. >> wendell goler is traveling with the president. wendell, what is the reaction from the president? >> reporter: john, the president is here promoting a reading initiative on the second day of a two-day trip to florida. he just finished reading to some children at the booker elementary school and was asked about the incident. he said he was aware of it. and that he would have something to say about it later. >>> it is beyond belief, both towers of the world trade center are burning. both have apparently been hit by aircraft. >> my first reaction was to get to the scene as fast as i could. as i was driving down, emergency vehicles were going obviously flying down to the scene. i jumped find a police car and drafted it down and pretty much got two blocks from the scene. >> very first thing we did was we got establishing shots. >> i got close to the tower and was shooting it, but it was so tall that i had to keep backing up to get a better shot. when i got the first tight shots i realized what was happening at the top of the towers. i l

senior white house foreign affairs correspondent wendell goler is live in our new york newsroom. tell us the highlights from the speech >> reporter: the president said only negotiations with the israelis will resolve the issues of border, security, jerusalem and refugees, needed to create a palestinian state, he said u.n. recognition won't do that, and he urged palestinian president mahmoud abbas not to ask the security council for it as it plans to do on friday. a year after telling u.n. delegates they might recognize a new state of palestine in this week's session, if the israelis and palestinians did tough negotiations, president obama admitted it hadn't happened. >> i know that many are frustrated by the lack of progress. i assure you, so am i. but the question isn't the goal that we seek. the question is how do we reach that goal. and i am convinced that there is no shortcut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. >> reporter: in a meeting with the president, israeli prime minister netanyahu called mr. obama's threat to veto the resolution a badge of honor and

. >> wendell goler is live at the white house. 10 years ago today he he was traveling with president bush in florida. what is president obama doing right now wendell? >> reporter: the president is on his way to shanksville, pennsylvania. he should be arriving very soon there to honor the passengers of united airlines flight 93 who brought that plane down to keep it from reaching its intended target thought to be here at the white house or down the street at the capital building. mr. mark the first lady visiting all three 9/11 sites today. early e a shot of marine one landing at the wall street heliport the obamas will attend a memorial concert at the kennedy center this evening. it was moved there after an earthquake damaged the washington cathedral last month in new york this morning we heard mr. obama read from the 46th psalm which he thought was particularly appropriate. >> i feel how weak and fruitless must be -- >> the president: the therefore, we will not fear even though the earth be removed and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, now its waters roar and be tro

. >> wendell goler is traveling with the president. wendell, what is the reaction from the president? >> reporter: john, the president is here promoting a reading initiative on the second day of a two-day trip to florida. he just finished reading to some children at the booker elementary school and was asked about the incident. he said he was aware of it. and that he would have something to say about it later. >>> it is beyond belief, both towers of the world trade center are burning. both have apparently been hit by aircraft. >> my first reaction was to get to the scene as fast as i could. as i was driving down, emergency vehicles were going obviously flying down to the scene. i jumped find a police car and drafted it down and pretty much got two blocks from the scene. >> very first thing we did was we got establishing shots. >> i got close to the tower and was shooting it, but it was so tall that i had to keep backing up to get a better shot. when i got the first tight shots i realized what was happening at the top of the towers. i l

. >> wendell goler is traveling with the president. wendell, what is the reaction from the president? >> reporter: john, the president is here promoting a reading initiative on the second day of a two-day trip to florida. he just finished reading to some children at the booker elementary school and was asked about the incident. he said he was aware of it. and that he would have something to say about it later. >>> it is beyond belief, both towers of the world trade center are burning. both have apparently been hit by aircraft. >> my first reaction was to get to the scene as fast as i could. as i was driving down, emergency vehicles were going obviously flying down to the scene. i jumped find a police car and drafted it down and pretty much got two blocks from the scene. >> very first thing we did was we got establishing shots. >> i got close to the tower and was shooting it, but it was so tall that i had to keep backing up to get a better shot. when i got the first tight shots i realized what was happening at the top of the towers. i l

bill: wendell, thank you. 7:00 p.m., prime time tonight. wendell goler is at the white house there. thanks. martha. martha: let's talk about the backdrop of the president's speech tonight, a grim unemployment picture, right now, you've got 14 million americans unemployed, those unemployed have been out of work for an average of just over 40 weeks already. that is a very long time. more than one in three unemployed americans have been out of work for a year or more. so a very tough picture that the president has going in here. so a reminder, we have full coverage, then we'll have analysis of the president's address tonight, all that begins at 7:00 p.m. eastern. shepard smith, doing the coverage there, right here on fox news channel. bill: got some extreme weather right now and this is significant. breaking news on mandatory evacuations for 100,000 people in northeastern pennsylvania, and only -- in only hours a major river expected to top levees at wilkberry and kingsfield, pennsylvania, residents told to get out by 4:00 eastern time, and all this destruction coming from the deadly r

. >> wendell goler is traveling with the president. wendell, what is the reaction from the president? >> reporter: john, the president is here promoting a reading initiative on the second day of a two-day trip to florida. he justinished reading to some children at the booker elementary school and was asked about the incident. he said he was aware of it. and that he would have something to say about it later. >>> it is beyond belief, both towers of the world trade center are burning. both have apparently been hit by aircraft. >> my first reaction was to get to the scene as fast as i could. as i was driving down, emergency vehicles were going obviously flying down to the scene. i jumped find a police car and drafted it down and pretty much got two blocks from the scene. >> very first thing we did was we got establishing shots. >> i got close to the tower and was shooting it, but it was so tall that i had to keep backing up to get a better shot. when i got the first tight shots i realized what was happening at the top of the towers. i loo

wendell goler with the news on the north lawn of the white house. what did we learn about what the president will say in thursday's speech? >> reporter: not much that we didn't already home the president wants people to tune in thursday. he did make clear that his job creating proposals will be aimed at a big segment of the country's unemployed. >> the president: we got more than one million unemployed construction workers, ready to get dirty, right now. there's work to be done. and workers ready to do it. labor is onboard, business is onboard. we just need congress to on board. let's put america back to work. >> reporter: aides say the president will propose repairing the countries roads, bridges and classrooms, in addition to extending the payroll tax cut for another year and long term jobless benefits for another year. all proposals will be paid for, all will be ideas that middle of the road economists agree are job creating. >> gregg: any ran response? >> reporter: it has ranged so far from indifference to predictable, partisan remarks. some tea

bill: thank you for that, wendell goler on the north lawn and martha has more on this. martha: this is not the only company to go under, despite receiving stimulus funds, 4 other firms went belly up, two also made solar panels, evergreen solar, indirectly received $5.3 million through a state grant and filed for bankruptcy last month and spectrawatt got $500,000 granted, and they have closed their doors and a third firm, mountain plaza, inc. failed to have charging stations at truck stops, burned $400,000 and, olson mills, went under after an injection of $10 million and a number of these companies are talking about exactly what wendell said, they couldn't compete with china and china has cheaper labor and able to produce the solar panels and the government is giving them so much money and that i think we'll hear more of the argument from the white house, what the problem was here. bill: we wait on that now, cheap, cheap labor and in moments we'll talk to a former worker at solyndra, one of 14 million americans out of work. did the employees think their company could ma

. >> wendell goler is traveling with the president. wendell, what is the reaction from the president? >> reporter: john, the president is here promoting a reading initiative on the second day of a two-day trip to florida. he just finished reading to some children at the booker elementary school and was asked about the incident. he said he was aware of it. and that he would have something to say about it later. >>> it is beyond belief, both towers of the world trade center are burning. both have apparently been hit by aircraft. >> my first reaction was to get to the scene as fast as i could. as i was driving down, emergency vehicles were going obviously flying down to the scene. i jumped find a police car and drafted it down and pretty much got two blocks from the scene. >> very first thing we did was we got establishing shots. >> i got close to the tower and was shooting it, but it was so tall that i had to keep backing up to get a better shot. when i got the first tight shots i realized what was happening at the top of the towers. i l

jon: wendell goler at the white house for us. thank you. jenna: he gave us a whole bit of information there coming ahead of the president's big job's address tonight. we have the chairman of the republican national committee and he joins us with a bit of reaction to that. one of the things that wendell said that the white house feels that partisanship is the only thing that is going to keep this jobs plan from passing in any form. that is the question we have for you today as someone who speaks for the republican national committee. is the script already written as far as the response to the president's plan tonight or are you open to some of the ideas the president will present. >> i think the speaker has made it clear he's going to be listening for common ground. i think republicans there are going to be looking for common ground. i think that's what america wants too. unfor nat here what we're seeing here, jenna is that the president continues to be tone deaf. i mean i listened as well to that report and we've got the president coming th

. >> wendell goler is traveling with the president. wendell, what is the reaction from the president? >> reporter: john, the president is here promoting a reading initiative on the second day of a two-day trip to florida. he just finished reading to some children at the booker elementary school and was asked about the incident. he said he was aware of it. and that he would have something to say about it later. >>> it is beyond belief, both towers of the world trade center are burning. both have apparently been hit by aircraft. >> my first reaction was to get to the scene as fast as i could. as i was driving down, emergency vehicles were going obviously flying down to the scene. i jumped find a police car and drafted it down and pretty much got two blocks from the scene. >> very first thing we did was we got establishing shots. >> i got close to the tower and was shooting it, but it was so tall that i had to keep backing up to get a better shot. when i got the first tight shots i realized what was happening at the top of the towers. i l

wendell goler, north lawn of the white house. thank you very much, sir. busy day there. >> couple of headlines for your wednesday. new york woman behind bars after making a phony bomb threat against, actually a southwest airlines. the woman says she wanted to ground the flight because she was worried about her family flying the day before the 9/11, 10th anniversary. she now faces up to 10 years in prison for doing that. >> a deadly bacteria outbreak in certain cantaloupes promoting a nationwide health warning now. four people in colorado and new mexico died after eating the fruit. that's what it looks like. infected with listeria which is -- did i say that right? listeria. a bug that can cause severe food poisoning and stomach illness, the cdc says the infected melon were grown in colorado. >> first look at reese witherspoon nearly a week after she was hit by a car. the oscar winning actress sporting a black eye and band-aid on her forehead. we told you last week, witherspoon was out jogging in california when an 84-year-old woman slammed into her at a cr

wendell goler is at the white house all alone with details. hey, wendell. >> steve, how are you? the president will stop at a high school in denver on his way back to the white house and deliver a speech on the american jobs act. meanwhile, democrats and republicans on capitol hill avert add government shut down for the third time this year last night. this time they had days to spare instead of just hours. i suppose that's progress. in his speech in los angeles yesterday, the president talked about the difficulty in securing the change he's trying to effect across the country, but he might just as well have been talking about the highly partisan atmosphere here in washington. >> i never promised easy. if you want easy, you wouldn't have campaigned for brack hussein obama. what i promised was that there was a vision of america out there that we believed in. what i promised was that if we worked hard, we could achieve that vision. >> the breakthrough on capitol hill last night came in the senate when democrats agreed to accept less money for disaster relief than they wanted and re

wendell goler live for us at the white house. are you going on the trip, wendell or staying at the white house? >> i'm staying here, gretchen. it's columbus today and raleigh-durham, north carolina tomorrow. the president is selling both the jobs plan and the higher taxes he wants to pay for it. the bulk of which would come from rolling back the itemized deduction rate for upper income americans. yesterday, at the sendoff, he asked people to lean on their lawmakers. >> i want you to send an e-mail, use one of those airplane sky writers. dust off the fax machine. or you can just like write a letter. so long as you get the message to congress. >> the president was backed by teachers, construction workers, veterans from the wars in iraq and afghanistan and others, he says, will be helped by his plan. yesterday's sendoff like the speech friday in richmond, virginia and likely the one today in columbus had a campaign like feel but press secretary jay carney says it's not his re-election mr. obama is campaigning for. >> i've been asked

guys, back to you. >> steve: wendell goler, amazing focus. able to deliver that report despite the fact that there is a lot of racket going on. thank you, sir. job well done. >> brian: now we've added a compressor. >> gretchen: i think that's our own thing. >> brian: why don't we challenge ourselves with that? >> steve: can we turn up the compressor? >> gretchen: while we're trying to talk now? >> steve: let's talk a little bit about what's going on. >> brian: they god to add something. can you drop glass. >> steve: last tuesday in san antonio, they were having a town hall, the tea party was, to talk about the dream act. of course, the dream act -- that's much better. the dream act would give citizenship to certain people who are born in this country to illegal aliens. well, then it started to hit the fan when the local tea party leader was confronted by a local government teacher. listen to this. >> again, folks, if the person is here illegally and they break the law, they've broken the law or are breaking the law, what do you want us to say

. >> correspondent wendell goler live with the details this morning. good morning to you. >> good morning, guys. university of virginia political analyst calls the dustup between the president and republican house speaker john boehner too petty for words. it's a real example of the hyper partisan atmosphere in washington. we've had in the same summer almost the first default in u.s. history and now the first time in u.s. history a president's request to address a joint session of congress was denied. the president's aides say they phoned the speaker earlier yesterday, got no objection to their request to address congress next wednesday. press secretary jake carney -- jay carney denies mr. obama was trying to distract from the republican debate on the same day, saying it didn't figure into their plans. boehner's spokesman says the speaker was never asked about the date and no one in the office signed off on it. brendan buck said, quote, it's unfortunate the white house ignored decades, if not centuries of the protocol of working out a mutually agreeable

jenna: senior white house correspondent wendell goler is live in our new york city newsroom with more. hi wendell. >> reporter: hi jenna. the president didn't say it but the aides have made clear the u.s. will veto the palestinian bid for recognition if it comes to that. really the goal of this entire week here at the united nations is to make sure it doesn't come to that. the president meeting with the leaders of israel and palestinian president abbas, also with the leaders of britain and france, to try and come up with a way to keep abbas from petitioning for membership on friday. we're hearing if he does, they may refer that to a commito for study that could take months, while the u.s., u.n., russia, try and get israel and the palestinian toss once again resolve the tough issues that divide them. the president made clear in his speech the united nations can't do that. here's a bit of what he had to say: >> peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the united nations. if it were that easy it would have been accomplished by now. ultimately, it is the raelis and the pa

wendell goler has how the world turns in washingto washington, d.c. what is the latest? >> reporter: it's the first time in history a president has been denied a request to address a joint session of congress. press secretary jay carney shrugs it off, he says thursday will work and the president promises it will be done before the kickoff season opener on thursday. this comes weeks after the country almost defaulted for the first time in history. press secretary carney says that shows the partisanship have gone too far. >> americans are sick and tired of the partisan bickering, the gridlock. what we saw over the summer, gridlock and partisan bickering is not new. what we saw over the summer is instead of being annoying it can be harmful and dangerous to the economy, to the livelihood of americans. >> reporter: speaker boehner's office said it never signed off on a wednesday address to congress but the white house said it didn't object to their initial address. boehner says it's their own scheduling not the debate that was the problem. the white house says it was trying t

he's senior white house and foreign affairs correspondent wendell goler. hey, wendell. >> we've known the broad outlines of his proposal for some time now. but the numbers emerged yesterday. after democrats on capitol hill urged the president to go bold. a, to help laid off teachers, firefighters and other public sector workers will be funneled through the states. 200,000 public sector workers lost their job last year after state budgets were pinched by lower tax revenue. monday in a labor day rally in detroit, the president announced laid off construction work also be targeted with a program to rebuild the nation's roads and bridges and about a million out of work right now. there is also money for job training. yesterday in a late afternoon briefing, jay carney said none of the costs will be tacked on to the deficit. >> let me also be clear that the president will make it absolutely clear that he will pay for these proposals. he knows that's important and it is part of his commitment to deficit reduction and long-term debt reduction, getting our deficit

wend dole goler live on the north lawn. wendell, what can we say about what we're about to hear? good morning? >> reporter: good morning, bill. this package of tax hikes and entitlement programs is set to cut $3.5 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years but republicans and democrats already butting heads. republicans saying the tax hikes included in it are a nonstarter. the white house saying that the president will veto cuts to medicare and medicaid if cuts are tax hikes are not included. wisconsin congressman paul ryan fold "fox news sunday"'s chris wallace yesterday that the tax hikes would actually be counterproductive. >> look, if you tax something more, chris, you get less of it. if you job creators more you get less job creation. if you tax investment more you get less investment. >> the president's plan calls for $1.5 trillion in higher taxes. about half of that rolling back the bush administration tax cuts on families making more than $250,000 a year. the rest from limiting deductions for those families and closing corporate tax loopholes. $580 million would com