of a potential attack on sochi. this time in a newly surfaced jihadist video but mitt romney, the man in charge of the 2002 post 9/11 salt lake city olympic games tells savannah guthrie, he believes sochi will be safe. >> would you go to sochi? would you send your family? >> the answer is yes. >> on the record, nsa leaker edward snowden speaks out in an online chat. we'll talk to his lawyer. an exclusive interview with nbc's ari melber, holder says clemency is not an option. >> clemency, a simple no harm, no foul, i think that would be going too far. >> and in the midnight hour, "today" show anchors let loose. and the speaker of the house gets real on his presidential aspirations. >> listen, i like to play golf.

i like to cut my own grass. you know, i do drink red wine and smoke cigarettes and i'm not giving that up to be president of the united states. >> good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. we begin with the sting of deadly blasts across cairo. six people now dead in the bombing hitting the central core of egypt's government, coinciding with the third anniversary of the so-called arab spring. ayman, you were there in cairo and experienced all of it. there's a difference to these bombings though today. tell me what is the importance of the targets. >> what we're seeing in egypt unfold is a low level insurgency targeting the government and security services belonging to government.

right now all indicators are that this is the work of extremist elements, those that really -- ultimately came into the being after the fall of president morsi. so a lot of people are saying sths as a result of what happened back in june with the removal of the president morsi. but today's attacks were extremely symbolic. they happened on third anniversary of the january 25th revolution and happened in the heart of cairo targeting buildings that were supposed to be particularly the headquarters supposed to be heavily guarded. they carry not only a strategic significance but symbolic one. >> the pictures we're showing show devastation from these bombings. how do they get through the security perimeter to attack these targets? >> that's the question that's going to be on minds of officials. there have been right now closed circuit footage released and nbc has not been able to independently verify it. it shows two vehicles pulling up outside of the security headquarters at 6:30 a.m. this

morning. one individual seen leaving the car and gets in another and that car bomb goes off. you're right, a lot of people are already questioning how the government allowed this major road in front of the major security headquarters building to be completely uninterrupted without massive security presence and allow this to take place. a lot of questions are going to be asked and already some fingers are being pointed at both the security officials in charge and others that may have been involved in this attack. >> ayman, thank you very much. meanwhile, in richmond, former virginia governor bob mcdonnell and his wife maureen fought through cameras to the first court appearance. the mcdonnells rejected a plea deal from federal prosecutors that would have let his wife off the hook and release of embarrassing details about their lavish gifts. chris cillizza and usa today washington bureau chief, susan

page. on the "washington post" reporter, they have been all over this story for months and months as this investigation progressed. let's talk about that plea deal. they pleaded not guilty it will and won't appear in court until next summer with all of the pretrial maneuvering that's going to take place. but why is your reporting why is the "washington post" reporting that he rejected that deal, because he believes he's not guilty or they have a different strategy? >> first of all, thank you for the acknowledgement, i would say it's roz who has done the vast majority of reporting and done amazing work. i think the answer is what you said and its kind of in front of your face politically speaking, which is bob mcdonnell didn't want to plead to anything. and the not guilty plea affirms that but i think it is easy to look at the gifts and say, golly, that -- he really

overstepped the line. and politically speaking, no matter what happens politically, he is in a very bad place. legally, remember how lax the virginia gift ban is. >> there is none. >> what needs to be proven is the quid proquo, that these gifts got johnny williams, the star scientific founder who donated the money and the louis vuitton shoes to maureen mcdonnell, that something was given in exchange of those things. bob mcdonnell has insisted that is not the case. i think pleaing to anything would be an admission of what he doesn't believe, which is that he's guilty. >> and the fact is that legal experts a lot of legal expects are pointing out to us that as chris has said, you've got to have the quo for the quid and the gift law, there's no ban. there's a very minor disclosure

requirement. so his legal exposure may be far less than the embarrassment factor. >> he doesn't have legal exposure in terms of state law. he's been charged under federal law and i think there's a mixed record on whether lending the prestige of your office in exchange for gifts is enough to be quid pro quo. this is a roll of the dice to not take the plea deal. he would have had to plea guilty to something not -- would have gotten his wife off entirely. she's in some way in more peril than he is in the indictment that was handed up. he is calculating that he can make the case that he did not violate the federal law. we'll see if that turns out to be a smart decision to have made. >> let's talk about the republican gathering in washington. so much is going on here. we've got to catch up and what happened with mike huckabee yesterday. we played this yesterday. reince priebus, trying to get

the republican winter meeting back on track and talking about the calendar and made the vote to accelerate and have an earlier convention, which helps them in a whole lot of ways. let's play a little bit of reince today. >> the rnc can't do it all. it's up to the other committees as well and of course the candidates have to do their party as well. but our example matters. i've said many times before, that the policies and principles of this party are sound. however, as we look to grow the ranks of our party, we must all be very conscious of tone and choice of words when we communicate those policies effectively. >> let's talk about tone and choice of words and mike huckabee yesterday. and as we pointed out, he was not adopting this accusation himself. he was saying if the democrats want women to believe that they are helpless without uncle

sugar, and -- uncle sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. but let's face it, in that choice of words -- chris, shows that there's still -- they are just completely out of the game in terms of how to appeal to women, republican and democratic women. >> part of being good at politics and prospering in politics is understanding context. you know, mike huckabee has gone to blame reporters for this controversy over his comments. my thing is listen to what reince priebus said, tone matters. that was one of my deputies, a guy named aaron blake, it was a 54 word sentence that he unleashed in which the construction of it was confusing to many people. and they just -- mike huckabee needs to be aware this is a

party that had todd aiken and murdoch in the not so recent past and they are struggling underneath a perception that the party and its policies are not accommodating and friendly to women. so context matters here. and mike huckabee is usually a better politician than this. he should be aware of it whether or not he thinks the words are misinterpreted. you can't leave your words open to be misinterpreted if you're a republican, national figure, talking about women's issue given what has happened within the party and to the party over the last four or five years. >> susan, take a look at what nicolle wallace had to say on quts morning joe, former romney and white house adviser. >> i don't think any man should sit around and talk about female libido on television or in a stump speech. i think as a political matter, keeping it focused on what you're for instead of trying to

characterize the democrats' efforts would have been wiser. >> susan, while we talk about this, let's talk about another issue, gender issue, if you will. this makes me crazy. full disclosure, this is another cover on hillary clinton. we saw the "time" cover and i asked nancy gibbs about that with the high heel last week. this is the sunday "new york times" magazine, planet hillary. when have you ever seen a magazine cover about a male political figure international figure, potential candidate that looks like that? >> it's bizarre and if the point was to get attention? okay, mission accomplished. if the point was to convey something about hillary clinton, i'm not sure it works. and it's hard for me to remember a leading presidential candidate who is male being portrayed in this kind of bizarre way. so to all graphic artists and headline writers in future

times, think about this before you go for buzz or effect. just think about it one more time. susan, thank you very much. thank you, chris, see you later. >> thank you. >> and on a very serious note, it was a horrific scene on a busy northwest indiana interstate where ice and blinding snow caused this massive and fatal pileup. more than 40 vehicles, many of them tractor-trailers began snarled in the chain reaction wreck strechb stretching more than a mile long. one witness said the crash sounded like a train coming off the rails. three people were killed and 22 others were injured. some of them critically. at least one person was trapped in a vehicle for hours before authorities could even get to the rescue. this morning as crews continue to clean up the scene, rescue workers describe the devastation. >> it will live with us forever. that's something that you'll never forget. >> we're lucky that the roles

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the terrorist threat appears to come from a nobody branch of al qaeda, with fighters from central asia and pakistan. the tone is smug and mocking saying the olympics have already been tarnished and russia is trembling and violence is coming. that's not the way russian officials see things. at the ice rink, the new 12,000 seat main hockey stadium, the venue manager told us sochi is the say safest city in the world. >> i'm sure everything will be okay because you can see that

security procedures are real tough. >> reporter: two messages, one threatening the other confident. is there room in between for much olympic spirit at a games where both russia and islamic extremists have something to prove? >> that is chief foreign correspondent richard engel reporting from sochi. the russians continue to assure the world they have it covered but many remain on edge as threats continue to surface. for more about in i'm joined by former diplomat ambassador nick burns, now a harvard kennedy professor and global post columnist. you are a russian expert. when we first met you were at the nsc as an expert on russia. are the russians too defensive about having this covered and asking for enough help? will they permit the u.s. to intervene if necessary? >> andrea, i think the russians are showing up, very defensive about this. obviously if people stay away from the games, they don't

achieve the economic purpose they had in mind. putin has a lot riding on these games in terms of his own credibility and prestige and sense of russian nationalism. i think that the russians need to be more transparent publicly, to let people know what they think the threat is and what they are doing to counteract it. it's not good enough in the current day and age, trust us, everything is okay, when these stories about black widows and terrorists threatening these games. as you suggest, andrea, they really need to reach out to germany, to the united states, to turkey, countries with real experience in fighting terrorism, so that there can be an international effort to help the russians in all of the previous olympic games during this era of terrorism over the last 20 or 30 years, it's really been inan international effort when they combined efforts to make it peaceful. they can reach out to others and they are not really doing that yet. so they can do a much better job

of communicating. >> i also wanted to ask you about what's been going on in syria, the reaction as well as today's speech at the world economic forum in switzerland by john kerry. this is a bit of kerry's speech today in switzerland defending the u.s. from a growing perception that we are retreating from the world. my own take is that it's rooted partly in our response to the crossing of the red line on chemical weapons and the decision not to take military action and not to be more forward leaning on arming the rebels. for a lot of complicated reasons but this was kerr y today. >> we've seen torture at the hands of the assad regime. but this week we also saw the syrian regime and opposition sit at the same table, same room or separate tables, but in the same room for first time since the war began. now, obviously, we know this isn't going to be easy.

in fact, it's obviously very, very hard. it's already hard. we are convinced that if the syrian people are to have the chance to rebuild their country, and if millions of syrian ref e refugees have the chance to return home, it is ultimately diplomacy that will make it possible. >> now, if it's diplomacy that's going to make it possible, this u.s. and russian joint initiative to bring people together in geneva, they did not get together today. they are supposed to have the first face to face meeting and opposition and regime tomorrow morning in geneva. so far these talks are near collapse and this is only a couple of hundred miles from where kerry was speaking today. >> it's not surprising andrea. in the sense that the problem with the united states and other countries have in geneva is that both the syrian government and the rebel alliance appear to be going through the motions. they are there to retain the small measure of credibility that they already have internationally. and the other problem is that both of them think they can win

on the battlefield the syrian government believes it's got the advantage tactically over the so-called rebel alliance. not really an alliance. and the rebels, some of them, particularly the jihadist groups, for them it's a fight to the death and they think they can destroy assad. having said all of that, secretary kerry is right, to be in geneva and force them to be at the table. i remember very well the torturist negotiations in bosnia in the early 1990s and nothing good happened until we forced them to the table through the use of military force. the other problem the u.s. has, we gave up that use -- that credibility, that leverage that we have because we didn't use force through air strikes as you suggested back in september when president assad crossed the red line on use of chemical weapons. i don't think we're perceived as a country that can make them

work towards peace. >> nick burns, thank you very much for joining us today. >> thank you. and last night, house speaker john boehner made his first appearance with jay leno on the tonight show. he didn't even hold back when asked about vladimir putin. >> i think he's a thug and treated his neighbors in a disrespectful way. and frankly, i think the president ought to stand up to him. >> mean while, over on bravo, it was matt and savannah letting loose on watch what happens live, proving they can have adds much fun at night. >> who's in the shower with matt lauer? here's a shower cap. i will stand up and start taking a shower. turn the water on, everybody, and here come the people -- >> okay, you interviewed her and she volunteered to do online dating -- >> martha stewart. >> married to bruce -- i can't say his last name.

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edward snowden answering tweets to his web page. he wrote, the biggest problem we face right now is the new technique of indiscriminate mass surveillance where governments are seizing billions and billions of innocent communications every single day. snowden praised the government privacy panel's conclusion that the nsa mass telephone collection is illegal and of minimal value, and writing, i never stole pass words nor did i trick an army of co-workers. the attorney general told ari melber. >> clemency, a simple no harm, no foul, i think that would be

going too far. >> reporter:. >> in the web chat he didn't answer this charge that he was working with vladimir putin. >> i don't think it was a gee whiz event that he ended up am moscow. >> an accusation he dedied. >> he said he acted alone, with no one else and certainly no other country. >> one man setting off a national debate over privacy that the president and congress have yet to resolve. and yesterday's web chat edward snowden also said his return to the u.s. would be the best resolution for the government, public and for himself but that scenario is not possible in the case of current whistle blower protection laws. for more on this, i'm joined by edward snowden's legal adviser, ben wisener, the director of the aclu speech technology and privacy project. good to see you again. let's talk about why did he

decide -- snowden want to do this web chat? it coincided with the release of the privacy panel that a government watchdog group's report finding that first of all majority of the panel said that the bulk telephone collection program is illegal and has been of minimal value. is that why he timed his web chat to yesterday? >> i think it's a coincidence. i think the news about the nsa programs and evaluations come so continuously and fast and furious, that there's always something it seems to respond to, whether it's a speech or report, judicial decision. no, i think that, as i hinted a few weeks ago on your network, he is ready to engage a little bit more. he wanted to engage with his supporters. that's a website that raises funds for his legal defense. although as he said, to the

"washington post," he believes largely his job is done and it's up to the public to decide what to do with those disclosures. i think we can expect him participating a little more actively in that debate. >> let me play a little bit more of ar melber's exclusive interview which is going to play in full on "the cycle." what holder seemed to be doing, as with anybody accused of something, we'll talk with his attorneys but not going to offer clemency, that is the takeaway but you're his attorney, let me play it for you. >> he broke the law. he caused harm to our national security. and i think he has to be held accountable for his actions. i think the dialogue that we are engaged in, the debate we are engaged in is in fact something that is ultimately going to be productive. and i think it's healthy. but that doesn't necessarily excuse that which he did. there are other ways he might have brought this to attention

of the nation. >> now, i think i may have misspoken by saying you're his attorney, u a legal adviser. can you characterize that? >> sure, look, i don't think that clemency is an exception to our legal system. i think clemency is part of our legal system as are pardons. we have in our history often used the pardon and clemency mechanism as part of our legal system, when for one reason or another we decide to turn the corner as a nation, whether that was vietnam war resistors or president nixon or people involved in iran/con tra, i don't think it can be said in most of those cases that the law breaking that occurred there helped the country as attorney general holder and president obama have both conceded with edward snowden, that this debate will make us stronger. i think that this global debate, that has been launched by edward snowden that could not have been started another way, people say

he should have gone to congress. congress knew about these programs. senator widen was saying if the american people knew what i knew they would be angry and outraged but unwilling to go public with that information. this was the only way to do it to bring the media into the discussion to share the information with reporters. i don't think mr. snowden should be punished for that and i think that there are times when we decide we're going to look forward and not backward, not enforce the letter of the law in the national good i think this is one of those times. >> are you in conversation with the justice department? >> i'm not going to go into details about what conversations are going on. but certainly there is an open door. >> and under what circumstances would edward snowden return to the united states? >> look, certainly clemency is the framework that we are

talking about right now. i don't think edward snowden should as the justice department said plead guilty to a felony and lose his freedom and civil rights for his act of conscience that did this good. those discussions will take place elsewhere. i can tell you now he's not going to return to the country and take his chances on what the details of a plea bargain might be or what will await him in a trial. >> that leaves a lot of running room. one other question i wanted to ask you because i interviewed jane mayor this week on what edward snowden talked to "the new yorker" about, it was a very visceral and quick response. to what mike rogers had said on "meet the press." can i get you to elaborate on mike rogers' suggestion that it's no accident that he ended up in the arms of fsb and russia and it wasn't a coincidence, i'm para phrasing.

>> it's a very odd allegation. i suppose what congressman rogers is saying is that edward snowden had an agreement with the russians that he would fly not to moscow but to hong kong. give the information not to russian intelligence but to american journalists and struck those journalists to publish only those documents that are in the public interest and with hold things that would cause harm, then fly to russia, rather than be greeted by open arms be stranded in a transit zone and apply for asylum in 20 other places. i think spies get treated better than mr. snowden has there. i can tell you unequivocally, he has no agreement with russia, never changed any material for any personal gain. if this is someone who is

worried about his personal situation above all else, he would be living in his beautiful home in hawaii and not sitting where he is in moscow right now. >> thank you very much. ben wizner, thank you for the update. we have more news on the devastating fire in a senior citizen home. five people are confirmed dead and several people are still missing. many of the missing and dead are believed to be elderly with very limited mobility. the local fire chief described it as a night from hell as the fire die stroied the three story complex. family members have been urged to contact local police as they try to figure out who was inside. this man fears his 99-year-old mother did not make it out. >> my mother, she's blind. she has handicap and supposed to move this person first. and she's still there. i can't believe it. yeah? then how'd i get this... [ voice of dennis ] ...safe driving bonus check?

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welcome back, the new documentary "mitt" reveals a side of mitt romney voters never got a chance to see. in the film available on netflix as of 2:00 today, film maker greg whitely was grant the unprecedented access to the most private intimate moments, including election night 2012. >> what do you say -- what do you think you say in a concession speech? let me read you what i have here. supporters and campaign also deserve congratulations, i wish all of them, particularly the president and first lady and their daughters. i have faith the president will be successful in guiding the nation. no one is listening. >> greg whitely joins me now. he followed mitt through two campaigns over six years before putting the film together. thank you very much.

congratulations on this. this is a pretty remarkable documentary. and i think it's really ground breaking. first of all the access that you got, i know you were a fellow mormon, do you think that was part of the bond that developed the trust that permitted you into the family circle? >> yeah, i've wondered about that. i was surprised at the level of access i was granted. i was surprised to get access even at all. but as time went on, you know, i caught myself just pinching myself, wondering how i got here in some room and some situations like the one you showed on election night, probably a lot of factors that contributed to it. maybe there's three i could list. one, i had made a film back in 2005 called new york doll, which not very many people saw but somebody e-mailed saying they saw the governor of massachusetts in attendance in boston when the film premiered there. and so the fact that -- i don't

have very many fans of my work -- >> well, now you do. >> thank you. i hope that's true. the second thing, the fact that we have a shared faith probably helped for sure. i'm similar in age to many of his sons, that was probably a third thing that i think was helpful. >> now, he did an interview on "today," of course, with savannah, and he did mention a couple of things that after the fact he regretted and one of them is interesting because he talks about prayer. let me play what he said today and talk to you about that. >> there were some scenes i wish he wouldn't have included, a couple of scenes where we're praying, for instance. i knew he was in the room but i didn't think he was actually filming during our prayer. in this case we have my wife praying and me as well and scenes of ann and i hugging each other and talking personally to one another. he gosh darn it, he captured all of it then had the huts ba to actually use it. >> clearly he was -- he is not

criticizing you, i don't want to put it in that context, but it was at the convention, not in prime time for a lot of other reasons where we saw the other side, the personal testimonials for people and people of faith about the very human and softer side of romney. and is that part of his reluctance to acknowledge himself in prayer, himself being a private person? you know what i'm getting at? is that part of what he was reluctant to show and if he had shown it, perhaps the outcome of the election might have been different? >> two things. i think mitt, my impression of him and following him for six years, he's an extremely modest person, private. he's happy to put himself out there publicly but wants to talk about issues. he gets -- whenever it comes into personal issues of his family or personal issues of his faith, i think he's reluctant to talk about that. and another thing is, i think mitt romney is someone where if

you've been raised mormon, you're res hes tant -- there's a frame do your oms before amen. i think the idea of showing people that you're praying, there is -- you run the risk of having people criticize you for politicizing your faith or i'm going to show people just how religious i am in order to appeal to a certain faction of the electorate. mitt romney was always reluctant to do that. that's why the arrangement i had with him, i will not release any of this footage while you're running for president. it's only when you're either done being president or done running for president that i'll release this footage. as for these private moments, it's impossible to spend 12 hours with the romneys, which i did on several occasions and not get one or two family prayers. so i think the film would be somewhat dishonest if we didn't show at least a couple of them. >> greg, tag romney told "the

new york times" that there were people in the campaign who also did not want it released during the campaign. what did you think of stuart stevens and the campaign advisers and those who argued against showing the more personal side of mitt romney? >> stuart stevens scared me to death. not because he's a mean person but because i had a couple of conversations with him about my access, which made him very nervous. as i look back on it, i'm not sure i was very sensitive to the fact that what i was capturing could be potentially dangerous to mitt. a campaign's job is to make their candidate look presidential. and as you'll see in my footage, i think there are a lot of things that at least traditionally, cause mitt to look unprecedent shal. i happen to think those are some of his best moments, but i can certainly understand if you're a member of his campaign staff why those moments might make you nervous. and stuart's defense, he didn't see this footage.

so as he's explained to me, i don't what you're getting, if it's good or bad. i just know often times the interest of a documentary film maker can run contrary to the interest of the campaign. and that's why you make me nervous. and in retrospect, that makes perfect sense to me. i don't think he would be a responsible campaign adviser if he wasn't nervous about someone like me. >> has mitt romney told you what he really thinks? >> not about the film. he saw the film for the first time when it premiered at sundance last week. he was exceptionally gracious to me and my wife back stage. but fell short of saying he liked the film. that doesn't say -- i don't know he didn't like the film. my sense is the film was uncomfortable for him to watch as it would be for any of us. but i -- honestly i don't know. i don't know how he felt about screening the movie. >> it's remarkable. and congratulations again. it goes up on netflix at 2:00.

>> thanks for being with us. >> thank you, andrea. >> on tuesday president obama will deliver his state of the union address to congress. the white house gave a sneak peek posting these behind the scenes photos with head speechwriter showing glimpses of the drafting process. wish we would get that kind of access. before the big speech, tell us how you would finish this steps, the state of our union is -- share your responses using the hashtag sotuis. [announcer] word is getting out. purina dog chow light & healthy is a deliciously tender and crunchy kibble blend. with 20% fewer calories than purina dog chow. isn't it time you discovered the lighter side of dog chow. purina dog chow light & healthy.

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delicious, but say i press a few out flat, add some beef, sloppy joe sauce and cheese, fold it all up and boom! delicious unsloppy joes perfect for a school night. pillsbury grands biscuits. make dinner pop. pilon expedia you canyou're book any flight, car and hotel together to save even more. plus, get an extra $100 when you build your custom trip. expedia, find yours. now to a growing corruption scandal in china, leaked records revealing the extent of high level corruption among china's elites. 22,000 clients from the mainland and hong kong chinese have offshore accounts to shelter their money.

jared ril at the center for public integrity joins me now. we're talking about mainland chinese families going up to the leadership itself, to the head of china, having these offshore accounts sheltering their money. this is completely contrary to their claims of how they run their government. >> well, there's a big anti-corruption campaign going on in china at the moment where they are trying to stamp out corruption. what we found, these are secret records, records that have never meant to see the light of day. what they are showing basically is that the chinese, just like people in the west are going to the british virgin islands and setting up companies there and using them the same way. >> what are the implications for the leadership of the top leadership of china itself as it publicly pursues this anti-corruption campaign and now what you've exposed, exposes themselves and their relatives the brother-in-law of xi jinping.

>> all of the leaders are involved in this. it's come at a bad time for them and potentially embarrassing for them. the whole chinese leadership push against anti-corruption is actually something that they want to keep in house and don't want the media to play a watchdog role in this. our timing is exquisite but it is pure coincidence. >> in terms of the retaliation against any of you working inside china, how do you maintain access? how do you dig out these records? >> well, we're unusual in our organization actually works with reporters in each country we work in. we've been doing a series of stories on these leaked files in russia, america, canada, using native reporters and did the same in china. we had a mainland chinese partner working with us. very secretly for more than six months. then when we started going to people for comment, they were actually warned not to work with us anymore. their operation inside mainland

china shut down. >> in addition to them being shut down has there been any other retaliation that chinese blocked our website. but also, they blocked all of the websites of all of our media parts around the world. in spain, britain, and operations we have going in australia and korea and japan. they have all been blocked inside russia or inside china. >> what are the implications for the western press, free media, going forward in china? >> well, what it shows is that they clearly don't want certain information coming out. in the past, they have blocked "the new york times," for instance, and bloomberg. but this was unusual for them. they had to go and actually block 15 different parkers. they started scrambling when we started publishing the stories, in many different languages. we had italian, french, spanish. they were scrambling them down in time. >> what's the next step for you? >> we are actually going farther and published 37,000 names in

china, hong kong, taiwan, that our clients of offshore tax haven. we are asking the public to come forward and give us more information about what this might be. we think more stories will come out. >> congratulations. thank you very much for being with us. >> thanks very much. >> and what political story will make headlines the next 24 hours? that's next right here on that's next right here on "andrea mitchell reports."

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chris, let's talk about the next 24-48 hours. we are looking forward to the state of the union, the preparations. the president is going to do a google hangout, we are told, after the state of the union in the next -- following couple of days. in addition to the usual round-the-country physical travel. what's his main pitch going to be coming out of the state of the union? >> well, look, the state of the union address, we went back. my team went back and trying to figure out the most consequential. i think the last one of real import was 2002.

george w. bush in the axis of evil speech. in recent vintage, they tended to be sort of a patchwork of policy proposal. president obama talked about a lot of things last year, many of which didn't come to pass. my guess is that there will be a defense of the affordable care act and saying that it is working. we will talk about immigration and he will talk about energy. i think the google hangout is interesting for a reason -- the obama administration and president obama in particular, they have been very keen on going around what they view it is a media filter talking directly to people trying to present that message. the state of the union, obviously is something often gets filtered through how the media analyzes the speech. going out in the country as well as doing this online, just yet another time when they are trying to sort of speak directly to people about what he wants to do. >> chris, must-see tv will be sunday, rand paul on "meet the press." >> cannot wait. >> me, too. thanks very much. thanks for a great week and see you next week.

that does it for this week of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show online and on twitter. my colleague, tamron hall, is up next with "news nation." >> senator lamar alexander's former chief of staff found dead one month after his arrest on child pornography charges after a raid on his home. we will have a live report. plus, an effort to ban the so-called aft eed affluenz sa d. they don't want anybody else to have that excuse. it is our "news nation" gut check. the california police officers found not guilty in the beating death of a mentally ill homeless man. they want their jobs back. the police chief that fired them is denying their request. we will talk to the father of the man who was killed. grab a .

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hi, everyone. i'm tamron hall. the former chief of staff for senator lamar alexander has been found dead. it was just last month that he was arrested after a raid on his home where police say they found child pornography. nbc's luke russert joins us live with the latest. luke, what do we know? i know the family released a statement regarding wanting privacy here. what are police saying? >> well, police are saying that they were called to the family residence this morning and it was evident that he had taken his own life. this comes on the heels of early december. mr. lawskin was charged with international pornography. this came as a huge shock to washington.