is this a bad sign? they are debating about the president's jobs plan but they can't agree on when he should deliver the plan. that's where we are now, folks. the president asking to address congress on one night. the republican speaker of the house says that night doesn't work for us. you know the story by now. obama requesting the joint session for congress on wednesday but the same night the presidential candidates, the republican presidential candidates are holding a debate so speaker john boehner says do it on thursday, mr. president but we have a problem there too. that is the night the nfl is kicking off its season. now trivia, maybe you'll say, but the white house is saying that would be a distraction the white house wants to avoid and wants the country focused on what the president has to say but the president did agree to move his speech to a week from today. next thursday, yes, the same nights the saints and the packers are kicking off the season. the bickering raises even more doubts whether the two parties can agree on anything. brianna keilar is with me from the white house now. this is a bad sign or are we making too much of this? okay, they switched the day. a little back and forth but this is not the biggest deal right now. >> reporter: it's not the biggest deal, t.j., but it is a big deal because this speech that the president is going to give laying out this plan, this is intended to be a pivotal moment for him, a very important moment and already this setup to that pivotal moment is essentially being botched here it's not surprising that the white house had to bend here and move from wednesday to thursday because there really wasn't a lot of coordination, if any at all, with congress. we are talking democrats and republicans as well. the white house says it consulted with republicans. we are hearing from white house press secretary jay carney they were given about 30 minutes notice. i heard from a republican aide it was more like 60 minutes notice to the speaker before this was announced yesterday, this letter that came out, but that is not really a lot of time when the protocol is something like this, joint session to congress which is a big deal, quite the spectacle on capitol hill. usually a lot more time that is put in to coming up with the date on something like that. >> the other thing here, is this just how it's done? a lot of people don't know the behind the scenes of the president setting up an address like this, but how does it go? it seems like the president asked to come by on one day. it doesn't seem like you should have the option that day doesn't work for us. >> reporter: let's talk about, say, the state of the union. the state of the union is a very, very big deal and quite the formality. what you would see with an addressed session to the congress is something similar. you would have the white house and congress and in this case, the folks who are in charge of the schedule for the house and the senate. so republicans in the house, democrats in the senate. you'd have them working on this for some time. they would probably go back and forth about days that worked and then there would kind of be this invite, this letter which would be the request of the president, or in this case, simply the invitation coming from congress, because really this is congress, t.j. this is really congress' imperative to invite the president to do something like this and why he sent his letter it was a request for the opportunity to address congress. >> brianna keilar giving us some of the inner workings of washington. it's not always pretty. good to see you. jim acosta, we are talking about the night the president originally wanted. the republican candidates will have their debate but they are starting to weigh in now on this back and forth on this speech. what are satisthey saying? >> reporter: no price this is a political football out on the campaign trail. take michele bachmann at a tea party express rally in iowa last night and couldn't resist poking the president on the timing of this big jobs speech. >> now does this show maybe a little insecurity on the part of the president? either, a, he wants to distract the american people so they don't watch him, or, b, he doesn't want the american people to hear what the next president of the united states is going to say about the president's job plan! >> reporter: another republican candidate jon huntsman unveiling his jobs plan yesterday up in new hampshire. and he was asked about the president's controversy over the timing of this speech and he said, t.j., that when you don't have a jobs plan, you sometimes resort to political theatrics accusing the president of basically scheduling this speech on the night originally of the gop debate, purely for political reasons. t.j.? >> this doesn't look too good right now. the latest numbers at least on the president's job performance. >> reporter: that's right. there is a good reason why the president has scheduled this jobs speech or was trying to schedule this jobs speech yesterday and now finally has a date and time nailed down. and all you have to do is look at the latest cnn/orc poll that came out this morning. how is president obama handling the economy? t.j., you know, we look at a lot of poll numbers every day and sometimes our eyes glaze over and we wonder, boy, does this mean anything? take a look at this number. no eyes should glaze over. they should be popping out of the skulls at the white house when these numbers come out. 34% approve and 65%, 2 out of every 3 americans disapprove of the president's handling of the economy and how do americans feel about the economy right now? not very good. even wider margins when it comes to how americans feel about the way things are going in the country right now. badly, 73% and well, 28%. t.j., these are terrible numbers going into a re-election year, and the reason why people like michele bachman are feeling good about the republicans chances next year. >> jim acosta, thank you. we will have your next political update in one hour. always get all of the political news 24/7 at cnn/politics.com. five days now since hurricane irene first made landfall and still from north carolina to maine, we got about 2 million homes and businesses still without power. a lot of towns and communities still cut off. bridges washed out. roads impassible and, in some cases, food is running low. in vermont, the national guard there providing air drops of food and water and medicine. on sunday, president obama will travel to new jersey to view the damage. susan candiotti, tell us where you are and what you're seeing. >> reporter: i'm in wayne, new jersey, right across the bridge from little falls. to give you an idea of a high water mark here, look at the top of that car vacuum. we are in the parking lot of a car wash. i'll step down this curb here very slowly because the current here runs pretty swiftly. here is a leaf to show you how normally it floats away. i am told it is normally calm here. under normal circumstances this is great real estate because it's on the banks of the passaic river but look over that way, we are 30 yards or so from where the river starts and, obviously, as you can see, it's hard to tell where the passaic river starts and where the parking lot begins. a lot of businesses and, obviously, a lot of homes, sections of wayne in falls river remain under water and remain cut off unless you have a boat. if you swing over this way, you can see a street. there is a neighborhood back there that we toured yesterday because someone had a boat with them and we went down there. there are some people that have refused to leave, absolutely refused to leave. the national guard is standing right high by here and have boats they are tag back to those areas. never during the nighttime because it's far too dangerous even for them and only go in now more or less to look around but if someone needs rescue. obviously, it's tag up a lot of their time and effort also being out here. they are hoping the water will reason to recede and go down far enough by the weekend to allow more people to go in and start cleanup. >> susan candiotti for us there, thank you. 10 minutes past the hour. we turn overseas. they are trying to put libya on a path to democracy. representatives from 60 countries including secretary of state hillary clinton gathering in paris today and meeting with libya's rebel leadership. so big challenges certainly lie ahead for the libyan people and the libyan leadership now. cnn's max foster is joining me now from london with that. hello to you, max. >> reporter: hi, t.j. interesting. we had an interview earlier with david cameron, the british prime minister. he is co-hosting this event in france with the french president. he was very keen to point out they learned the lessons from iraq and after the iraq invasion, you had the situation where the reconstruction and the security wasn't handled properly and a lot of aid money actually went missing. you say a lot of challenges for the rebel leadership. they have to convince the likes of secretary of state clinton they are safe to hold this money. let's have a look at what the papers are saying about this. the "wall street journal" refers to this in an owed torial saying the libyans are lucky. they have wealth and a favorable location close in europe. slightly more spiky comment in "the gulf news" with the headline libyans must fully liberate themselves. while u.s. yet to offer rebuild libya nato seems giddy to get involved in charting the course of the new libya with france leading the way on that front and might not be along before na nato's victory in libya becomes a political-military dock rin in its own right. it will be interesting. this is the first step really of the new future for libya and it's going to be interesting to see what secretary clinton makes of those rebel leaders as the new controlling force in libya. >> max foster for us in london, thank you, as always. coming up, steven lynn was planning to take some pictures of his house as he flew overhead. but when he looked down, what he saw was somebody robbing him! coming up, he is going to join me right here to tell us what he did next. also, prince harry is coming to america, but this is no vacation. he is going to be training on a helicopter gunship. all of the details ahead. stay with us. 11 past the hour. 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