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CNN Live Event/Special

White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest Delivers Remarks From Martha's Vineyard

Aired August 24, 2011 - 11:58   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: -- the president on overnight developments in the international markets. Brian also talked through the president the CBO report that was released today with -- that includes projections.

And Brian also updated the president on the ongoing policy process underway back at the White House in preparation for the major economic address the president will deliver shortly after Labor Day.

A couple of you, over the course of the week,. have asked for a photo of Brian briefing the president, and that's been put up on the White House Flickr site. So if folks are interested in that, you should take a look.

In addition, the president conducted a conference call today with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and American Express CEO Ken Chenault. Mr. Immelt and Mr. Chenault are the chair and co-chair of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

They discussed a number of proposals that the Jobs Council has been proposing, and the president solicited their input on the policy -- again, on the policy process that's underway related to the major economic address that the president will deliver after Labor Day.

A couple of things to the Jobs Council that Mr. Immelt and Mr. Chenault flagged for the president were a couple of initiatives that they're reviewing. One is they're looking for ways to increase the number of engineers that graduate from American institutions of higher learning.

The second thing is they also spoke with the president about some different initiatives that involve putting more construction workers back to work by putting them to work retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient.

So we talked about a couple of these ideas. There are actually a couple of jobs council meetings that are coming up on August 31st, in Portland, Oregon, with Paul Otellini, the CEO of Intel, where they're going to talk about the engineering issues. Secretary Chu and the deans of some colleges and universities will also be there.

And then on September 1st, in Dallas, Texas, there will be a conversation about --

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