The Obama Message Blitz; Michelle Obama's Green Thumb
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight President Obama's damage control. Can he bailout the economy with frequent flyer miles? On the road, on the air, online, seemingly everywhere, the President's full court press to overcome the anger at AIG and the questions about his administration's role in allowing the bonuses. Also in this hour, recession scammers, have they fooled you yet? They say they're from the government, demanding bogus taxes or promising stimulus money to get your bank account numbers. Tonight: how to keep the crooks out of your pockets. And later, Natasha Richardson, disturbing new facts about what happened in the hours, yes, hours between when she fell and when she finally got medical treatment. That and Michelle Obama's victory garden -- talk about a shovel ready project not far from the Rose Garden. Vegetables for the first time since World War II. We begin though, with President Obama fighting to keep his message and his economic plans from burning up in the white hot flames over bonuses at AIG. Tuesday, he's going to speak on national television. Last night it was "The Tonight Show;" all week, town halls. It seems like he has been everywhere this week. But everywhere he goes, outrage and finger pointing follow over the bonuses, $165 million. The question tonight, can he lead the country past that anger and bring the focus back from AIG to you and me? Candy Crowley has the "Raw Politics."</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: AIG week consumed most of the Washington establishment. Except...</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you, guys. Thank you.</s>CROWLEY: If it is Friday, this must be the meeting with state legislators, about the stimulus plan.</s>B. OBAMA: I don't need to remind you that the American people are watching what we do. They need this plan to work. They're skeptical and understandably because they have seen taxpayer dollars frittered away before.</s>CROWLEY: Just one of the week's 17 Obama sightings from coast to coast.</s>B. OBAMA: It is always good to get out of Washington for a little while.</s>CROWLEY: Especially nice when the places consumed by those AIG bonus payments to executives. The President's Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spent the week inside the ring of fire as Washington bickered over who created a legislative loophole which allowed AIG to give out the bonuses. It turns out, Treasury pushed for it, though Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd bore the brunt of the criticism.</s>SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD, (D) CONNECTICUT: I'm disappointed, frankly, that those who requested this kind of a change didn't have the courage to stand up a couple of days ago and admit that they were the ones that asked for it.</s>CROWLEY: Largely above the storm, the President was out and about, everywhere, pushing everything, in which one Republican critic says is how you miss things, like that bonus loophole.</s>MITT ROMNEY, FMR. GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If everybody was at home, doing their job and focusing entirely on the economy is that something that somebody would have read. I mean you had 1,000-page bill somebody would have read it before they signed it.</s>CROWLEY: But the President thinks now is the time to push big, for health care reform, his budget, an energy plan, education reform, and he is his own best salesman. Secretary Geithner shows no affinity for the public eye. Top economic adviser Larry Summers is a master behind the scenes. Paul Begala, who helped manage President Clinton's time, doesn't think President Obama is overexposed. Not yet.</s>PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, I think the President can be overexposed and there is a lot of danger to it. But for one thing, he is a human being and he's going to get tired and make mistakes.</s>CROWLEY: Like, say, a quip about his bowling game.</s>B. OBAMA: I've bowled a 129.</s>JAY LENO, "TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO" HOST: No, that's very good. Yes, that's very good, Mr. President.</s>B. OBAMA: It was like Special Olympics or something.</s>CROWLEY: Before the show aired, President Obama phoned the head of the Special Olympics. But to jokingly compare his poor bowling game to an event for the disabled is a rare slip for a President who deliberates over every word. Still, next week promises more of the same, the President, as salesman-in-chief, for his budget, health care, energy policy and education.</s>BEGALA: I think when you have Michael Jordan you want to give them the ball.</s>CROWLEY: The problem is, at this moment, the President is the only one on the court. Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.</s>COOPER: Well, it is easy in all this to get lost in the anger over AIG, justifiable. But exactly where do we stand with the economy? Has anything gotten better or is it just still heading south? The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is now projecting $9.3 trillion in deficit spending over the next nine years in part because government spending rises in recession and tax revenue drops. It's a measure of how the economy is doing this week. It's not the only one, though. And there is some better news to go with it. We're talking about "Your Money, Your Future. Ali Velshi is here with a quick rundown. Ali, how did the economy fare this week?</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, while you were out and while we were talking a whole lot about AIG, some things were actually happening on the economy that weren't altogether bad. Now, we have to be careful to decide on trend based on a week's information. And I'll tell you a few things that are happening that might be of interest to you. Let's look at stocks, you're 401(k)s, your IRA's. Look at the DOW, closing at 7,278. Boy, there a lot of people relieved to see it at the seven at the beginning of that. For the week, that's only an increase of seven-tenths of a percent. But it's an increase and its two weeks in a row of the increases. And that is the first time since May of 2008 that we've seen two weeks of -- in a row of increases on the stock market. That's not a trend, but it's encouraging. Let's take look at jobless claims. These are the number of people who have filed for unemployment benefits for the first time; 658,000 -- that is an enormous number of people. 658,000 people at the unemployment office or online for the first time. But take a look at that, down 12,000 from the week before. So, again, not a trend, but it is encouraging. Finally, mortgage rates, somewhere in the middle of this week, while we were worrying about AIG, the Federal Reserve injected more than $1 trillion into the economy. $750 billion of that went to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy mortgages from your bank, giving your bank more ability, more money to lend people money. That made it easier to get a loan and to sell a house. Mortgage rates, a 30-year fixed mortgage, if you have an 80 percent -- you put an 80 percent down, going down to 4.89 percent. And that is tying the record that we had down in January for the lowest rates on record. 4.89 percent means that it becomes very attractive for people to buy homes. So we've got a few things. Again, I really don't want to jump on a bandwagon here --</s>COOPER: Sure.</s>VELSHI: To suggest we're getting better, but, boy, we are look at some better numbers than we've seen in weeks.</s>COOPER: There have been some bank closings though this week?</s>VELSHI: That's right in fact, they typically happen on a Friday night and they happened tonight. We've had three bank closures and two credit unions closing. But they are orderly. These are small banks. And it's an orderly closing. The FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has moved in and they do what they always do. They're protecting the deposits of people who are under those limits and those bank accounts will be accessible to clients as of Monday morning.</s>COOPER: All right. Maybe no trends but a little bit of good news.</s>VELSHI: Yes.</s>COOPER: So that's something good for the weekend.</s>VELSHI: We'll take it.</s>COOPER: Yes, Ali thanks. We're going to talk about the damage control the President has been engaging in all week with our panel. But I want to point out something else the President did today. He reached out to an adversary, in this case, Iran. In a taped message Mr. Obama tried to reach beyond the Mullahs who control Iran directly to the people. Listen.</s>B. OBAMA: So in this season of new beginnings, I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders. We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us and to pursue constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest, and grounded in mutual respect.</s>COOPER: Let's "Dig Deeper" on the President's week. We're joined by Joe Johns, Dana Bash and Ed Henry. Ed, what's the consensus in Washington about whether this week was a win or a loss for President Obama, in terms of trying to get his message out?</s>ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the President said on "The Tonight Show" last night, that being President is a little bit like being on "American Idol" and all the critics are Simon Cowell. So I think, if this were an "American Idol" episode, you would have Simon Cowell saying it was awful; it was one of his worst weeks. But on the other hand, the President has a point that this crisis didn't take a week to get into it. We're not going to get out of it in a week either. He clearly needs more time. This is one week they're glad it is over, though. Right now, they want to move on to next week quickly.</s>COOPER: Dana, you and Joe have been doing our reporting all week, talking to a lot of people. Dana, you were talking to Chris Dodd in which he reversed himself on his involvement in all of this AIG bonus. How do you think the President ends this week?</s>DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I agree with Ed. I mean, just looks at beginning of the week. President Obama said on this AIG issue, he's angry and it ended pretty much with him saying blame me. And that's no doubt in part at least of what we uncovered this week from Democrats on Capitol Hill. That's right. President Obama's fellow Democrats saying that it was the Obama administration that resisted and actually rejected the idea of prohibiting these bonuses. And I can tell you even right now, Anderson, the action that's going on Capitol Hill, as far as they're telling us behind the scenes, the White House is not happy about it even at this very minute.</s>COOPER: Joe, what are they particularly not happy about?</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Of whether -- certainly not happy about the fact that this bill that passed the House of Representatives could actually be a remedy that's worse than the original problem. When people are talking about, for example, a bunch of the banks that got so much of the bailout money actually giving it back and taking liquidity out of the economy; that is sort of going in the wrong direction for them. There is the issue of going back on contract law, a whole number of things connected to this bill that they certainly don't like and are going to have to decide what they do with it once it gets to the President's desk. It's tough right now.</s>COOPER: We're going to have more with our panel in a moment. And let us know what you think? Join the live chat happening now at AC360.com. I'm about to log on myself, check out also Randi Kaye's live Web cast during our commercial breaks tonight. So up next, Sarah Palin -- she's back -- and she wants to give back some stimulus money and even some money for kids with special needs. So is that a principled stand or just presidential politics at play? You decide for yourself. We'll tell you the facts. Later, some of President Obama's message on "The Tonight Show" the pundits missed. It sounds like a major mission about the banking mess and this...</s>MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Let's hear it for vegetables.</s>CHILDREN: Yes.</s>M. OBAMA: Whoo, whoo. Hear it for fruits. Yes. What, did I hear a boo?</s>COOPER: Yes, not a big fan of vegetables myself. They might not like all fruits and vegetables but with first lady Michelle Obama's help, they are planting them at the White House. We'll show you where and why the White House now has a vegetable garden when 360 continues.