>> i mark halperin. >> and i'm john heilemann and with all due respect to present obama -- no pressure, dude. we will be watching closely. happy state of the union day, and as it happens, national butter crunch day for you sports fans. in our lineup, the state of the union, the state of the union and the state of the union. but first -- wait for it -- the state of the union. president obama will tell the country what he wants and the rest of the night will be spent figuring out what is possible.

higher taxes on the rich? not likely. but the whole charade could just the a charade for the 2016 election. mark, what is he going to do with his speech? >> the cynics who say this is all about 2016 or appealing to the liberal base, it is an opening bid. the white house is right. this could be part of a package of compromise with republicans and he is trying to lay down his vision. highly poll tested. >> thank you for calling me a cynic. in some panglossian world this would be an opening bid your it in the world where we actually live, the president knows full well nothing he will propose will get accepted by this republican congress, so if republicans decided they would come to him, he would take it but in his heart our hearts -- of hearts, he is putting republicans in a bad position on popular issues to pave the way to a democratic presidency. >> more likely than the patriots

would not be the spread. what do you expect the president to do? >> i do not think he is doing the wrong thing. i think it is a fine strategy. i just do not think he really thinks they will get tax reform done on the bases he is proposing, as part of the grand bargain on tax reform. >> it could be, and that is the gameplay for the six months. all right. an unprecedented move, the white house decided to float these policies in a trip. there is nothing in the speech tonight, the white house says that we do not already know about. that is because since anywhere seventh, the administration has been test driving talking points . they put out everything short of the color of the thai president obama will wear tonight. white house sources tell bloomberg best that tie will be read. is this a smart move? i do not mean the tie color. >> i was hoping that you would

ask me about the tie color. i would prefer blue to the president throw red. i think it is smart to use social media, two seed of the ground with this stuff and then push it out, take it on the road. it makes a lot of sense. >> in the history of the obama administration, campaign and white house, using media in a different way, this is one of the smartest things i've seen them do. they put out the guest sitting with the first lady yesterday. normally no one has time to do researcher interviews. i think these each will have a bigger audience cause of it. maybe it will not be bigger than last year, but bigger because of it in smaller. >> and instead of having to sit and take note of what the news is and think about how to analyze it, the press can judge the speech on performance basis and can talk about the proposals and not be constantly scribbling at the same time. >> the one thing i would have

done, i would have held back one thing. hold it back so there is some news. >> a surprise. >> one surprise. i do not know who the architect was, but it was really smart. really smart. >> i agree with that. for most of his presidency barack obama's approval rating has hovered around the load to mid 40's. not good not bad. but his approval has jumped up to 50% of americans giving him the thumbs up. that is territory he has not been in very often, except for after the killing of osama bin laden. is it the economy or is there something bigger going on? >> the other reason it was smart to unveil the stuff over two weeks, that is when the new republican caucus came in. the president dominated the news. he loses in the midterms. lame-duck session. climate deal with china. the cuba move, immigration move.

his poll numbers are up. he has momentum. he is a freight train moving fast. yeah, the improved economy is helping the numbers, but bill clinton says better to be wrong and strong than right and weak. the president is looking awfully strong. >> there is one thing -- you have got to come back though. i do not disagree with anything you said in principle. he has to come back to those economic numbers. for the first time in his residency he can get up and save the state of our union is strong and economics. genuinely strong. not, we saved ourselves from the great depression, etc., etc. >> but he has jumped 10 point in the last month. >> i think people saw those numbers, when you got the 5% gdp growth confirmed in the third quarter and people saw the stock market was up -- all of those indices, that made headlines. >> are you feeling better about

the economy now than you did a month ago? [applause] focus group of one says -- >> all right. before we take a break, our grief over there and over there, on the side of the screen contains a puzzle. if you can send us a puzzle we will give you a bloomberg politics -- >> @bpolitics. >> we will give you a mug, maybe a date with fonzie. >> will the republicans be open-minded? will joe biden come at all? our experts will speculate wildly or mildly, right after this. ♪

>> a very special guest joining

us tonight. not a human, but a brown leathers dotted couch. and on that couch is our politicals stud, al hunt -- >> wow. >> and also, johnson new new -- john sununu and nita hampshire. let's start, senator, with you. i am going to ask you the most clichéd question ever as a state of the union preview. what does the president have to do tonight? >> just show up. speaking as a member of congress they are all generally the same, with the exception of post crisis speeches. katrina, financial crisis, 9/11 coming to mind. this is an exercise in the president, as the cliché goes,

laying out a laundry list of programs. this is probably the most meaningless state of the union since 2007 maybe 2000. those were late in the presidencies of bill clinton and george bush. those proposals are so unlikely to be taken up and the form he is presenting them it just makes this an exercise in sort of broad communication themes whatever you want to say as a white house staffer, but it's not meaningful to congress. >> i believe you may have a different point of view than you republican friend to your right. tell us what you think the president has to do tonight. >> i think the president could read the dictionary and the congressional republicans would vote no. so i do not think it matters too much in terms of congress cause i think the congressional

republicans have their own programs which presumably they will let the american people know about in due time. what the president needs to do tonight is caps off and immensely successful two months where he has demonstrated strength leadership, and started to lay out a very specific set of proposals to address what is the number one issue for people in this country, which is the wage stagnation, the sense they are not getting ahead. i think that will raise a very high bar for the republican party, for those resident -- running for the presidency and is in congress because he has begun to lay out proposals. it will be difficult for them to embrace those, but also equally difficult to oppose. >> al, this is the best economy in which president obama has ever given a state of the union. his approval ratings are up. normally that gives the president a stronger hand with the public. at how big a factor is that in the impact of the speech tonight? >> it is better than if it were

not the case, mark, but i agree with john. in this cycle, the speeches do not matter. i went back and read clinton 1999 bush 2007. you know, bush said we will have a government in iraq that represents who they are and who we are and was talked about victory in iraq and that shows you where we are in this cycle. however, i agree with what you said earlier. the rollout was important to do. the speeches are discounted to begin with. everybody knows what is going to happen. i think what obama did offensively was set the predicate for a debate. very little happen. some might. and he sets the predicate for the next presidential election. >> nina, you have been in that white house when a state of union it is being constructed. one thing mark says as different as the economy is better, but this is a different rollout than any state of the union ever. if you're in the white house now, what would be your interest he's for success tonight --your

indices for success tonight? you will not have news breaking. it will not be how to this new idea go over? how would you judge whether it is a good or bad speech? >> i think the metrics everyone has to look at when they are communicating are around engagement and what kind of engagement you get, what kind of penetration into social media networks to get knowing that an increasing number of people are getting their news from their social networks. so, i think the kind of vectors are different than any pastored at the end of the day i agree withal. -- i agree with al. i do not think this speech will have much to do with a rat like those previous ones. but did you set the terms of the agenda? i think that is how the white house will judge the success. >> joining us from the afro mentioned -- the after mentioned

white house -- anita dunn's predecessor. i will not consider this a total softball, but how much have you all executed your strategy for how effective that would be? >> i think the ultimate test is the reaction to the speech tonight and what we are trained to do is make the speech a more meaningful experience for the public by putting a lot of the policies out in advance so there is some context. they have some idea, tangible ideas of what these policies would mean. and also anita mentioned, and we're trying to do this with our website tonight -- we are trying to reach audiences that care about a lot of issues the president is going to talk about. we will have content of this audience is that is more

detailed and what the president will do in his page, so we can reach as many people who care about these issues. so it has gone well so far, but the ultimate test is, i think anita's right, we want people to come away from this hearing the resident lay out his. about middle class economics as a contrast to trickle down -- his theory of about middle class economics as a contrast to trickle down economics. and so, our goal and part of this is doing a lot of policy ahead of time, so when the president does give the speech, he cannot just -- it goes right now, you could have 50 pieces of policy in one state of the union. he is not just blowing by these issues, but able to talk about the values behind them, what it means for real-life. we are optimistic. >> let me ask.

obviously the president is putting forward policies he believes in, things he would love for republicans to meet him halfway on. a lot of people do not think that is very likely. another objective is to set the context for 2016. how much it is that on the president's mind explicitly putting republicans in a difficult position if they have to oppose these policies, many of which are popular? >> i think what is on his mind is how we have had -- this is the first serious interaction with this new congress, right? with that discussions behind the scenes about business tax reform. some things they want to do. we want to do that in a way that helps the middle class. we need to go bigger and broader with that. so, what he is hoping is that we are -- this is our first big opening conversation with the republican congress, but we are broadening the discussion.

we're not talking narrowly about taxes, but we are looking at how this impacts the middle class. everyone wants to do that, right? everybody wants to grow the middle class. >> i know you told us what was more on his mind, but you're not going to tell us that 2016 is on his mind at all, right? >> i really do not think it is on his mind. he has two years left. he feels two years as a long time. he also feels the urgency to get this very good strong ideas out there. >> boston globe columnist john sununu, do you have a question for jennifer paul mary -- palmi eri? >> what is the process for getting congress to take up the tax increase? i know where the ideas are

coming from. but if this is a conversation with congress, i don't see why and how the expectation comes through whereby congress takes up this tax bill. it does not seem realistic. what is the process? >> we think the process is opening the conversation with the american public. we think is drop in the state of the union is to say, here is the state of the union. here is how we are doing. these are the biggest challenges. he will identify the biggest challenge as closing the gap with the middle-class and his answer for what we need to do to do that is his answer area so this is him saying these are the steps i believe we need to take and then we start the conversation with congress area -- with congress. his job is to say these are the steps we need to take to close this gap. we will start that and then we will have the conversation with congress. but we are not going to trim our sails on what we think the solutions are at the outset. >> in the midst of a busy, long

day, thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. >> thank you. good to be with you. >> john and anita will be with us for the rest of the night. when we come back, al hunt will be here. will it be barack obama when we come back? will it be lanhee chen? we will find out when we come back. ♪

>> we are back with our expensive rental couch with republican lanhee chen on the very couch. and we have austan goolsbee in chicago. also our impartial political referee albert reinhold hunt junior. al, you will talk substance with

these gentlemen. wedding you take over this part of the conversation for us? >> will do. we have heard republicans say that this is class warfare. orrin hatch says it is robbing the rich. but are there areas when you look at that economic proposal, are there areas of common ground? >> there are on trade policy. >> anything on taxes? >> possibly on educational incentives. when you put it all together, it does not like serious to republicans. but the reality is, all you have is a joke right now. >> democrats keep saying that the proposal on banks is -- what chairman camp is proposing. is that true? >> there are similarities but when you put it with all the rest of the stuff, it's very difficult to take it as a serious proposal because it's pretty clear it will be dead on arrival if they try to push the

thing together. >> you never push the whole thing. it will just repeat since. 20% with the capital gains tax rate under ronald reagan. >> ronald reagan was lowering tax rates. >> but he had to increase the capital gains tax rate in 1986. >> we are looking at a doubling since the president took office. you go up to 20%, i think it will have a real damping effect on investing in a things area the reality, all this stuff republicans just look at it. it's not a serious basel. while i agree that they will try to move this these by piece, the president is marketing this as a package and it's difficult to make the sale. >> let me ask you to other things will quick. one is energy, the other is infrastructure. on energy, can you imagine -- in some world there is a possibility the president would sign the keystone deal and do broader energy climate --do you

think that could happen? >> i think that is difficult when the president signaled he would veto any keystone bill. >> if he were to drop the veto threat, do you think -- >> it is possible. but you have a lot of skepticism among republicans. >> swirling around all of this, the question of 2016. since you are close to governor romney, what you know about his deliberations on a run for president? >> i think they are very much where they were when you saw him in san diego last week. he has made the case there are things he was to focus on if he runs again. he was to focus on foreign policy helping the middle class, and dealing with opportunity and poverty in the united states. but he is thinking about it. >> what you say to those people's say, this is all made up. if he cares about the middle class, if he cares about poverty, why didn't he emphasize those when he ran the first deed of times? >> he had policies directed at

improving take him pain for the middle-class, increasing opportunity for the middle-class, increasing saving and investment. i do not think that critique is valid. >> i'm curious. what was interesting about governor romney, he indicated he was fiercely thinking about running. there was excitement, then there was pushed back over the next week. what is your sense of the actual appetite from non-inside from the world -- broadly and the rebuttal can party, what you think the appetite is for another run? >> my senses it is a scattered field. there are a lot of folks think about running. people realize governor romney rings strengths to the table. it varies. some are into cs it. others may not be. the reality is governor romney uniquely comes to the table with -- >> will he have the same positions on immigration this time? would he be as spam it as he was in 2012? >> the reality is the policy platform in 20 12 will be a big part of governor romney's

campaign if he goes forward into a 16. we want to see of the campaign develops, if there is a campaign. >> talking about deportations? >> on immigration, governor romney has always said that he favors securing the border and a sensible policy by boosting economic growth with immigration policies that do just that. he will have very similar policy articulation -- >> lieff the same policy director he had in 2012? >> i will be happy to help governor romney. >> we promised you austan goolsbee. we could not deliver austan goolsbee. that gave us the opportunity to get more lonnie chen -- >> it was great to have you here. al, you are always awesome. coming up, what time is the state of the union? we will tell you after this break. ♪

>> remember, everyone at 8:00 p.m., our special coverage of the state of the union. until then, taking stock is next. sayonara. ♪

>> i'm matt miller in for pimm fox. this is what i am taking doc on this tuesday, january 20 -- taking stock of on this tuesday cheney ray 20th, 2015. netflix reported fourth-quarter subscriber growth that beat analyst estimates. ibm also out with its results. big blue stock is down in late day trading. his forecast met the low end those estimates. and morgan stanley profits missed due to revenue decline in bond