deployments. >> the question does not come how many troops you send or a redable afghan partner for this process that can provide the security and the type of services the afghan people need. in kabul, foreign relations chairman senator john kerry is also suggesting that the president should take his time. >> it would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the united states to commit more troops to this country when we don't even have an election finished and know who the president is and know what kind of government we're working with. >> coming up the council of the foreign relations richard haas does it signal indecision or weakness? new questions about whether the president is tough enough. coming up, doug bripgly and msnbc's own joe scarborough. the networks of nbc kick off a week of special reports today on "a woman's nation." this hour maria shriver and president and ceo john podesta joining us to talk about their landmark report that shows how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. i'm andrea mitchell live in new york today. the top advisors are making a big tactical shift by directly calling out wall street giants for planning billion dollar bonuses and lobbying against new financial regulations. also today the white house announced 250,000 teaching or education jobs were created or saved in the states due to the stimulus. it is the big story at the white house today. melody barnes joining us now. good to see you, thanks so much. i'll talk about the stimulus package in a moment and these purported jobs that have been saved at the education levels. let me ask you first about what seemed to be a coordinated change and a shift in the offensive against wall street. beating up on the wall street banks may be good politics, might even be good policy, but what is the thinking behind it? >> well, first of all, andrea, it is a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. and i don't think this is a matter of strategy or beating up on wall street banks. i think this is, as my dad would say, calling it like we see it. in many ways we are concerned because we know that there are banks that were taking t.a.r.p. funds and banks that still have t.a.r.p. funds and at the same time they're spending a lot of money and going up to capitol hill to push back against the president's financial regulatory reform measures and then taking these big bonuses at the same time. it's kind of like the theater of the absurd. what we want to make sure is happening is we have a fair regulatory scheme that banks are doing the lending they need to do and the individuals and small businesses are able to get the credit that they need to do their work and to bring our economy back again. these bonuses are offensive in that regard. >> what have you seen as far as the pace of lending? that has not kept pace with what we're seeing as all evidence of a recovery, not in the job's front, but in the other fraunts. certainly the stock market is better but pace of lending from these banks. what are your concerns? >> we've definitely seen movement in the proper direction and we know that because of actions and measures we were able to take that homeowners are going out into the market and some people are able to buy homes or keep their homes, but it isn't good enough. we have to see more and we are particularly concerned about small businesses. we know that they're the backbone of the american economy. that they are the entities necessary to do the hiring. to bring new people on and to create new products and create new jobs and that's where we're most concerned and we're not seeing all that we want to see. >> the president visited a maryland elementary school today and the white house you were saying that the stimulus has created or saved a quarter million teaching or education jobs this year. that's what you're hoping to get from the states. that's what the states are beginning to -- >> we wouldn't put this data out if we're not confident in it. this is good news from our perspective and we were hearing from the states that they were very concerned about budget shortfalls about this fiscal year and forecasting the same going into the 2010 school year. 31 states we're predicting in 2008, 2009 that they weren't going to be able to meet budget. instead, because of these recovery act dollars we were able to provide up to 23% of the funds necessary to fill those holes in their state budgets. at the same time, andrea, we have been able to perform with this. states have not only been able to keep teachers on the payroll, but they have been able to do the smart things with these dollars like extend school days for students that are in trouble and need extra help and making sure that we've got proper instruction in the areas of math and science and literacy. it's a combination of saving jobs, making sure that we don't get our class sizes too big and providing the proper environment for our kids to learn. >> and, finally, i wanted to ask you about the near record deficit numbers that came out, the budget deficit numbers were announced on friday afternoon. it does create challenges for you as the domestic affairs side of the white house are trying to come up with programs to address a lot of the problems that the president campaigned on that you care so deeply about. >> well, andrea, the president has had his eye on this from day one. we knew that we had to come in and we had to do things like the recovery act to make sure that we're going to save or create those 250,000 teaching jobs. at the same time we've always been very cognizant of the deficit numbers to make sure we are adhering to the fiscal discipline that the president considers to be so important. so, it's a balancing of those two things and at the same time, making sure that we address the big challenges that are addressing the country. >> thank you very much, great to see you from the white house today. >> thank you so much. the pressure is mounting on harmid karzai to end the disputed results. the investigators threw out thousands of fraudulent ballots that karzai received less than the 50% of votes in august. the votes he would need to avoid a runoff. a runoff seems far more likely. council of foreign relations and author. this is a tough problem now for the president, for our president because how do you persuade harmid karzai to power share or to accept the runoff and do it quickly enough so that we can make the critical troop decisions that general mcchrystal and others are beginning to see. >> the kind of negotiation where the united states will make whatever it does in the way of troop increases conting. on karzai agreeing to a second round of elections or, more importantly, quite honestly, agreeing to broad-based government which he will have to do whether he has a second round of elections or not. >> what we heard from robert gibbs today is that there can't be a decision without some kind of legitimate government to work with. let's watch what he said at his briefing today. >> nothing is going to be imposed by us or anybody else. that will ultimately be seen as legitimate without the legitimation of those leaders. >> that puts it squarely back on the afghan leaders to accept either the runoff or power sharing, but, so far, karzai has really strongly resisted. >> well, he has. he has some leverage, too, because it's not obvious what were to happen if say tomorrow he would resign or he would say, essentially, america, i'm not going to change course. you know, he's not, we're not the only ones with leverage here, andrea. >> what kind of leverage can we use against his resistance. we have john kerry who is clearly pressuring him, the chairman of the foreign relatiorelation s committee and david is in pakistan talking about this today. >> what kind of assurances can we give him? we're not trying to kick him out. he will win most likely, almost certainly a second round of elections. so, we can, we can offer more troops conceivably or at least a different mix of troops. more economic aid and so forth. at the same time, this is not a classic military confrontation. we need tease guys to do something about corruption and karzai and his brother. we would like them to accelerate the training of afghan police and military training and we would like them to do something on drugs. i think what you're hearing from senator kerry and the administration is that we're not pouring in american lives and dollars unless we have someone to work with. that is the first rule or law of counterinsurgency. >> of course, the other half of the cunonedrum is pakistan and what we're seeing in the last 48 hours, this move into those northwest territories. this is a good thing, this is what we have wanted all along and it comes as the regime, the presidency, the civilian leadership and the military leadership have been more challenged than ever in the last two weeks the taliban and other militant forces penetrated army headquarters and other key institutions. >> it's a good thing. unlikely to be a decisive thing given the nature of the adversary here which could quickly melt away and also given the limitations, as you know of the pakistani armed forces which are really designed to fight a traditional war against india rather than the sort of unconventional struggle they find themselves in in their own country. it is a good sign, but i wouldn't exaggerate what is likely to result from it. >> i wanted to finally bring you to iran and the negotiations in vienna and i just got off the phone there with someone who said they had 2:45 of talks today and the public posture from tehran is that they will not deal with this proposal to at least send the reprocessed uranium, once it's finished in russia to france to be put into metallic plates. but that could be just an opening, opening bid here. they're going to talk again tomorrow starting at 10:00 their time. what prospect do you think there is for this to actually work? >> if at best it works slowly. in my experience negotiating with the iranians you always go back several centuries before you get anywhere near the president. but even if we were to succeed, it still doesn't cover their production of uranium and doesn't cover those things that may still be secret. so, it's unlikely that any time soon you'll see anything remotely like a successful negotiated outcome that will put our concerns to rest. >> but what is so interesting this time, the difference this time is that the french are taking a harder line against iranian delays than some of the other allies. the french, to a lesser extent, the germans want some kind of decisive action from iran very quickly. it seems like a complete flip of what we went through last time around. >> the europeans are incredibly robust and the problem are the russians and the chinese. they are resistant of strong, economic sanctions. so, again, i'm somewhat skeptical, andrea, that we could put together a united international front that will be muscular enough to get the iranians to do what we want and need them to do. >> thank you very much. author of "war of necessity, war of choice" and thanks very much. good to see you, richard. and coming up, as the president tries to advance his agenda, some people are asking if president obama is being tough enough. presidential historian douglas brinkley and our own joe scar different borough are joining us next. california's first lady maria shriver and former clinton chief of staff share the results of their new report. some of which may surprise you. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. because you are... ...clown, yes? female valve: come, you hit me again and i break you. male valve: oh, you messed with wrong pipe now, car. ha, ha trust me...i have to live with her. announcer:accidents are bad. but geico's good with guaranteed repairs through auto repair express. a tornado hits, air life denver takes off... their night-vision goggles keeping the rescue mission safe... and powering those goggles-- the only battery air life trusts: duracell. trusted everywhere. as president obottoma faces challenges, some critics are asking whether the president is tough enough to make crucial decisions. senior aide david axelrod defended the president on abc yesterday. >> i think he's been plenty tough. i think people want toughness, but they also want to have thoughtful leadership and that requires reviewing these issues, thinking them through clearly and bringing people along. that's what he's doing. >> doug brinkley is presidential historian at rice university and author of reagan diaries and joins us now. doug, good to see you. let's talk about the president and pace of decision making. does he seem deliberative enough just right on afghanistan, for instance, or taking too much time? >> i don't think you can take too much time with afghanistan at such a major moment for our country and the decision he has to make is daunting. the questions coming up, though, why is somebody like general mcchrystal able to come forward and go on "60 minutes" and present himself in these public forums and talk about chaos occurring in afghanistan if we don't follow what the general thinks. former presidents like lincoln would fire general mcclellan for something like that. and, so, what you're starting to wonder, he's got to keep his house in order and it goes on the other side. joe biden has been presenting his own plan and it's starting to become a muddle on afghanistan because people within the administration and within the military feel that they can just publicly speak up whenever they want and i think they need to be talking in with the confidence of the president, not on a public stage. >> i think they did pull general mcchrystal back a little bit during that air force one meeting when they were coming off the decisions in copenhagen, but that may have been too late because he had already done the interviews and you see the "time" magazine this tuesday and he gave a very public speech in london. but the counterargument would be, doug, this is exactly what you want when our men and women are engaging in what could be years and years down the road of a terrible and perhaps winless war. >> well, the good news is president obama's so thoughtful and he's looking at, i think, all of our options. i think a lot of people will feel very comfortable at the decision he makes. we feel it will not be rash or something that's just done on a whim or out of a motive sponse. it will be an intellectual decision on what to do in afghanistan. too much if history is going to look at this year, too much sniping within the democratic party and foreign affairs from outside voices like general mcchrystal and joe biden. the power that these democratic senators that aren't part of the health care program that obama presented is almost daunting. on something like the arctic refuge, for example, which sarah palin ran, you know, drill, baby, drill. people want to save for decades all the environmental monies to save that coastal plane. that's an executive order and a signature and we could have a new monument saving the refuge but people are saying, well, if we do that, it will anger the democratic senator from alaska on health care. i think there is too much of a focus on legislative process and not on executive orders and having a white house that is leak free, as you know, is the key thing to do. when you have a general talk like he did, in world war ii the saying was, loose lips sink ships. it creates a lot of problems with people in the military start telling the commander in chief what they'd like to do. >> to your point, this cover story in the national journal, is obama tough enough and it says that a narrative is emerging among some columnists, pundits and academics across the political spectrum that obama's low key, cool cerebral style many levels lacks the punch that is sometimes needed to advance an agenda in washington. you say that obama needs to be more like lbj or roosevelt in his tactics. teddy roosevelt, i should say. >> well, i thought you had a report a minute ago on wall street with the president using tough language. i think people are angry right now. this is not 1992 when bill clinton came in and america had won the cold war and the clinton administration had in '93 a health care setback. there is a lot of anger in the country and people want to know why we're in the situation we're in and i think the more the president can be name people directly who have put us in this sort of meltdown on wall street instead of saying, i will calm the waters and i will fix it. people want to know why we got to the place we are at. he is most effective when we gets out there and travels across the country. is it in washington and engages the american public. yet on the other hand, the conservative movement has co-opted the town hall meeting format and made for a difficult year for the president. >> the historical perspective and let's bring in joe scarborough and author of "the last best hope restoring conservativism and america's promise." agree or disagree or partially agree? >> i disagree. this has nothing to do with ideolo ideology. it has to do with presidential leadership. i think when historians look back at his first year, they're going to be stunned at barack obama's management style. it's a management style unlike any other president i have ever seen. it is a style of deference. a style of deference and to nancy pelosi. this is something we don't hear enough. and it really told us that barack obama really was that voted present 100 times back when he was illinois state. i say that because so many times past is prologue. when barack obama sent larry summers up to capitol hill and said we have this stimulus package outline and it's one that republicans will come along with us on and we'll get some republicans and democrats and some republicans come out and said, yeah, we can go along with that. nancy pelosi and the democrats on the hill, you'll remember said, no, we're not going that way. we're not interested in being bipartisan and larry summers came out and said, message received. we'll defer the stimulus package. remember, the most important bill that probably he's passed thus far and also the biggest spending bill in the history of the republic, they deford and just turned it completely over. >> could they have done it without letting pelosi and the house democratic caucus do it? would they have won? >> if you're a leader you would have won. does anyone really believe that the democrats wouldn't have followed the president on his first bill just because he wanted to get some republicans on board? cap and trade. turned over completely to henry waxman. this president, i heard from the white house, didn't even want to get out and fight on cap and trade because he thought it would cloud his message on the health care debate coming up. let's talk about health care reform, as well. again, the president being dragged by capitol hill. health care reform. there's a reason conservatives co-opted town hall meetings this summer. it's because nobody knows what the president stands for. i'll give you a perfect example. last week i made the mistake of saying on my morning show, you know, jane harmine, the president wants this on health care reform. she laughed and said, how do you know what the president wants. this morning i said the same thing. herald ford laughed and said the same thing. when jane harman said that the democrats don't like the fact that this president is flying at 40,000 feet right now and not getting down to the details and being like lbj or teddy roosevelt and saying this is what we want. a style of difference that i challenge douglas brinkley or any other presidential historian to find a parallel. i can't. >> you say you want to see more of rock obama than barack o