On February’s unemployment numbers:

I think the key phrase here is “sense of the government acting.” I think there is great fiction in our politics that the presidents command the economy like King Canute and the tides.
This is a $15 trillion economy. The bill you mentioned, the jobs bill, is $15 billion. That’s one tenth of one percent of the gross domestic product. It’s not going to have any serious effect on the economy.
The economy is largely autonomous and it’s cyclical. … It looks like we are at a plateau in unemployment, the bottom of the cycle of the recession, and the direction will likely be up.
Republicans ought to be careful. If you blame the administration for all of the negative news over the last year in the economy, you are going to have to praise the administration when the inevitable swing happens. And it will inevitably swing.
The one time the federal government affects the economy is like in ‘08 when you have a systemic crisis and the banks are about to go under, credit is drying up and everything will seize up and collapse. Then federal action, as we had in ‘08 — the bailouts, and which Obama did in ‘09 — is going to have an effect.
But these bills, the jobs bills are worthless. The only thing you can say for sure about last year’s stimulus is that it’s going to leave a $1 trillion hole in the Treasury. That’s all. …
But the problem is, if you pivot and say I’ll do jobs and the economy, what do you do? That’s the problem.
I think Obama is rather smart about this. Why not work on something you might affect? You can certainly affect health care, and it’s something he believes in. But if he pivots, what’s he going to do? Another $15 billion for a jobs bill which is not going to have any effect?

On the Iraqi elections:

It’s a great day, but it’s a shaky process. Two questions. Now will there be a lot of attacks on the polling stations? And second, will the Sunnis turn out after many of their candidates have been tossed out?
But the real issue starts after Election Day in trying to form a government. Remember, after the election of 2005, it took 156 days. And that was very damaging. If that happens again, that will make things extremely difficult.