kristen welker at the white house watching that for us. thank you for that. now let's go to our nbc news correspondent who had reported from iraq for several years here. the issue of immunity, that was a sticking point for the parliament. let's first talk about why that's important. >> well, it's extremely important for the iraqis over what they've seen over the past several years of u.s. involvement. not only particularly for the u.s. military but for u.s. military contractors. there are notorious incidents that took place throughout u.s. military involvement, like abu ghraib, other incidents where the iraqi people and government wanted to hold american military personnel accountable for. now, in previous agreements, that was never the case. it was always the united states that would hold responsible its own personnel. >> stand by. kristen welker has more information that she just got in. she's at the white house. what have you got? >> i want to read you this statement that i just got from a white house official. it says today the president will announce tha

>> kristen welker on the assembly line in michigan tonight. kristen, thanks. >>> at the same time, two of the president's rivals, republicans running for his job were drilling down on the economy and taxes today. nbc's kelly o'donnell has our report tonight. >> reporter: with a hardhat and a new jobs plan, governor rick perry picked a steel plant near pittsburgh to reboot his nine-week-old campaign. >> creating jobs in america is as simple as changing presidents, and that is the choice facing americans. >> reporter: going big, with a blitz of tv interviews today. >> i don't worry too much about polls. >> reporter: and his first policy address. perry claimed he could create 1.2 million jobs by expanding american oil and natural gas production on lands now protected from drilling. >> i do not accept the choice that we must pick between energy and the environment. >> reporter: adjusting to his new front-runner status -- >> nine, nine, nine! >> reporter: herman cain is now pushing back on critics who claim his tax code overhaul including a 9% nati

>> kristen welker in las vegas starting us off tonight. thanks. we are joined now by cnbc's diana olick. you cover the housing market pretty much full time. what are people to make of this today? >> reporter: well, what they are finding really, brian, is that this is a very limited program targeting certain underwater borrowers who were previously unable to take advantage of the record low mortgage rates because they owed so much more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. this will help those borrowers but it's limited and those borrowers must be current on their payments. they may be struggling, may be on the edge, maybe even thinking of walking away, but that will help. they must be current. this does nothing to help 4 million borrowers who are currently behind on their mortgages, 2 million borrowers in the process of foreclosure. it does not address the millions of foreclosed properties on the books of fannie mae, freddie mac and big banks flooding the depressed market. doesn't help anybody buy or sell a home and, most important, it do

>> kristen welker, traveling with the president in emporia, virginia tonight. thanks. >>> for the republicans who want to replace president obama, there's another debate tonight in las vegas, and it comes as herman cain and his ideas and his sense of humor are getting more scrutiny these days. our chief white house correspondent and political director chuck todd with us tonight from our d.c. newsroom. chuck, good evening. >> good evening, brian. some members of the republican establishment may believe herman cain is in the middle of his 15 minutes of primary fame. but that 15 minutes now includes close scrutiny and could spell a surge of attacks at tonight's debate. former godfather's pizza ceo herman cain has seen his poll numbers surge thanks to three other numbers. >> my 9-9-9 plan. >> reporter: tonight's nevada debate is another opportunity for opponents to raise questions about cain's plan to replace the current tax code with the 9% income tax, 9% corporate tax and 9% sales tax. he's had to defend the national sales tax part of his plan most. >> who will p

kristen welker traveling with the president with us from denver. kristen, these comments, what i saw of them, seem to go to the core of american spirit and capability these days. >> reporter: that's right. they absolutely do. president obama talking about things like the hoover dam, and we'll get to that in just one second, brian, but for the second consecutive day, president obama is using his executive power to, as he says, help those that are struggling with this economy. yesterday it was underwater mortgages. today it's student loans. as we're saying, according to white house officials, new graduate loan payments could be capped at 10% of the graduate's salary, and they say graduates could consolidate their loan payments at lower interest rates. president obama continuing on a three-day west coast tour which also includes some politicking and fundraising, and he got a little somber at a fundraiser in san francisco. take a listen. >> we've lost our ambition, our imagination and our willingness to do the things that built the golden gate bridge a

nbc's kristen welker is at the white house to tell us more. kristen? >> reporter: good evening, lester. in addition to foreign policy, republican candidates were also fighting amongst themselves in iowa this weekend, over who is the most socially conservative. meantime, secretary of state hillary clinton had tough words for iran. making the rounds on the morning talk shows, secretary of state hillary clinton cast president obama as a leader on foreign policy. >> president obama has passed with flying colors every leadership challenge. >> reporter: and she smacked down republican claims that pulling all u.s. troops out of iraq would leave the country vulnerable to iran. >> iran would be badly miscalculating if they did not look at the entire region and all of our presence in many countries in the region. >> reporter: but republicans kept up their steady stream of attacks, calling the president's foreign policy politically driven. >> i would argue that iraq and afghanistan is being run out of chicago, not washington. >> reporter: with the gop presidentia

kristen welker, nbc news, denver, colorado. >>> student debt is one of the big concerns of the occupy wall street protest movement. and in oakland, california, 85 people were arrested when police evicted them. some complained about what they said were heavy handed tactics used by police who used teargas and fired bean bag rounds into the crowd during the predawn raid. later in the day, things got even worse. our own miguel almaguer is standing by in oakland for us tonight. good evening. >> reporter: good evening. oakland is relatively quiet tonight so far. this plaza has been home to demonstrators who have been protesting against corporate greed and other issues for two weeks. last night the protest came to an end after a clash between police and demonstrators. mayhem, violence and blood spilled onto oakland streets. occupy oakland protesters and police faced off for six hours. this after an early morning raid forced nearly 300 demonstrators from their camp. >> what this is is a gathering of working people trying to reverse a situation that has occurred that has kicked them out of the

nbc's kristen welker with us from millers creek, north carolina, traveling with the president tonight. kristen, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. president obama will spend three days here in north carolina and virginia pushing his jobs policy. but earlier today it sure seemed a lot like politics. president obama sounded a lot like a candidate on the campaign trail in north carolina today. >> i love ashville. in fact, i think i should be on the tourism promotion bureau of ashville. >> reporter: the official reason for the trip, to sell the american jobs act. but with almost every phrase, the president took direct aim at republicans. >> they want to gut regulations. they want to let wall street do whatever it wants. >> reporter: the line seemed like an attempt to tap into the occupy wall street populist anger that's swept the country. and mr. obama railed against republicans for voting against his jobs bill. >> we're going to break up the jobs bill. maybe they couldn't understand the whole thing all at once. so we're going to break it up into bite-sized pieces. >> reporte

nbc's kristen welker has that part of the story. [ cheers and applause ] >> reporter: the president's new initiatives which he plugged in denver, colorado, today could help as many as 7 million student loan holders. >> that means we should be doing everything we can to put a college education within reach for every american. [ applause ] >> reporter: as he did monday with mortgage refinancing, the president used executive action. today claiming he has the authority to accelerate a program that congress had already adopted. capping student loan payments at 10% of a graduate's income and allowing graduates to consolidate certain federal loans to get lower monthly interest rates. the administration argued today's actions will help improve the overall economy. >> that means you will be more confident and comfortable to buy a house or save for retirement. that will give our economy a boost at a time when it desperately needs it. >> reporter: some economists warn the impact will likely be minimal. >> my suspicion is it's not going to be that large in the short run. any short run effect is l

>> kristen welker at the white house tonight, thank you. >>> good news for the american woman who suffered a stroke in the south pole. she is finally on her way home tonight. nbc's anne thompson here is here with the latest. >> reporter: good evening, lester, the first two cargo planes of the season landed at the south pole in 190 degree below zero windchill to drop off supplies and pick up renee-nicole douceur. this say picture of her before she left her dorm at the south pole after suffering what is believed to be a stroke weeks ago. she's been trying to leave to get appropriate medical attention, saying her condition was not life threatening, the national science foundation, which runs the base, and her employer raytheon polar services refused to send a rescue plane, waiting instead until the cargo planes began regular service. she will first fly to the mcmurdo station on the antarctic coast and then to christchurch, new zealand where she'll be evaluated. she will be in an unpressurized plane that could affect her conditions. when i spoke to her this weekend, she said the pilots agreed

joining us now is nbc's kristen welker at the white house. we also have luke russert on capitol hill to tell us about what's happening. kristen, the details are saying there's been over 200 drug shortages of some kind of the most commonly used drugs in hospitals. this executive order tries to alleviate some of that problem. can you tells more? >> reporter: that's right. hi, there, richard. well, the aim of this executive order is to try to cut back on some of those shortages. here's what it does. it orders the fda to do a couple of things, to broaden it reporting of possible shortages. also, to really increase its review of drugs that are in the process of being manufactured to try to speed up the manufacturing process. and also to step up its communication with the justice the department to try to cut down on price gouging. now, some analysts have looked at this and other presidential actions that have been taken in the past week and says it's really not going to have a huge impact. and that, of course, has caused republicans to say, this is

>> and that was kristen welker reporting. nevada decided not to mess with the election calendar. it was kicking around the idea of moving its caucuses to january 14th, but republican leaders decided to keep it in early february instead. that's because they face the threat of losing delegates to the national convention. new hampshire threatened to move its vote up into december. >>> much more ahead on "today in the bay." still to come, we'll show you how san jose firefighters rescued six people from a burning apartment. and investigators say that deadly motorcycle crash that shut down 580 for a half day was cct. at bank of america, we're lending and investing in the people and communities who call the bay area home. from funding that helped a local entrepreneur start a business... to providing grants to a nonprofit which offers job training and placement... and supporting an organization working to help the environment. because the more we do in the bay area, the more we help make opportunity possible. >>> and looking live at oakland this morning where the raiders are going to tak

kristen welker, getting reaction, no doubt positive at the moment based on the reports. waiting for the confirmation for us. >>> republican presidential candidates are weighing in as kristen was indicating as well as other elected officials. these on the reports that gadhafi has been killed. here's some of them. former massachusetts governor mitt romney saying it's about time gadhafi, a terrible tie rant, that killed his own people and murdered americans and others in the tragedy in lockerbie, the world is a better place with gadhafi gone. there's texas governor rick perry released a statement, the death of moammar gadhafi is good news for the people of libya. it should bring the end of conflict there and help them move closer to elections and a real democracy. so reaction from all corners of the election process here in the united states as well as the elected officials here in the united states. next, how the libyan people are reacting to reports of gadhafi's death. we'll look into that. look, every day we're using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. whe

>> kristen welker at the white house for us. gentlemen, as you're listening to kristen report, you're also talking amongst yourselves. >> sorry. >> that's okay. you guys are miked. so you guys know that. you know that everybody can kind of hear you. but, jamie, you're saying that this is strictly protocol that they're going along with. they're going to scramble to get somebody to confirm this most likely and move forward in the near future. maybe late this morning, early afternoon. >> i think, if there hadn't been so many false reports from libya about particularly the issue of the sons and gadhafi over the last four months, just what they would have seen on tv in another circumstance would have been enough for people to be satisfied that it really happened. but given that the boy has cried wolf so many times from that part of the world, i think they are trying to be sure that it isn't some grand mistake. how will they do that? it's kind of hard to figure out what they'll be able to do that one doesn't know already. we were talk

. >> kristen welker at the white house. thank you. >>> the u.s. military is working to track down the source of a computer virus that's infected a group of computers with top-secret information. those computers controlled unmanned drones that military uses to spy on and attack terror targets abroad. i am joined by nbc chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. what can you tell us about this? >> it was discovered at the creek air force base where pilots from half a world away are able to control drones that are not only surveilling, but actually attacking targets in southwest asia, the persian gufrl agulf and now in africa as well. u.s. military and administration officials tell us that, look, there's no sense that this virus which has infected these pilot systems, operational systems has gleaned any kind of classified information or cause good damage, but several attempts to get rid of it have been unsuccessful so it has raised some alarms, but people so far in the military, in particular, who are involved in this program say, look, we're ver

welker at the white house, kristen, thanks. jerad bernstein is an msnbc contributor and former chief economist for vice president joe biden. let's get straight to it. there is good news, 137,000 private sector jobs added, last month's zero jobs number revised to 57,000. the bad news, unemployment rate still stuck, so break the report down for us and explain why we're not seeing the movement. >> sure, that 9.1%, we've been stuck in that range since april, so we've achieved a kind of shaky stability, but at much too high a level of underutilization. we have 14 million unemployed people. look, if you go back to the end of 2010 to about april this year, we were adding about 166,000 jobs per month on average. it was enough to take about a point on the unemployment rate, it was 10%, now it's 9%. we've been adding 70,000 jobs a month on average. it's enough to stay stuck where you are, i call it a shaky stability, because there's all these threatening head winds out there, there's europe, there's the political dysfunction that you've

nbc's kristen welker. i particularly liked those light-hearted moments. president obama talking about his wife saying she does all that and she's cute. >> reporter: yeah, that was a cute moment. i think a lot of people enjoyed that. they laughed. so it was a mixture of light-hearted and also seriousness. one thing that was interesting, the tone was different than what we've heard over the past two days of this bus trip. the president has really been hammering congressional republicans for the past two days. we didn't hear him do that to the same extent today. he was joined by republican governor bob mcdonnell. so slightly different backdrop than we've seen for the past two days. the president will wrap up his trip this afternoon by stopping at a fire station in north chesterfield, virginia. and we'll be there, of course, to cover it. >> kristen, thank you. >> reporter: thanks. >>> candidates brought the big guns last night in the debate. mitt romney was attacked from all sides. but the big exchange was between romney and a former front-runner. >> mitt, yo

you heard kristen welker say it is back to the issue of jobs and the economy. how will this balance out in his reelection? >> the economy will be paramount, but the things you rattled off are paramount to me. if you look at the front page of the "new york times" and you have the secretary of state reading the riot act to the pakastanis. it bothered me that we paid billions of dollars and i think they used it for defensive purposes for india and now the network that is running rampant. i like what they are doing? pakistan as well. in the end to answer your question, it will still be the economy. i wonder if the republican debates will change. they have been so much about jobs and i think now we are entitled to answers in terms of how would the gop candidates handle the situations that you have articulated? >> it's interesting the debate on november 15th, the foreign policy debate. we will likely hear a lot more and we are waiting on responses from the different candidates regarding the president's announcements. i think herman cain released a statement and we wi

nbc's chris ten kristen welker is traveling with the president. she joins me from the bus tour. there is a bit after delay but she is watching that for us. >> hi, richard, that's right. we rp on the bus heading to our next event. as you mentioned, president and first lady just wrapped up that event in hampton, virginia. it was significant because it was the first time we saw the first lady appear with the president during one of his trips to sell his jobs plan. so in addition to the announcement that you just talked about that the first lady made, we also heard the president talk about the part of his american jobs act that would provide tax breaks for companies who hire veterans and their spouses. the event gave him a chance to reach out to some of the 700,000 veterans who live in this community here in virginia and who will be a key part of the voting block in 2012 in this key swing state. so right now, we are heading it the president's next event. we are riding on a bus. i want to make it clear, the president is not on our bus. if we can pan over to give you a better sense of

nbc's kristen welker is at the white house. what does this new initiative aim to do? >> reporter: this new initiative is aimed at prescription drug shortages. according to the fda last year there were a record number of prescription drug shortages. about 178. fda also found that some of the drugs had their prices bumped up about trying to tackle that problem with this executive order. as you say this fits in with his we can't wait campaign where he's essentially trying to say if congress is not going to act to pass his jobs bill he's going to act unilaterally. here's what the executive order will do. it will ask the fda to broaden reporting of potential shortages of certain prescription drugs, speed up the review process of applications so basically the fda can speed up production or allow manufacturers to speed up production of certain drugs. it would also call on the fda to provide more information to the justice department so that they can crack down on price gouging. so that's what this executive order is aimed at doing. it's the president's fifth we can't wait ac

nbc's kristen welker traveling with the president and joining us now this morning. kristen, it's another executive move by the commander in chief. so what can students, past and present, expect to hear today that's going to help them out? >> reporter: hey, there, thomas. as you can hear, things are getting underway here at this denver university where the president's expected to speak in just over an hour. here's what we expect to hear. we expect the president to announce the acceleration of a measure that was passed by congress that would essentially. cap student loan payments at 10% of a graduate's salary as compared to 15%. he's also going to announce an initiative that would allow graduates to consolidate certain federal loans so they could pay them off at lower interest rates. the white house estimates that alone could impact as many as 5.8 million people. the idea here, thomas, is to free up revenue for these graduates, so that they can spend more, and in turn, help to stimulate the economy. president obama lightened things up a little bit with jay leno on tue

>> nbc's kristen welker. thank you. >>> we're going to know much more on this in a moment with our panel. >>> searching for answers in the horrifying chain reaction crash that killed two-time indy 500 winner dan wheldon. we'll share one of his final interviews before that fateful race. >>> the month long occupy protest has spread to four continents. a global movement, but do they have a clear message? at bayer, we've been relieving pain for over 100 years. and today, we're re-inventing aspirin for pain relief. with new extra-strength bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles so it enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief right to the site of your tough pain. in fact, it's clinically proven to relieve pain twice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin. extra strength pain relief, twice as fast. [ male announcer ] test our fast relief. love it, or get your money back. to bring you a low-priced medicare prescription drug plan. ♪ with the lowest national plan premium... ♪ ...and copays as low as one do

kristen welker joins us from the white house. kristen, good morning to you. what exactly are the democrats on the hill doing? are they cooperating with the white house? >> reporter: hi there, chris. well, there are some democrats, chris, who don't like the president's pay for plan for this bill. they say they're opposed to the fact that he wants to increase taxes on folks making $250,000 or more so right now senator majority leader harry reid is trying to put together a plan that will get more votes in his democratic caucus, and sources on the hill tell me that plan would include a 5% sur tax on millionaires. here's what harry reid had to say just a short while ago on the floor. take a listen. >> democrats have listened to the american people and they have been very, very clear. the american people believe it's time for millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share to help this country thrive. >> reporter: so you hear him mention millionaires and billionaires in that statement there, chris. now, white house officials say, look, they are open to any ch

>> kristen welker, thanks. >>> is michele bachmann's campaign running on empty? why there's an exodus of some of her staffers and what it means for her presidential bid. and the alleged christmas day underwear bomber begins trial with an outburst in court. we'll tell you what he said. look, every day we're using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪ that's why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what's it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we've got to be smart about this. it's a smart way to go. ♪ and here's what we did today: supported nearly 3 million steady jobs across our country... ... scientists, technicians, engineers, machinists... ... adding nearly 400 billion dollars to our economy... we're at work providing power to almost a quarter of our homes and businesses... ... and giving us cleaner rides to work and school... and tomorrow, we

>> kristen welker, thanks very much. and we will take the president and first lady live when they get to the podium. >>> in the meantime, an update on the ongoing press conference about the wild animals on the loose. it becomes a joke kind of with lions, tigers, and bears. it's no laughing matter. they had folks out with assault rifles. and jack hanna there, well-known wildlife expert from the columbus zoo was talking just a little bit earlier about his impressions of what's going on. take a listen. >> as long as i'm standing here, i'm not the governor, but i'll do anything i can to put people out of business, shut these actions down, but also keep the people who breed these animals -- we don't want to shut everybody down. he called back and sa-- we cann flirt with those situations with living creatures. >> and we just got this information from that news conference. it's tough to know exactly how many animals were there, but based on their best investigation, officials now believe a mountain lion, bear, and monkey, three

>> kristen welker in asheville. thank you. we will be there with the president when he has his talk there, expected in about 15 or 20 minutes. >>> call it an app-ology. plaq blackberry is giving $100 worth of free apps for the service outage. mandy drury is here. >> good morning. it's better than nothing. that's for sure. rea rem is going to give away $100 for consumers about if you're an enterprise consumer you will have free help. especially what's going to happen here, chris, you will be able to download premium applications such as simms 3 or bejewelled and many others. they will be available for download until the end of the year. i guess everyone is saying that sounds good. how do i get it? the apps will be available at the blackberry world starting this wednesday. as to whether or not all of these problems are going to happen again? rem obviously says taking immediate and aggressive steps to prevent it from happening again but no details on what exactly those measures could be. >> and today the government announcing som

. >> again, that was nbc's kristen welker reporting. president obama plans to be back in california tomorrow. his first stop will be in los angeles where he's expected to attend a couple of fund-raisers for his re-election campaign and make an appearance on "the tonight show with jay leno." then eel head to the bay area tuesday for a quick two-hour fund-eration event at a downtown san francisco hotel and will be capped at 200 people who all purchased tickets for a minimum of $7,500 each. this is the president's third trip to the bay area this year. >>> coming up next, we'll be back in a moment with a former 49ers player making history at a bay area college. >>> it's a true convergence of sports and the arts taking place here in the bay area. jamie williams started an athletic department from scratch for the academy of arts university in san francisco. so now he's the school's athletic director and helps raise funds and awareness if are the department with the help of people, you know, like jerry rice. nbc bay area's laurence scott repor