high stakes week for president obama getting ready for state of the union address tomorrow night after a tough year. the president will be going before congress and the nation with half of the country questioning leadership on the eve of the state of the union address, 50% disapprove the job the president is doing and 46% approve and the end of the clock is ticking with 2016 dominating the political discussion. our power panelists, susan bell del percio and we are looking at what could be the last best chance before he's drowned out by the midterms and 2016. what does he need to do tomorrow night? >> he needs to take advantage of the opportunities to set his own agenda again. he's going to have difficulty

getting it accomplished but this is his platform. he can create his message and put it out there for people to see. i think republicans have a problem because they have so many people who are speaking and have three different responses -- >> four. four. >> there's chaos on the other side so -- >> always room for one more. >> ryan, what can we expect to hear from the president tomorrow. we've understood at least based on some reporting at this point that we're going to hear more talk about income inequality and hear talk about afghanistan. what else? >> the president has said one of the things he wants to accomplish between now and the end of his term is setting the country's agenda around the issue around income inequality. the president has a lot of faith in himself to drive the conversation with a profound speech. i don't think that he will miss

this opportunity to talk about inequality. there has been some reporting that he's kind of retreating from the class war so to speak, that he is going to replace the language of inequality with the gop language of ladders of opportunity, not actually -- >> upward mobility. >> right, not actually addressing the systemic problems but saying if we get more pre-k and another opportunity for somebody to move up into the 1%, that's enough. raer rather than attack the problem of the .1% controlling so much of the wealth. it's up in the air whether or not he's going to embrace the kind of republican language against this and he's going to continue forward with the language that he himself used in the speech in washington, which is directly about inequality. >> let's talk about quickly about the responses that keith alluded to. rand paul, once again going to be making -- he's going to be

responding, although he's going to tape it in his office and put it up on youtube. that's a job being reserved for senator mike lee from utah. the official republican response is going to be coming from representative cathy mcmorris rogers. why so many responses? can the republicans not unify enough to just assign one person the job of responding? >> i think right now you do have the official response then you have those who feel they will garner enough attention if they give their own. really it's kind of a deflection of what keith was saying because the main event is the state of the union. the fact is the president cannot -- does not have a bold agenda to be sure with. he may look towards immigration, but when it comes to one of his big issues, the democrats in the senate are saying, no, do not use that language, just to follow up on ryan's reporting and they are very concerned about that language in the toss-up states and they are

turning to republican language because it may make it easier. >> language notwithstanding, when you ask the average american whether he or she supports raising the minimum wage, that generally polls pretty well. >> there's a big difference between a populist agenda like that and progressive that you may see for example in new york city coming out of bill de blasio who wants to raise taxes for the sake of raise taxes. >> it is true the governor funds his program, but i still want taxes spent. that is a progressive agenda, not a populist agenda. >> i don't think the people care whether you call it progressive or populist. people don't know those terms outside the political world. they care about jobs and minimum wage being increased and unemployment benefits and providing health care for their kids -- >> i agree with you they don't care about the difference between populist and progressive, but what the

language is plays to one of those terms. >> i want to bring you back in here. there was something else over the weekend that i'm sure you have seen and read about. senator rand paul making waves with his remarks about an alleged war on women, taking it back to president clinton. take a listen. >> someone who takes advantage of a young girl in their office i mean, really, and then they have the gall to stand up and say republicans are having a war on women. yes, i think it's a factor. >> we should know he was asked about his remarks by his wife on the issue but he really went for it there. is this a preview, ryan, of things to come? >> oh, absolutely. you know, the republican party never let go of its hostility towards bill clinton, which will easily transfer over to hillary clinton. it's funny how, the parties live in such different worlds. right now the republicans think the current president is a socialist, progressives think

he's far too conservative, far too moderate. but president clinton's time in the '90s, does make the current president look that much more liberal, yet, they think he was a communist. and they impeach the guy. it's hard to -- it's easy to forget they took it that far. they actually impeached him over this. you can certainly find the behavior to be problematic and that's on why bviously true, bu does that have to do with hillary clinton? >> that's the question. you would think senator paul, if he could get that back would probably ask for a mul gan. >> he should, he should have never gone down that road. she should be judged on her record, not on her husband. it's just -- it looks like he's taking it like you said, taking a bad golf shot and should take it back.

>> speaking of hillary clinton, she spoke again last hour she was at the national auto dealers convention down in new orleans and asked about highlights from the memoir being written right now. she went right to bin laden. take a listen. >> at the end of the day, i recommended a long with a few others that the president do it. it was as crisp and clear and as risk taking a decision that a president can make and thankfully it worked out. >> she also said her biggest regret was benghazi. rand paul was quoted saying she would probably be the hawk in a race in 2016 race between the two of them. topsy-turvy time. what do you make of that? >> i was surprised. i just saw the benghazi comments a few minutes ago before i went on air. i'm not surprised that would be a regret, i'm surprised she would say it because it feeds into the republican narrative. but she's being candid about

this and trying to get this i issue away from her. you look at the attackses in the bush administration and other administration compared to what took place when she was secretary of state, it's comparable, actually more but something has been blown out of context and she's trying to get back her foreign policy credentials that she has enormous amount of. it's going to do well in positioning herself this way. but getting back to real quickly what susan said -- >> somehow i knew you would. >> you can do both. i don't know -- the biggest issue seems to be for the republican party is that this is a party that is currently constructed around rich white guys and they are trying their hardest to pretend they don't care about rich white girls. when you have huckabee and paul trying to look like they care about interest of women, it's not consistent with their previous actions. >> it's not good for the republican party. >> ten seconds, we'll close to

you, my friend. >> you know, the republican parties -- has a lot of rich white men in so they would have a problem with that. >> we'll leave it there. ryan grim, susan del percio, stay with msnbc and for our special coverage beginning at :00 eastern tomorrow night. coming up here, subpoena power, we'll take you live to new jersey to the statehouse in trenton. at this hour lawmakers are expected to take the next step in the investigation and the governor chris christie's office and those controversial lane closures. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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topping headlines, winter weather playing all sorts of tricks, states in the south are bracing for possible snowfall today, a mix of rain, sleet and snow is falling right now but tonight's cold front could mean places like houston, new orleans, alabama, those places will have snow on the ground. that same arctic front is in the midwest right now. it's going to be bringing subzero temperatures to the east coast where everyone is watching for the super bowl forecast here in the big apple. in alaska today, take a look at this picture. right there, unseasonably warm weather may have caused an avalanche right now the only highway leading to the city of valdez is buried under 40 feet of snow with dangerous flood waters right behind it. in new jersey, state reps are putting finishing touches on the deal to consolidate two separate investigations into chris christie and closure of the gw bridge into one special

committee. the committee will be composed of members of both houses of the state legislature and favor democrats by a 2-1 margin. national investigative correspondent michael isikoff is in trenton following these events. the legislature meeting at noon to start the process of forming that super committee with subpoena power. what's going to be the first order of business? >> reporter: well, the first order of business is that the assembly and the senate are about to meet momentarily and they are going to authorize the creation of this super committee then right after that the super committee has a meeting scheduled for 1:00. which they'll layout how they are going to do their business. the key thing to watch for here is how do new jersey republican lawmakers respond to this? two weeks ago when the separate committees were created, the resolution passing in both of the assembly and senate was

unanimous, all of the republicans voted for it. but then right away, they started to raise some questions about partisanship by the committee chairman, in the assembly, mr. wisniewski, the -- how the -- how much control there was going to be over the documents returned by subpoenas, suggesting that he was wisniewski what's going to have total control and it would freeze the republicans out, laying the groundwork to make the case that this was going to be a partisan witch hunt by the democratic controlled legislature. now that would give, if the republicans continue to that drum beat, would give governor christie's office the out to say, this is not an appropriate inquiry. hasn't happened yet, so we're going to see, it's going to be very interesting to watch and see how the republicans respond today. >> michael isikoff following all

of this in trenton. one of the co-chairs of the committee about what she hopes this investigation will uncover. >> the big, very big question is why. why would anybody think of creating a traffic jam and punishing thousands of innocent people? what was the reason? >> that was state senator lor receipt it weinberg there. bob ingle, the author of chris christie, the inside story of his rise to power. always good to see you. >> you bet. >> legislature appears to be taking somewhat of a mulligan on the investigation. is it now on a better course? >> i don't know if it is. the problem they've been having is that people are starting to think it's really a political circus and not a serious investigation. it's not a criminal investigation anyway. they can't do that. this is really about according to them finding out if the rules

need to be changed. this can't happen. but the republicans are unhappy because they have four members and three of the four are from the assembly. the senate republicans think they should have better representation. it's ripe for this to turn into a political brew ha ha. >> what time of timetable are we looking at here? >> i think it's wide open. there are 20 subpoenas out there that are due back on february 3rd. nobody thinks really that everybody is going to be back on february 3rd. even if it were, they will take time to go through there before they talk about what they have. this could go on for months, maybe a year. >> again, all of this sort of presupposes that they are not going to find anything unrelated to what they are looking for. by that i mean, oh, this is ending, then you have another investigation that gets launched. >> today meanwhile, chris christie appears to be doing everything but addressing the investigation touting a strong fund raising number for the rga

and visiting a boys and girls club as well as super bowl related event. how long can he keep this investigation at a distance? >> i think he can keep it at a distance for some time, particularly if some of these committees do something that makes it look like that it's something other than the serious investigation, mean while, the republican county chairs are meeting tonight in princeton to sort of assess this situation and see where they have to go. >> bob ingle, following it all for us as well. we'll see a lot more of you over the next few months. thank you. >> you bet. >> the house rufeturning from t mlk recess, one of the first pieces of business, a vote to cut federal funding on abortion, republican members refusing to let one democrat member testify, eleanor holmes norton, she's going to join me live on the other side of this break. if i can impart one lesson to a

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the house is back from recess and reproductive rights are on the agenda. eric cantor is promising a vote this week on a bill that would ban federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. he rallied the cause at anti-abortion march last week. >> we will continue to march. we ti will continue to educate and advocate and we will continue to fight for the unborn. >> congresswoman eleanor holmes norton is not allowed to testify at a hearing on the bill. congresswoman, the majority leader pushing very hard on this bill. when you've got things like the hide amendment that bans funds for abortion. everyone knows this is not going to become law. how is this anything more than a play to the base? >> a play to the base and play to the base in the worst way.

as you say, you've already done it. the hide amendment and affordable health care act already bans federal funds for abortion. yet they've gone into the nooks and krannys and they can actually affect women, families who work for small businesses by depriving them of the premium credit. if they choose a provider who provides abortion, 87% of health plans do provide for abortion. they had to have already gotten what they wanted. they've had to look far and deep. then, just to top it all off, they've gone into their traditional bullying and decided that why not keep the district of columbia, the women, low income women, from getting abortion services funded by their own local jurisdictions,

even though 17 states in response to the fact that federal funds can be used, use their own local funds for abortions for low income women. so they -- they are having already exhausted and gotten frankly most of what they want. they are into trying to do as much damage as they can to the reproductive rights of women across the united states, including the district of columbia. >> congresswoman, we're gearing up for the state of the union and president laying out the 2014 agenda tomorrow night, but the hill reports that you are among those who are planning a public rebuke of the president for a lack of diversity in his judicial nominees. is that true? >> well, a public rebuke is -- goes too far. we are planning -- we in the congressional black caucus have concerns about the 11th circuit -- >> georgia, alabama --

>> and alabama and georgia and florida. and it looks like the senators there have a pattern of only replacing a black with a black. so you only have one black, for example on the district court. 25% of the people in the district are african-americans. it has the worst record on capital crime and has the worst record on disparities. they are keeping the president from expanding. we're saying to the president, that it's up to you not just up to them. we want to talk to leahy. we want to talk to the president and we want to talk to the four senators who are involved? >> the white house would say if you look at the judges who have been put up by this particular white house, 18% of them are black and that's a percentage that's better than under george w. bush and percentage under --

under president clinton as well. what would be your response to that? >> my response would be kudos, the president has done better than any president. we're focusing on a particular problem with four senators and a particular jurisdiction where we see a particular problem. when we think we should bring that to the president's attention and we're not just going after the president but those four senators from georgia, alabama, i say four it's five, because rubio is among them. one democrat involved and he's been cooperative. we do think there's blame to be spread and we don't intend to leave the president out of it. we're not focusing on him more than we're folking us on the others. >> congresswoman, always appreciate your insight. >> thank you. >> my colleague ari melber will talk about his exclusive interview with eric holder. first though, late word this

morning that trey radel resigned from are congress. his resignation takes effect at 6:30 tonight. on a lighter political note, mitt romney, keeping it cool and casual in 2014 on the same day netflix released the documentary "mitt", he took the stage with jimmy fallon to try to slow jam the news. >> at the end of the day we're all americans and want our country to be healthy, strong and prosperous. and that means putting an end to all of the partisan bickering in washington. >> no you just wait a minute. you keep talking like that and people will start thinking you're running for president again. >> jimmy, i'm not running again. a lot of great candidates for 2016 and i'll be supporting the republican nominee 100%. >> don't you mean 47%? >> that's a low blow, but it's

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the top priority has always been since he ran for president, the need to grow our economy in a way that rewards hard work and responsibility. >> the white house says that president obama will be talking about hard work and responsibility in his state of the union address. what about wall street's responsibility for its role in the financial crisis? we have seen so far exactly zero, zero successful prosecutions of high level corporate executives in the five years since the crisis struck. ari melber is one fourth "the cycle" here. you talk to the attorney general recently about this in your exclusive interview. this is a snippet of what he said. >> it is not for a lack of looking or lack of

aggressiveness that we have not done all that people think that we should have done. as i said, i think people need to be a little patient. i know it's been a while but we have other things that are in the pipeline. >> in the pipeline. you're the attorney here and you'll correct me if i'm wrong, as i understand it, there's a five-year statute of limitations with regards to many of these laws. isn't it too late for him to be talking about other stuff in the pipeline? >> not necessarily. for one thing, sometimes what you do after the origin fraction can still be a part of a crime or investigation. so the statute of limitations which means you have a limitation on this, if you did things to cover up, then you have more time. number two, he referred specifically to jp morgan, which had a record breaking fine of $13 billion. >> jamie dimon got a heck of a pay raise. >> and they are continuing to conduct business as they see fit is how jp morgan sees it.

the attorney general would say, not only do we get this money out of them, we did not as we have in the past, we did not release them from all of their claims. so we got this fine and we still are proceeding with a potential criminal investigation. >> did you get any sense what he might be alluding to there? >> specifically as to what company? no. >> wide ranging interview. you also covered voting rights in the interview and covered drones. what did you find to be the most surprising part? >> i thought on voting rights it was quite significant that we renew the voting rights act in congress, he was very clear it was important to him to say that a lot of what we see around so-called election integrity and voter i.d. is not legitimate. he is in charge of a doj pursuing those cases and he wants and we're going to hear from the president on voting we expect tomorrow night that attorney general believes this bill in congress needs to go further to deal with voter i.d.

abuse that depresses and disenfranchises the vote. >> he also appeared to shut the door on the idea of a.mnesty fo edward snowden but did not close the door for cutting a sweet deal, is that the impression you got? >> the attorney general would say not a sweet deal at all. if there is a real acceptance of credibility and guilty plea, they would work on negotiating with edward snowden's lawyers as with anyone else. right now the attorney general and doj views him as a fugitive from justice and they have an indictment here against him, a criminal complaint and they want him back in the united states to meet his justice. the interesting part also was he declined to get into this debate that's come up on "meet the press" and elsewhere and accusations there may have been cooperation with foreign government -- >> hasn't been evidence provided but the attorney general said that's an ongoing investigation and not going to comment. >> referred to him as a

defendant. fascinating and i encourage folks watching to check it out -- >> the other thing he talked a lot about his smart on crime agenda. they are trying to give veterans rehab instead of jail time. that's a big part of his priority and legacy as he's the ninth longest serving attorney general going into his sixth year. >> did you get any sense he's going anywhere any time soon? >> i didn't. i don't know he would tell me if he was. but look, that's an important -- >> he might. >> that's an important larger political point, craig, this attorney general has been pursued more aggressively in the congress than any other in history. and he has had a response to that, this is not going to affect the way i do my job, trumped complaints holding him in contempt without evidence, which nobody really viewed in the legal community as a serious thing but more of a political thing from the republicans and response to all of that has been to say i'm going to keep on serving, he's breaking records for the length of his service and got the president's confidence as best we know.

>> ari melber, thank you so much. get ready for "the cycle" this afternoon. you heard what the president is going to be talking bg tomorrow as we look ahead to the big speech, let's take a look at what may have been the most memorable moment from last year's state of the union. >> the families of newtown deserve a vote. the families of aurora deserve a vote. the families of oak creek and tucson and blacksburg and the countless other communities ripped off by gun violence, they deserve a simple vote. [ applause ] >> john rosenthal is the chairman of stop hand gun violence. john, last year was supposed to be the year for gun reform because of newtown, but we all know what happened, absolutely nothing or at least very little. here we are in 2014 and seen school shootings at wake field elementary in california,

berrendo in new mexico, liberty technology high school in tennessee, albany high school in georgia, delaware valley charter school in pennsylvania. widener university in pennsylvania. purdue university in indiana, seven school shootings, first 14 school days of the year. these are the ones that were widely publicized to a certain extent, that of course not counting the mall shooting that we saw in maryland on sunday. what happened? >> what happened is congress continues to be more concerned about special interest, gun lobby contributions than they are about public health and safety from largely preventible gun violence. i'm a gun owner and support gun rights, but there have been 30 mass shootings in less than 13 months since columbine over 35 -- i'm sorry, since sandy

hook just 12 months ago, there have been 35,000 more americans killed every single day, 83 more and there isn't even a background check for all gun sales. where we've reached a very, very dangerous tipping point where it is no longer safe. >> has your -- >> to go to school, to go to malls and be in public places because so many people are armed with high powered weapons. >> has your movement lost its momentum? >> well, i don't know that the movement actually had momentum, the president talked about very reasonable things like a universal background check for all gun sales and limiting the size of high capacity ammunition magazines and assault weapons which are the common denominator in every mass shooting. yet, congress refuses because congress is owned by uniquely unregulated gun industry that in

2008 congress gave absolute immunity to. so they can't even be sued when they market their products directly to criminals. i mean, this is not going to stop until maybe 100 or 200 americans are killed. like 71 in a movie theater wasn't enough. 20 kids in their school room wasn't enough in first grade. maybe 20 members of congress at one time in their chairs get shot and killed, maybe congress will care enough, but i fear that we've reached a tipping point and god help us if we don't start holding our congress accountable and make them choose public health and safety over special interest blood money contributions from the gun industry. >> that mall shooting that i mentioned in columbia, maryland over the weekend, gunman killed two people on saturday then killed himself. the mall itself going to be reopened today under increased

security. they are also poring over the gunman's journal at this particular point, trying to glean some sort of clue. at this point they have no idea why darion marcus aguilar open fire in that mall. i was listening to coverage over the weekend and a lot of folks are saying what if someone near in the mall had a gun, might the outcome have been different? what say you to that? >> as a gun owner, i would say that a person with a firearm is going to have the element of surprise. a criminal is going to have the element of surprise. i would certainly not feel safer in a public place if everyone was armed and pulling their guns out and mistakingly shooting people. the solution, after all of these massacres and everyone talks about mental health and arming schools and all of this other stuff. there are two armed police officers columbine high school outgunned by teenagers with

assault weapons. arming everybody is not the solution. but mentally ill people have always been around. we just never armed them with high capacity ammunition magazines without detection. it would be very simple to reduce the majority of deaths and injuries to a fraction by requiring background checks for all gun sales and not selling military style weapons and sure, let's put more money into mental health. but you've got to the start the common denominator of all of these massacres is the firearm. let's regulate that reasonably. >> john rosenthal, thank you. there's no shortage of unrest around the globe from weekend bombings in egypt to new clashes in kiev and olympic security in sochi. we'll talkle all of those straight ahead. i need proof of insurance. that's my geico digital insurance id card - gots all my pertinents on it and such. works for me. turn to the camera.

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is expected to devote time to the war in afghanistan, the combat mission ends later this year. national security is one issue on which the president consistently polls quite well. nevertheless, the end of combat activities is fraut with complications, chief among those complications, right there, hamid karzai, afghanistan's president is stonewalling over the future of a proposed -- failure to see the moment in time could jeopardize the pursuit of al qaeda in the region. that would come just as affiliates of the organization complicate the security situations in both syria and iraq. and as u.s. pursues leaders of other affiliates in places like somalia, a missile strike targeted a link to suicide bombings. ayman and steve clemens covers international affairs and msnbc contributor.

ayman, simple question here, how much in jeopardy is the future of america's operation in afghanistan at this point? >> well, the argument can be made both ways. one of the things the u.s. demonstrated, it is willing and capable to act anywhere in the world in countries where it doesn't necessarily have true presence on the ground. we've seen it in libya and somalia and elsewhere. if the united states does not sign this security agreement with afghanistan, and is required to move, withdraw its troops, it will still have the capability and desire to act in afghanistan when and where it chooses. >> does the security pact get signed? >> i think ultimately afghanistan will sign it but right now i think hamid karzai is trying to extrapolate from the u.s. political concessions as much as possible going forward. this is -- the counting clock for him because he has to step down towards april. >> i want to play something president obama said during a major national security speech.

>> beyond afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless global war on terror, but rather as a series of persistent targeted efforts to dismantle networks of violent extremists that threaten america. >> there continues to be this debate in the country over what we're talking about, who we're talking about when we use that term al qaeda. >> al qaeda used to be a very defined organization which osama bin laden and his lieutenants launched around the world. that has largely been anile lated. imagine it as a franchise where you now have groups, organic groups committed to islamic extremism and violence that have affiliated with al qaeda but not being run by the old central al qaeda. this is what peter bergen called holy war inc., you have very attachments run their own thing

and in many cases as we've seen, not only to be self-governing but challenge al qaeda home base and say we're the cutting edge of what's going on with militant islamism in the world. you are our grand dad and no longer relevant. >> let's talk about egypt here quickly. the protests over the weekend tomorrow, the trial of mohammed morsi said to begin. now we hear this morning that the general in charge may be running for president. you've covered this region extensively. where egypt is now, compared to where you thought it would be three years ago, how wide is that? >> if you ask ordinary egyptians, they say it's wide. not necessarily because what has happened on ground but because three years after removing an thor tear yan regime you have a military general poised to once

again become president of the country. any way you cut it you are returning to the military institution to have a very strong input in the politics of that country. >> really quickly before i let you get out. the olympics in sochi, there has been a great deal of reporting about how dangerous the situation is. would you go? >> would i go? no, i wouldn't. i would watch it on nbc -- >> that dangerous. >> but i think there's a lot of focus and intelligence operations. the united states is going to help russia with major signals intelligence and going to see a lot of countries. it's good to hyper ventilate about the safety because it means everyone will be on alert and chances of something dramatic happening will decline. >> thank you for the insight and more from the plug. got a call from upstairs, they appreciate it. when we come back here, we'll head to the briefing room at 1600 pennsylvania where the president of the united states is apparently putting the finishing touches on a big speech. okay, listen up! i'm re-workin' the menu.

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just one day to go until president obama briefs the nation in the annual state of the union address. white house speechwriters busy putting the finishing touches on that speech. peter alexander live at the white house inside the briefing room. peter, first of all, what you can tell us about last minute preparations at this point? >> reporter: we know the president certainly is going to have the final say on those preparations taking place right now. the lead speechwriter cody keen an says he's not shaving his beard until the state of the union is done. his beard is still there. we have now heard a preview, this will go down as shortest possible state of the union preview from the president himself. this came via a vine, we'll show you that video on the screen right now. less than six seconds the president says tomorrow night it's time to restore opportunity for all, craig, that hits on the

themes we've been hearing from the white house consistently, opportunity, optimism and action, jay carney will host the press briefing a short time from now and we'll pepper him for detail. >> a vine. that's interesting. what do we know if anything about the president's travel plans immediately after the state of the union? >> four separate stops beginning as you noted on wednesday. we'll tell you about those more specifically. we just confirmed these. the first stop on wednesday will be in atlanta, maryland, going to a costco to speak with primary focus being the economy. second stop is a steel shop in west mifflin, pennsylvania, then head next to wisconsin, same topic but different venue. he'll speak at the gas engine site there on thursday. finally wraps things up at the high school in nashville, tennessee. >> what about guests tomorrow night? do we know who's going to be the gallery at this point? >> we do have a sense of some of the individuals that will be

joining the first lady and first lady's box. among them familiar faces to people, they are survivors of the boston bombing, carlos arredon arredondo, the man with the white cowboy hat and the fire chief from moore, oklahoma, that was hit so badly by the tornadoes last may. also, jason collins, the first openly gay athlete and major professional team sport, the nba basketball player will be there as well as joey huddy beyond the extreme marshmallow launcher. they invited joey back and he'll be here tomorrow night. he is now intel's youngest ever intern. >> peter alexander from the briefing room. that's going to do it for me. i'm craig melvin. state of the union coverage all day tomorrow here on msnbc. rachel maddow and chris matthews

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i'm not thinking about it. i tried to get other people not to think about it. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports," the clinton question, in a paid appearance in new orleans, hillary clinton talks about benghazi, the bob gates book and inhe have itably 2016. >> i would be neglect if i didn't ask, what are your plans for 2016? [ applause ] sorry. you know i had to ask. >> you did and i understand and i have to say i don't know. not a very satisfactory answer, i know. >> one possible republican contender is also showing his cards, bringing up the lewinsky saga as a campaign issue. did he really go there?

>> i think really the media seems to have given president clinton a pass on this. >> and mind the gap, with a focus on equalizing opportunity for all, can he hit the reset button in his state of the union address. he kick started on social media today. >> tomorrow night it's time to restore opportunity for all. >> and detour, it was a torch relay to nowhere as olympic flame did laps inside a soccer stadium under heavy guard rather than risking the streets of dagestan. ten days before the opening ceremonies one member of the olympic committee is confident the games will be safe. >> i don't worry about these games. i think the athletes who are the central focus of the games will have their chance for history and the spectators will be safe. it's something that we all have to work on and the team has been advised on what to do and h