capitol Hill. It shouldn't take more than five minutes, I'm guessing, because you know what? When you're the president of the United States and you have a motorcade, you don't have to stop for anything. You just go right up through all those lights, make it up to Capitol Hill and walk inside.

But we're also going to share with you, by the way, the first lady. She has some special guests. She's invited to sit up in the gallery. With her, we have a list of those guests and we're going to tell you who they are. The president will be making some reference to some of those guests up in the gallery with the first lady.

As we see the president and the first lady drive up to Capitol Hill, we'll take this quick break. We'll continue our coverage after this.

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BLITZER: All right. You're seeing members of the Senate walking in. There's Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Joe Biden is the president of the Senate. That's why he's up there together with Nancy Pelosi, and you'll be seeing them standing and sitting down repeatedly during the course of the president's speech.

We see Republican senators, Democratic senators walking in right now, and you can make out some of your representatives in the process as well. Arlen Specter and Al Franken walking in right now. Arlen Specter used to be a Republican, he's now a Democrat. He wants to get reelected. And Al Franken, there's the Democrat, the junior Democratic senator from the state of Minnesota.

There's Barbara Boxer and Jay Rock -- is that Jay Rockefeller? No, it's not Jay Rockefeller. But members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they're already inside, the diplomatic corps. You can see Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. He's there as well. He's in the leadership.

But this is a moment that a lot of these members appreciate. It's all very, very carefully choreographed as they walk in and they get ready to take their seats. As I said the diplomatic corps is already inside. At some point, members of the Supreme Court will be introduced, and then members of the cabinet. We know that the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, will not be in the chamber tonight. She's in London at a conference with other foreign ministers. She got permission from the president to skip the State of the Union address. We also know that one member of the cabinet will deliberately not be allowed inside for what's called the continuity of government. God forbid anything where to happen, there would be at least one member of the cabinet in line for a succession. We're going to tell you who that is as soon as we find out. We don't know right now, but let's bring in Dana bash, our senior congressional correspondent.

Dana, you're inside that chamber right now, right?

VOICE OF DANA BASH, CNN SR. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I sure am. I'm inside and I'm watching what you're watching. The senators come over from the Senate to the House, and watching -- you know, this is one of those scenes where people are going to see quite a different scene when the president begins to speak and you'll probably have very partisan reactions to what he's saying, based on what he's saying. But this is a time where people are mulling around and they're catching up with one another and you actually see what I see every day and that is that Congress is a club, Republicans and Democrats alike.

One thing I just want to mention to you that I'm directly above Joe Wilson. We remember Joe Wilson the last time the president was here. He screamed out "you lie," famously screamed out "you lie" and he's surrounded now by some of his conservative friends.

BLITZER: Now let me interrupt you for a moment because the president's motorcade, as I said, wouldn't take very long to get from the White House, the South Lawn of the White House up to Capitol Hill. And you see the president's motorcade now arriving. The president and the first lady will go inside and get ready for the State of the Union address. And we're going to have pictures, trying to show what's going on.

But go ahead, I interrupted, Dana. Finish your thought.

BASH: That's OK. I just was going to tell you that the top Republican in the House, John Boehner, he told myself and a few other reporters at a breakfast this morning that he was going to make clear to all of the Republican rank and file that he doesn't want any of that tonight, that he is in his words it is -- when you invite somebody to your home, you should be respectful and considerate. And that is really the message that he gave to Republicans. So it will be interesting to see if they follow that this time the president comes and speaks before Congress.

BLITZER: Yes, we just saw Al Franken, the senator from Minnesota speaking with Congressman Eliot Engel of New York, the Democratic congressman. He's been there I'm told since 8:00 this morning, because he wanted that seat. But he does that every time there's a State of the Union address.

John King is here. He's watching all of this. John, you and I and some other television anchors, we had a chance to have lunch over at the White House today with the president of the United States, and give ours viewers a sense of what you emerged from that lunch and with getting ready for the speech tonight.

VOICE OF JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a fascinating moment for the president. On the one hand, Wolf, he doesn't think that he's governed too much from the left, which is a chief Republican criticism. He doesn't think that the public has rejected the specifics of his agenda in any big way. He doesn't think people in the country think that he's too soft on terrorism, giving them Miranda rights, putting them in the federal court system as opposed to at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And he doesn't think that people have turned on him in the sense that they still believe in his view that he's on their side when it comes to their economic struggles.

And yet when you talk to the Republicans, including leader Boehner, I was also at their breakfast this morning, they have completely the opposite view. They say they believe the voters think he is governing too much from the left, that he is too soft when it comes to terrorism, and that he has lost touch with them on jobs and the economy and their economic distress. So we have this remarkable contrast.

Elections are about choices. There are pretty clear choices in this midterm election year, and the president will go into that chamber in such a different position than a year ago, when he first came to office. This is the first official State of the Union, but in political Washington he could do no wrong and his critics were afraid to challenge him.

Now the Republicans, especially after Massachusetts, feel that don't run against him personally. That's their message. Don't criticize him personally but they have no qualms at all about running against the specifics of just about everything he will propose tonight.

NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, I just want to give them a warning. Excuse me, Mr. Vice president.

BROWN: You do wonder who has the upper hand going into November, because if you look at the polling, it's not just people angry at this president. They're angry at Washington more generally and especially Congress. So is it really Republicans, we've seen them win the last few races, but is it really about Republicans having the upper hand or is it just incumbents being in danger?

KING: It is mostly incumbents. If you break it down, the NBC "Wall Street journal" did a poll, pre-State of the Union poll, where actually voters blame the Republicans in Congress a little bit more than the Democrats in Congress, and they blame President Obama less than either of those. However, that's when you give them those specific choices.

When you're running in an election environment, there's us and them, and them are the guys who are in charge. And President Obama, whether you support or don't support him, is learning what President Clinton, President Bush and a whole long line of other presidents learned before then. Once you take that desk and you take the Oval Office, if people are mad, the way the president views it is, 10 percent of the American people are unemployed. Your house has lost $50,000 or $100,000 in its value and the pollster calls and says, how's the president doing? What are you going to say when you're having trouble sending your kid to college?

BROWN: There you go.

KING: You're worried about your mortgage. You say, well, not so good, thank you, and you hang up the phone. And that's the -- forget the specifics for a minute. That's the big environment he's in.

And then you debate can he rescue health care, can he do something about jobs? Is it time to talk about energy or immigration? But the big tide in the country is people thinking that they are lost in this economy or struggling in this economy, watching their states cut spending, their school districts cut spending, their mayor cut spending. And they look at Washington and they say, how come you haven't made any of the sacrifices that I have had to make around the kitchen table with my family and everybody in my community is making.

VOICE OF GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And when we look back on the first year of Obama, the question may be why did this popular president contract out his most important part of his agenda, health care reform, to people who are very unpopular, which is Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and then subcontract it out to Max Baucus, the senator from the state of Montana, instead of taking the leadership role himself. He's the popular one.

BLITZER: All right. We're seeing the floor of the House of Representatives as members, leadership they get ready to receive members of the cabinet, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Supreme Court, and others. The president of the United States and the first lady, they're now inside the U.S. Congress. They're getting ready for their respective roles tonight. The president will be delivering the speech. The first lady will be sitting in the gallery with some invited guests.

This speech has been in the works now for some time. Our senior White House correspondent Ed Henry has just learned that maybe the president, even at this late moment, Ed, what are you hearing, has tweaked, has revised a little bit? We're seeing Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of the vice president go into the gallery right now.

But go ahead, Ed, tell our viewers what you know.

VOICE OF ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Two quick nuggets, Wolf. First of all, CNN has learned that the president has been working on the speech right up until the last moment, talked to a couple of top White House aides who say they haven't really seen a working draft of the speech since about noon Eastern Time today. We were supposed to get an embargo copy of the entire address about 8:30 Eastern. That is obviously passed more than 20, 25 minutes ago. They don't have that because it was being worked on, some last-minute changes. We'll have to see what those were. One other quick note of news that we're learning is that the cabinet secretary staying behind is going to be Sean Donovan, the housing secretary. This is a security measure to make sure, God forbid, as you mentioned, there's some sort of catastrophic event that there would be a cabinet secretary away from this site, away from the Capitol so that that person could help lead a new government, number one.

Secondly, as you know, there's also some members of Congress who post 9/11 now stay behind as well so that you can reconvene Congress, as you mentioned a continuity of government. So it's going to be Sean Donovan, the housing secretary, we're learning from senior officials, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes. So Sean Donovan will be not inside the chamber and as I mentioned the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not there either. She's in London in a conference.

We're looking at members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff now. The Marine commandant, you saw him there on the right, General Conway.

Ed, if you're still there, do you know some of the people that the first lady has invited to be sitting up in the gallery with her, who we can anticipate will be there up in the gallery?

HENRY: Yes. I don't have all of the names in front of me but some of them include the Haitian ambassador to the U.S. For example, if you've had on "THE SITUATION ROOM" obviously the president going to make a big nod to the people of Haiti, and talk about the U.S. role there in trying to rebuild that nation torn apart. Also, some of the police officers that responded to the tragedy at Fort Hood.

You remember there's a tradition really pushed by Ronald Reagan, continued by presidents of both parties, to find sort of everyday heroes, people throughout the community that the president can sort of hold up. And you can see in some of the excerpts this president is going to have sort of an optimistic tone. We're told by senior officials he's not going to have a change (ph) in tone like Bill Clinton in 1995, coming out of that special election loss. He's not going to be, you know, sort of putting his head in the sand. He's going to try to be optimistic and say that while there's a lot of difficulties, he still thinks obviously best days are ahead, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Ed, stand by. By the way, you saw the introduction of the most senior, the dean of the diplomatic corps. That's the ambassador of the Republic of Djibouti. And you saw the chief of protocol being -- escorting the dean of the diplomatic corps there, Capricia Marshall, who's the chief of protocol.

They're about to introduce members of the Supreme Court. Barry Sullivan, the majority floor services chief, will introduce and will announce members of the Supreme Court. We'll see how many of them show up. There are nine members of the Supreme Court, as you know, and not all of them always come in. But let's listen to this.

BARRY SULLIVAN, MAJORITY FLOOR SERVICES CHIEF: Madam Speaker, the chief justice and the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

BLITZER: We'll be hearing more from Barry Sullivan, the majority floor services chief.

Campbell, as we see members of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, the chief justice walked in, it's a moment to reflect that all branches of the U.S. government are here, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.

BROWN: We're also getting a little bit of guidance, Wolf, now, that the speech is running about 70 minutes, between 70 to 75 minutes, with applause.

Don't groan, David Gergen, but that does seem I think a little longer than is normal. Except maybe you're thinking back to some of Bill Clinton's speeches that were notoriously lengthy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The era of short speech is over.

BROWN: Was that -- they're just trying to fit everything in here, John King?

KING: I think Bill Clinton went a little longer than that, once in the record long run.

BROWN: Yes?

BORGER: He went 89 minutes, after the midterm election shift.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Bill Clinton could carry off a long speech. He was very effective in his form, one of the only presidents we've had in our times who actually got a bump out of the State of the Union. I think the challenge tonight is can Barack Obama pull off a long speech? I don't think we know the answer to that yet.

BROWN: Or is brevity kind of what is needed tonight?

VOICE OF CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: We just spent, you know, however long discussing all the problems he has and what he needs to address, 70 minutes may in the end not be enough for him.

BROWN: Let me just mention the first lady, guys. Let's take a look. The first lady walking in right now to the box. Ed Henry was mentioning who some of the guests are a little bit earlier. Many of the characters obviously who are there to represent certain points he's going to make in the speech. A woman who was denied health insurance I believe is there because she had a preexisting condition. There's a small business owner who's sitting in the box with her who benefited greatly from the stimulus, so many people that the president will be pointing to throughout the night with the first lady.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe a Reagan invention.

BROWN: Yes, there you go. There you go. VOICE OF ROLAND MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Because remember his primetime news conference when he talked about getting all of these letters from folks on health care. You're sitting here saying, OK, here's a moment where he's going to highlight it. He ran right past it. And so what you hear from people saying he operates as a technocrat, someone who's more professional (ph), who is not touching people in the hearts versus their minds. He has to reach the American people tonight that way as well to make an emotional connection with them as opposed to a distant connection with them tonight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did Roland coordinate with the speaker and Vice President Biden, the purple?

BROWN: Let me also mention here, hold on guys. The president's cabinet is coming into the room right now and I think our Dana Bash is down there as well, watching this -- Dana.

BASH: You said the cabinet is coming in. There you see the treasury secretary, who now is getting a warm welcome but boy, was he grilled just a few hours ago here on Capitol Hill especially from Democrats on the state of this economy. It was quite a scene.

But one thing I want to mention that Sonia Sotomayor, she -- when she came down as part of the Supreme Court justices, boy, was she cheered, really cheered by the members of Congress, who saw her, obviously the first Latina Supreme Court justice and also one of the successes of President Obama's first year in office. And she is really smiling from ear to ear.

BLITZER: And they come in, Dana, as you know, in seniority, the treasury secretary, then the defense secretary. You saw Robert Gates follow Timothy Geithner, and they're going in seniority in terms of the creation of those respective cabinet posts, so we'll watch this as they go on. They're going to continue to get themselves into their seats, as the president eventually will be introduced. There's the attorney general, Eric Holder, who's getting ready to sit down himself.

One aspect of what's going to be spoken about tonight although we haven't focused a lot on it, is that the president will have a whole section on national security and international affairs. He'll speak about what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. He'll speak about some troubling issues, including Iran. The president will go into some length on some of those issues because he's proud of the fact that he thinks of America's image around the world has improved since he's become president of the United States over this past year.

The president will be introduced momentarily, and then he'll be roundly applauded by everyone inside. Get ready for a historic night.

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