-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight the jobs crisis, america's and his. >> there is work to be done, and there are people who are willing to do it. we need congress to get on board. >> can barack obama save his own job? with the lowest approval ratings ever, is this the last chance to get the presidency on track? ly talk to one of his biggest advisers and the country's biggest labor leader if he has turned the corner, and what he thinks of this -- >> let's take these sons of a bitches back and give america what they want. >> and will dennis kucinich challenge him from the left? and a man who is part of the team who has briefed the president everyday and sat face to face next to osama bin laden, and we will talk to author john miller. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening, president obama hard at work today on the speech that america is waiting for, his address to a joint session of congress thursday night laying out the jobs plan. the stakes could not be higher for what may be the make-or-break moment of the entire obama presidency coming in the midst of a perfect storm for the white house. the president's approval ratings are lower than they ever been with 6 of 10 americans give him afailing grade of how he is handli handling unemployment, and today, mitt romney had this to say. >> growing the economy is to balance the budget. the right answer for america is not the grow government or believe that government can create jobs. growth is the answer and not government. >> joining me is the nation's top leader john trumka, the leader of the labor union, and you are the most relevant guy to ask this right now, do you believe that president obama will announce anything on thursday that will get america back to work? >> i believe he will announce a number of projects and things that will put america back to work. i think that he will talk about infrastructure, and the need to rebuild the country. our infrastructure is crumbling and make us more competitive and create jobs. he will talk about the faa authorization, and getting the airports and the transportation back into shape so we can compete around the world. he will talk about a number of things like that, all of which will have to be taken together as a package to actually get the job done. >> how much involvement have you had in terms of the speech? you seem to be well informed on what the president may be saying? >> well, i haven't had any involvement in the speech, itself. but we have had numerous opportunities to communicate with the members of the administration and with the president, himself, about the things that need to be done to create jobs. he knows our position, and what we need right now is more than anything else, piers, is for the president to be a leader, to be bold, and to being a gres i.v. -- be aggressive and let the workers know that he is fighting for them. >> and i couldn't agree more. the president needs to be clear with the clock ticking to the election year. the clock is ticking, isn't it? >> well, we have 35 million people underemployed or out of work. they are out of work for a long time and they need people to fight for them and hope and they need the politicians to lead rather than doing the radical-type politics that we are seeing in the past that drive us up to brinksmanship and prevent anything from getting done. >> the president has always stood for audacity of hope, and the change and the so son. do you think that he has it in him to come up with a plan that is big enough, radical enough and effective enough to really transform this jobs crisis? >> i mean, look at the background. when everybody told him that he should let the auto industry go to the wayside, he stepped up to take bold action and saved the auto industry and put hundreds of thousands of people back to work and saved a lot of communities from pain. when it came to the health care bill, he was willing to stand up. i mean, he didn't get much help from across the aisle and they did everything they could to negotiate it down so that it wasn't effective, but he stood up for that. when it came to the stimulus package, he stood up and said, we have to help americans get back to work. so, he has done some bold things in the past, but we need him to be bold again and a leader again, and we need him to be aggressive again and singularly focus on creating jobs, jobs, jobs and more jobs and actually steam roll anybody who gets in the way. >> do you think that if you were being critical that president obama has left this far too late, and should have dealt with this almost the moment he took over as president, because he put a lot of time and energy into the ing thbs like the health care plan and into sorting out iraq and afghanistan and so on and almost everything but jobs. many criticize him for not focusing on the one thing which is probably the most relevant to the lives of ordinary mile an hours. -- lives of ordinary americans. >> well sh, he did focus on it,t he had a number of things to deal with. he was dealt a pretty bad hand and he didn't ask for iraq and afghanistan to deal with, and he had to deal with them, and he didn't have a choice. the strategic mistake was when he confused jobs with the debt discussion, because they got in the way of one another. we don't have a debt crisis in this country, and we really have a jobs crisis in this country. >> mitt romney called the chinese a bunch of cheats today. did you agree with that? >> well, in many ways they don't play by the rules. they manipulate the currency and they don't play by the rules, and so the chinese have a ways to go. i have to say this, unlike george bush, this president really has tried to enforce the trade laws. he is going through a number of cases, and in fact, one of the ones on rubber tires which is just finalized today, the chinese lost their last appeal and we will have the opportunity to correct those situations. that is hurting this economy. them not playing by the rules gives them an unfair advantage over every producer in this country, and we have tried to get it stopped. the only thing that they understand is if we actually get serious about it. >> i mean, you can use the word cheat liberally and people are in dealing with china, and they have been incredibly competitive some would argue and out-businessed america in business and that is one of the problems and i e throw back at you perhaps responsibility for the employers and take apple one of america's great success stories employing 25,000 people in america, the company that makes their computers employs 450,000 people in china. so where does employer, american employer responsibility kick in here? >> they have a significant responsibility that they haven't been taking up. of course, our trade laws help them, and our tax laws reward them for taking jobs overseas, and we ought to be creating laws and working together to send products overseas and not our jobs overseas. i think that employers can do that. they are taking advantage of when china cheats, they get an advantage of that cheating if they are located in china. they should be working with us, create a level playing field and help us to create jobs here, because i believe when the american worker is given a level playing field, they can compete with anybody in the world. >> obviously, jim hoffa had some rather harsh words to say about the tea party, and let's listen to what he said. >> we have to keep an eye into battle that we face, the war on workers, and you see it everywhere and it is the tea party, and there is only one way to beat and win that war, and the one thing about working people is we like a good fight. president obama, this is your army. we are ready to march. let's take these son of a -- out and give america back to where we belong. >> and so, mr. trumka, tea party son of a bitches? >> i probably would not have chosen the adjectives he used, but jim hoffa is speaking for the anger that millions of americans have. these people are taking and playing political brinkmanship and not willing to h toing to h create jobs and get the country moving. some of them announced they want the president to fail in his attempts to get the economy right. that is wrong. they shouldn't be doing that. and they don't have the right to say that they are truly the only patriotic ones out there when they want the country to fail and 25 million people not to get back to work. so jim hoffa was probably speaking about the anger and what he was saying is that all politicians that don't stand up for jobs, all politicians that don't help us get back to work and right this economy, we ought to take them out of office. that is what he was saying. >> tell me, what is the mood amongst your members and indeed members of other leading unions? i'm detecting that from what i am hearing and rheaing th inrea a cooling of president obama and that must concern him, because he is going to need their votes. >> i would say there is a cooling towards politicians in general and to washington, d.c. because not enough is getting done. i mean, the strategy of the republicans to not let anything get done to fix the economy has had some effect, but our members really understand what is happening. it is not that they are saying that we have to go vote for a group of people that are anti-worker and pro business, but what they are saying is that we want more leadership from the elected officials, and that includes the president. we want elected leadership from the senate and the house and the governors and from the state and local bodies to actually start focusing on creating jobs, and putting people back to work. and look, piers, we are the richest nation on the face of the earth, and 1 of 5 children right now are living in poverty and that is growing. the inequality is growing and the joblessness is growing, because they are not focusing on creating jobs. it is not that we can't do it, but it is that they choose not to do it for political reasons. that's what has angered americans. they want somebody to lead. the president has a chance, and if he leads on thursday night, which i hope and think he will, and he says, singular, our purpose is going to be creating jobs, i think that the american people will stand up and support him, because they want to work. that's what they want to do. they don't want to get unemployment checks. they need them when they are unemployed, but they want to work. that is what defines us. >> and also, i think that one of the reasons that the mood perhaps of your members on president obama has cooled is that he did of course go back really on his promise to reroll all of the tax breaks for the rich, and now we have a warren buffett, one of the richest people in the world, almost begging to be taxed and why doesn't president obama say, warren buffett is right, anybody over $1 million a year, i'm going to tax the hell out of you, because we need the revenue to put us back on the our feet. >> and he is right, as warren buffett said, there is nothing f -- there is something fundamentally wrong with a hedge fund manager who is taxed less than the secretary who works for him. they are not paying their fair share and they need to. the president in the months and years ahead need to stand up to do that. if the bush tax cuts are allowed to expire in january, 50% of the deficit that everybody keeps screaming about, at least the republicans keep screaming about will go away. a surtax on millionaires has 70-some percent of the american public supporting it. it is not a political downside and you have to wonder why every politician is not jumping up to say, you asked for shared sacrifice, and workers did. they took cuts in the pay and the pension and they lost their homes, and they lost their jobs -- and you are not doing anything different. it is yo-- your turn to share a little bit and if he did that, he would be a folk hero. >> richard trumka, thank you. >> thank you, piers. thanks for having me on again. >> and could president obama face a different challenger from the republicans? i will ask republican dennis kucinich. 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[ professor ] good morning students. today, we're gonna... anything different. kucinich. there's work to be done and there are workers ready to do it. labor is on board. business is on board. we just need congress to get on board. let's put america back to work. >> that was president obama in detroit yesterday previewing the jobs plan, a plan that may not be bold enough. my next guest dennis kucinich says that america is ready for a second new deal and washington needs to spend more to create jobs, and congressman kucinich joins me now. congressman, you are not impressed then by what you think may be coming? is. >> we want our president to succeed, but frankly, we have to go beyond the minimalism that has characterized most of the obama administration's programs when it comes to job creation. so i am hoping that the president when he speaks to congress on thursday will talk about big plans on the scale that fdr had when he brought the new deal forward, because we have 14 million people unemployed and it is important to be mindful that just small steps aren't going to do it anymore. >> and if you were the president, how big are we talking about? how big does president obama have to come out to make a real difference here? >> well, i would hope that the president would call on the government's capacity to be able to spend money into circulation just like the fed to create money out of nothing to quantitative easing. the government has the capacity to spend the money into circulation to meet the infrastructure needs of the country, and the american society of civil epg neneers sa there are $2.1 million of needs that has yet to be met. and you have half a million jobs right now that could find funding with the help of the federal government, and we should be looking at the green revolution in terms of funding it. nasa has enormous capacities to be able to help serve as an incubator for jobs in the private sector, and being the creation of the concept, design engineering and lending the private sector running with ideas to help create millions of jobs. we don't have a lack of resources, truly. we have a lack of imagination, and i'm hopeful that our president will seize the moment, and recognize that the american people are ready for big plans. >> one of the problems is that the republicans, it is not in their interest to support president obama, because if he does well, and gets america back to work, then he is going to be winning the next election, and if he does badly and unemployment goes up, america has a few months for this to evolve and he could get booted out of office, so where is the incentives of the republicans to not play partisan games here? >> well, the conventional political analysis is spot-on, however, there are republicans and democrats out of work. the republican businesses who are suffering from a lack of demand right now, and the only way that you increase the demand is to be able to make sure that people have jobs. and so, it is in the interest of the republicans to come forward and support large big plans, but a it helps all of america. we have to close the ranks right now as republicans and democrats to recognize that it is unemployment and not the deficit which is the major economic challenge of our times, and we must meet this challenge, and i'm hopeful when the president comes forward thursday he will have a plan to do that an challenge the democrats and republicans alike to pass it. >> when you see what is going on with the republicans and the split between the tea party and the more mad roderate end of th party, what do you think will happen then? is it a shoo-in for the president when it comes to it, because no one is quite sure what the gop stand for? >> all right. it is going to be about the economy. the president obama is successful in getting millions of americans back to work, i would expect him to be re-elected, however, if he is not successful in doing that, then people are going to be looking for change. and so, this is all about the economy, and we have to get people back to work, and there are over 6 million people in danger of losing their homes, and we have to help people save their homes and protect poomeops retirement security and if the president can address those to the satisfaction of the american people, he will stay in office and if not, you are looking at an extremely close presidential race in which the republican nominee would have a pretty fair shot at it based on the economy. >> can you see a situation where anyone challenges president obama from within his own party? you, yourself, have run for the white house a couple of times, and made a couple of bids, and could you see where you or somebody else knows something that we need to have a different face here? >> well, i'm not a candidate. can i see someone coming forward to challenge president obama from the ranks of the democratic party? i suppose it is possible, but there again, it is about the economy and that is what it should be about. we have to get america back to work and frankly, we have to stop wasting money on the wars that is causing us to be able to lose the resources that we need to be able to focus on things here at home. so, should president obama have a challenge? i say he should. i think it would make him a better president if he received a democratic challenge in a democratic primary. will i be that candidate? no. >> do you feel that president obama needs to beat his chest a little bit and do you feel disappointed like many democrats do that he has been, a little bit tame in the way he has dealt particularly with the republicans, being pushed around too much, and even down to when he can make a speech. it is a little bit demeaning and why doesn't he say, you know something, i'm the president of the united states, john boehner and if you want to move your thing, you move it. >> there is something to what kipling wrote about if you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, there is something to it. on the other hand, american people are looking for the kind of dynamic leadership which we believe that president obama is capable of providing, but it is not just in the rhetoric. the rhetoric has to be matched by action, and that is why i talk about the big plans and something to put millions of americans back to work and prime the pump of the economy and see our roads and bridges and water and sewer systems rebuilt and the younger people having a chance at college education and do something about the inequities of the society growing because people don't have a job. so, president obama if he can focus on it with a rooseveltian panache, we have an opportunity to see a different president obama emerge. the times call forth from each leader the potential that they have. and we all think that president obama has the potential, and the question is whether or not he will do it, and whether he does it and delivers on the jobs issue is going to determine whether or not he is re-elected. >> without being too dramatic about it, could the prospect of a s