SCOTT SIMON, host:
Our friend, NPR News analyst Juan Williams, joins us now. Morning, Juan.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: And let's talk about the economy and how continued bad news might affect President Obama's popularity and by extension his policies. 'Cause there's this new poll in Ohio, shows that his approval rating slipping below 50 percent; people essentially saying, you know, where's the stimulus?
WILLIAMS: Where are the jobs? That's the question: where are the jobs? And what you see is similarly told in New York State, where now a recent poll, Marist poll had three-quarters of the people in the state saying that they think this economic crisis is going to last for another year easily.
And it's interesting - half of the people who are over 45 think the economy's actually going to get worse in the next year. So with unemployment right now at 9.5 percent nationally, the concern about whether or not the stimulus is actually working - $787 billion stimulus was supposed to help with the job problem. It has not.
This morning, President Obama in his weekly radio address said that, look, people need to be patient, that the stimulus was not designed to work in four months but designed over some kind of traction over a two-year period. So at the White House what they're thinking about is maybe trying to redirect some of that stimulus money.
This morning the Washington Post reports that Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, is looking at maybe using some of the TARP funds that were aimed for the banks - TARP meaning Troubled Assets Relief Program - and directing it to small businesses, because that's where the jobs are created.
So again, the White House is kind of trying to redirect itself, because the polls now show that this is a drag on the president's standing.
SIMON: Let me ask you about something that's about to happen. July 24th, minimum wage is going to rise to 7.25. Now, that obviously could be a stimulus for low-wage workers, but small businesses also might have to shed jobs because of that. The net effect isn't necessarily encouraging.
WILLIAMS: No, that's exactly - what you just described is the trap that the administration and President Obama are in. They are trying to find a way to get those jobs going, so they try to, of course, go ahead with raising the minimum wage. Maybe even - another possibility - extend unemployment benefits all alike - but then you drive up the deficit.
If the number one concern of the American voter in all polls is jobs, the number two concern is deficit spending, and the Republicans are hammering President Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal with all this money on the stimulus being spent - if it's not generating the jobs that were promised. The Obama administration said unemployment would never reach 10 percent, and it looks like we're headed there. And President Obama has conceded that point.
So they're in a real bind. If they do more, they drive up the deficit, but if they don't do more, the unemployment numbers continue to stay.
SIMON: Let me ask you about the president's appearances overseas - Russia, Italy for the G-8, Vatican City to see the pope. He's in Ghana. His first trips seem to demonstrate that America could change. But on these trips he has to get into the nitty-gritty of policy, and that's a little rougher, isn't it?
WILLIAMS: It's a little tougher when you're dealing with the Russians about missile defense and nuclear weapons, and it's tougher when you're dealing with the G-8 about climate control and trying to get some of the developing countries to come along as others complain about the fact that America has not been taking a leadership role on climate change itself.
And then, of course, you deal with the pope, and the pope has a different set of agendas, especially with dealing, let's say, with abortion or stem cell research. He might agree with aid to developing countries and help for the poor, but President Obama has to walk that line very carefully.
And then, of course, he's in Ghana and talking about democracy. And you have other African countries - Nigeria and Kenya, the place of his father's birth -saying how come he didn't come visit us?
SIMON: Vice President Biden, a smart and good man, got all the wrong kind of attention this week. He seemed to suggest the U.S. has given Israel some kind of green light to attack Iran if they feel threatened.
WILLIAMS: He said basically that Israel can, you know, determine as a sovereign state what's in their best interest to do with regard to Iran. President Obama had to come back and say, wait, hold on, absolutely not. And then Vice President Biden earlier in the week said we misread how bad the economy was, to which President Obama had to come back and said, no, no, no, we had incomplete information.
So as to take the emphasis away from the idea that the Obama administration didn't know what they were doing. So this is becoming something of a cleanup behind the circus. But Vice President Biden is known for this. He's a loquacious guy, friendly guy, wonderful guy, but he says things in ways that sometimes aren't exactly helpful to the administration's political goals.
SIMON: NPR's Juan Williams. Thanks so much.
WILLIAMS: You're welcome, Scott.
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