>> john? >> yeah. i mean, the congressman is going to have to live down the reputation for being a little bit of a thug, i think. >> wow. thuggish. mika has picked the seahawks. i have to stick with peyton. she has been right all along. >> she's been right -- >> if a lot of things, and we'll be talking an awful lot about the minimum wage in the coming days, because you had too much air time today. >> yeah. >> just wrap it up. chuck's next. a modest midterm agenda as president obama puts congress on notice in the state of the union. you're either with him or he'll go around you. we're going to hear reaction from the home state confidante senator dick durbin. and vice president biden

offers a morning television trifecta with notable nuggets, but not about the speech. we'll share them. a new york congressman is trying to explain his "grim" proposal to a reporter last nye. plus a severe southern storm forces hundreds of kids to spend the night in school. good morning from washington, january 29, 2014. this is the "the daily rundown." the post-state of the union wednesday. it's a busy day. so let's get to my "first reads." for some, president obama's speech was a symbol of scaled-down ambitions. for others, it was a pragmatic acknowledgement that his legislative agenda is likely to remain stalled in congress. today, the president kicks off a two-day, four-state trip pegged to expanding the themes of the state of the union, particularly the one big idea in the speech. >> opportunity -- opportunity -- opportunity -- opportunity -- opportunities -- opportunity -- opportunity -- opportunity -- the opportunity --

>> instead of the traditional laundry lit of policy proposals, the president's speech was crammed with anecdotes. it was also modest with no mention of entitlement reform, no big challenge of his party's ideology. the white house argues that last year the president did deliver a traditional speech with a host of policy ideas, some of which were bold ant went nowhere. so white house aides argued, if the white house can accomplish the realistic ideas. president obama gave frankly what i would call a political speech that wasn't partisan. it was designed to keep the democratic party united, give democrats an agenda to run on in 2014 but without actively poking republicans in the eye last night. the president did everything he could to avoid issues that divide his own party when, in fact, he didn't mention trade agreements by name. >> we need to work together on tools like bipartisan trade

promotion authority to protect our workers, protect our environment, and open new markets to new goods, stamped made in the usa. >> instead, the president gave democrats applause line after applause line on issues that unite the party. >> it is time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a "mad men" episode. this congress needs to restore the unemployment insurance you let expire for 1.6 million people. help more kids access the high-quality pre-k that they need. it should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy. america must move off a permanent war footing. let's get immigration reform done this year. join the rest of the country. say yes. give america a raise. >> though the president made it clear he would go it alone if congress doesn't act, he mostly avoided calling out republican lawmakers. instead, his speech contained as

many shout-outs to republicans as democrats, including praise of florida senator marco rubio's idea of expanding the earned income tax credit to folks without children. >> and i agree with senators leak rubio it doesn't do enough for those without kids. the son of a barkeep, the speaker of the house -- [ applause ] -- and remember four years ago when the president condemned the citizens united decision profiting justice alito to mouth "not true" on camera? in last night's criticism of a decision on the voting rights act, the president's construction was entirely passive and devoid of the supreme court by name. >> last year part of the voting rights act was weakened, but conservative republicans and liberal democrats are working together to strengthen it.

>> even the president's defense of the health care law, his most aggressive criticism of republicans, was shorter than in his prepared text, by the way, and even a bit lighthearted. >> tell america what you do differently. let's see if the numbers add up, but let's not have another 40-something votes to repeal a law that's already helping millions of americans. the first 40 were plenty. >> it was hard, of course, to top the emotional ending of last year's address, and yet this one did match if not surpass it. when president obama recognized army ranger cory rimsburg, who continues to recuperate from a brain injury, frankly, it brought down the house. >> my recovery has not been easy, he says. nothing in life that's worth

anything is easy. corey is here tonight, and like the army he loves, like the america he serves, sergeant first class corey remsburg never gives up, and he does not quit. of course, a real test to the speech comes in the days and weeks ahead. the goal now is to make sure this doesn't become the first snapchat state of the union, that the minute he deliver it is, the messages disappear. today, the president will kick off his four-state trip with a speech at a costco in maryland, where he talks about the importance of raising the men mum wage. martin o'malley has proposed it to $10.10. expect more travel from the president to states with the issue on the ballot or being debated in a legislature. and then heading to west mifflin, pennsylvania, near

pittsburgh, boosting retirement security through what's called -- what they're calling the my r.a., a simplified starter retirement account that willer offering through both employers and banks, think of it as an i.r.a. meets a savings bond. it won't be the government offering this. and then the president will travel tomorrow to wisconsin and nashville, tennessee. here's the then that became clear, by the way, in the responses from the republicans. congresswoman cathy mcmorris rodgers said republicans agree with the president on the problem that the opportunity for the middle class is the big issue in this country. the two parties simply disagree on the solution. mcmorris rodgers' folksy response was to soften the edges for republicans, particularly among women, and show the republican party knows how to empathize with the american people. >> if would you have told me as a little girl that i would one day put my hand on the bible and

be sworn in as a 200th woman to serve in the house of representatives, i wouldn't have thought it possible. i grew up working on my family's orchard and fruit stand in kettle falls. when i showed my 4-h animals at the county fair, my parents would say, kathy, you need to save this money so you can go to college one day. >> of course, the problem for witnesses is there wasn't one response. there were three other republican responses, and when you're the party out of power, the fact you have multiple responses is not a good sign, especially when you have a democratic president who did a lot last night attempting to keep his party united. senator mike lee delivered a harder edge to the white house, calling the health care law inequality godzilla and he also included criticism of his own party. >> to be fair, president obama and his party did not create these problems.

the republican establishment in washington can be just as out of touch. >> and then, there was senator rand paul who taped his own response that was, well, the rand paul responsement. >> it's not that government's inherently stupid, although it's a debatable point. are we better off when we print more money to pass around, hoping no one will notice that the emperor has no clothes? >> obviously, rand paul wanted to make sure he's the biggest 2016 name to have an official response to the president. one of the goals of the state of the union address was to give the democrats something to campaign on in this election year. democrats wanted a non-health care agenda they can take back to their states and districts. well, let's find out if they have won. joining me is one of the senators that's facing a midterm challenge, the assistant majority leader, number two in the senate, senator dick durbin from illinois. good morning to you, sir. >> how you doing, chuck?

>> i'm okay. so did the president -- do you feel like the president laid out an agenda that both mark pryor and bernie sanders can agree on and campaign on as united democratic party? >> i can tell you this, whether you live in vermont, arkansas, or illinois, most working families, after they put the kids to bed, talk about the issues that the president talked about last night. are we making enough money to make it to the next paycheck? have we got health care coverage to make sure that our asthmatic child is going to be taken care of? what are we going to do about retirement down the road? and if you get that notice that your job was just account off, can we get unemployment benefits long enough to find another job? these are the basics. and the president was focused on working families and making sure that we address the issues they worry about. >> are you concerned there weren't a lot of big ideas in here, in many ways this was -- he was trying to tackle a big problem, but these were very, arguably, smaller, solution

pieces, not full solutions, but little pieces? do you think it was too small of a state of the union, too small of an agenda? >> i disagree, chuck. i think it really put its finger on the real hope for america. when our economy is moving forward, we solve problems for families and for our nation. the president talked about research. he talked about infrastructure. he talked about education. but he focused on working families and their speperspecti. it was a big idea, but he put together the parts. he invieded the republicans to join us, and if you won't, i'm going to do everything i can as president. >> there were a lot of red state democrats last night, after the speech, from mark pryor in arkansas to mark begich in alaska, who put out critical statements. mark pryor was praising the rhetoric, but didn't like some of the things he heard.

mark begich said he was unhappy about the energy programs that the president was talking about. one of the candidates in montana, the leading candidate there, the democrat, said the president didn't talk enough about the nsa and pulling back the nsa here. natalie tenet, the democratic candidate in west virginia, says she was unhappy with the president on energy regulation. is this a sign that red state democrats feel they have to run away from the president? because all of these releases collectively taken together, pryor, begich, tenet, it looks that way to me. >> this is not a news flash. in every election cycle, democrats and republicans from more conservative or more liberal venues are going to see the president's speech from a different perspective, and they're going to really reflect the people that they represent or want to represent. so there's always going to be

this disdance, but by and large, this message, of making sure that people that go to work have a fighting chance, is a message that will resonate in every one of the states that you just mentioned. >> i want to ask you quickly about an illinois issue here. the largest government employee, and it is suing the state to overturn illinois' new pension law. i know the governor there has been standing behind it. where are you on this issue of what the governor's been trying to do with pension reform and unions being very unhappy with it? >> i can tell you this, for 40 years, illinois has refused to acknowledge the obvious, and we have not funded our public pension systems. we've made promises to state employees and local employees that if they'll pay their fair share, there's a retirement plan waiting for them, and quite honestly, the money isn't there. the legislature has been trying to find a way to fund the pensions responsibly. there's a difference of opinion between the labor organizations and some members of the general assembly. but we've got to find a solution. we made a promise to these retirees and we've got to keep

that promise. >> you think the labor should drop their lawsuit? >> no, i don't think so. because we've got a constitutional provision that has to be resolved. it is a constitutional guarantee of retirement benefits. the courts have to decide whatever the general assembly does, that it's consistent with that constitutional provision. it's going to be tested. let's get it done. >> quickly on immigration. house republicans are unveiling their plan to try to get something passed in the house. there seems to be a lot of optimism that something is going to get passed enough where you guys can come together with something. but there right now doesn't appear to be a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented folks that are in the country now. if there is no path to citizenship but a lot of other things are in the bill that you like, can you support something like that. >> one of the two pillars of the bipartisan senate immigration reform bills was a path to citizenship on the democratic side. on the republican side, real, effective border enforcement.

we put the two together into a winning combination with 68 votes. i still think this is an essential principle. we can no the have second-class residents in america. it's not working in a lot of countries. it won't work here. let's make certain that those who are willing to step forward pay their fines, learn english, get a job, have a chance to become full-fledged citizens of this country. >> all right. democratic senator dick durbin, number two in the democratic leadership, in the senate, from the great state of illinois. thanks, senator. >> thanks, chuck. up next, a republican rebutt rebuttal. paul ryan will be here, about immigration reforms, political compromise, and his own political future. looking at atlanta. state of emergency is in effect after a winter storm paralyze parts of the south. remember, these southern cities, they do not have the resources to deal even with a couple of inches of snow. drivers stuck in traffic for more than 12 hours. hundreds of students were stranded overnight at school because school buses simply

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well, president obama is urging republicans in congress to join him in what he's calling a year of action, but though the president's speech was not nearly as antagonistic toward capitol hill has the prespeech hype, he's making it clear he is prepared to go it alone. >> if congress wants to help -- if this congress wants to help -- if this congress decides what it's going to do -- you

don't have to wait for congress to act -- i indend to keep trying with or without congress -- i'll act on eye own -- i'm eager to work with all of you, but america does not stand still, and neither will i. >> house republicans kick off a three-day winter retreat on maryland's eastern shore today. and at the retreat, republicans plan to circulate their immigration framework, which will call for legal status, but not citizenship for the undocumented immigrants, 11 million in this country estimated, as the president continues, though he called on the house to act. >> it is time to heed the call of business leaders, labor leaders, faith leaders, law enforcement, and fix our broken immigration system. [ applause ] republicans and democrats in the senate have acted, and i know that members of both parties in the house want to do the same. let's get immigration reform done this year. [ applause ] >> joining me now is a man who may be a big part of that

movement on immigration is wisconsin republican congressman paul ryan, chairman of the house budget committee. good morning, sir. >> good morning, chuck. how are you doing? >> i'm okay. let me start with immigration, because i know it's going to be a big topic of conversation at your retreat later this week. there's going to be some circulation, i know some early reports, so let's start with the early report that says the plan that you guys are going to push will have a pathway to legalization but not citizenship. is that how you understand it? >> that's right, but it also will involve basically a probationary status to make sure that a person is not rewarded for having broken our laws and not preferenced over people who did fall laws, meaning immigrants. >> -- on the table? >> no, what i'm trying to say is you have to make sure this isn't amnesty. one more point. we feel very strongly about securing the border, and about legislation that guarantees that it will get secured. you mentioned in your earlier comments about the president

going around congress, about the president, you know, not actually enforcing the laws. that's a big concern of ours these days, and as you can tell, from the statements we have reason to be concerned. so we want to make sure that we write a law that he can't avoid, meaning with respect to securing the border and interior enforcement. that's really important with respect to immigration while we consider the other issues. >> i want to go back to the citizenship question. is citizenship -- so for the folks here undocumented, here illegally, citizenship ever going to be available to them under the republican plan? >> yeah, so no new special pathway. what this debate, particularly in the senate bill said, there was an actual special pathway for undocumented immigrants to get citizenship. we're not looking at that. we're looking at principles we want a system you can come out of the shadows and get a work permit and be on probation, and satisfy the terms of your probation while the border's getting secured, while inteen

yore enforcement. if those things are met, you satisfy the terms of your probation, you're not on welfare, you learn english, civic, and interior enforcement independently verified, then you can get a regular work permit. if you want to get in line for a green card, you can do that, just get at the back of the line so that we preference that legal immigrant who did things right in the first place. that's the kind of, you know, broadbrush, that's the kind of process we envision, which is not a special pathway to citizenship, and it's not going to automatically in any way give an undocumented immigrant citizenship. we'll give him a work permit, probationary status, earn their way to a nonprobationary work permit while we secure the border and we do it in a way the president can't get around it. that's what we're concerned about. you have to secure the border. you actually have to have interior enforcement. the reason we feel strongly about this, we don't want to be in this position 10 years, 15 years from now. we want to fix it once and for

all. >> i guess, are people going to be able to look at your plan and say, there is no pathway to citizenship ever for these 11 million people, or there is going to be a pathway after, say, 10 years, 12 years, something like that? >> well, look, this isn't even in legislative form, so i don't know the answer to your question, chuck. the speaker is working on drafting principles that resemble what i just said, and we're going to have a big debate about the principles and how to proceed. it's premature to get into those details. >> let's talk about the other parts of the state of the union. a couple of the ideas that the president put out there, you liked, you agreed with in principle. the big, broad principle themes. >> trade. we need to do trade. that's very important. we can't just stand still on trade, because other countries are going to cut bilateral deals with each other and freeze us out of global economic growth and exports. number two, tax reform. what i worry about tax reform,

he's only talking corporate tax reform. don't forget that 80% of businesses in america aren't corporations. they file their taxes as individuals, chapter 1 -- >> so you're somebody -- you're somebody that believes you can't do them separately? >> that's right. >> you have to do it all, you can't split off corporate tax reform? >> let me give you an example. 90% of businesses in wisconsin aren't corporations. so corporate tax reform will only help 10% of the really big businesses. so we'll give harley davidson and johnson wax, which are great companies, a 25% tax rate, but we'll have all of the small and medium sized businesses as high as 45%? that just doesn't work. we need to get every tax rate done across the board for growth and job -- and competition. >> let me ask you about two other proposals, the minimum wage. i know there's -- it doesn't have a lot of traction in the house. why don't -- i guess my question is, why aren't you in favor of raising the minimum wage to $10?

>> it's bad economics. it costs jobs. look at the workforce -- labor force participation rates. we've had this -- we haven't had this few adult working-age population in the workforce since 1979. we don't want to make it more expensive. we don't want to make it harder to hire people. we need more people to get entry level jobs, not to stay in entry level jobs, but begin working so we can get them education benefits, have economic growth and get better jobs. if you raise the price of these entry level jobs, there will be fewer of them, and we want to pull people in the workforce. so we think it's bad economics, and you're actually hurting the people you're trying to help. young people, low-income people. minorities in the inner city. those are the people who are get hurt by taking the jobs away, so the goal isn't to just have the government say, here's how much you'll get paid. the goal is to remove the barriers for economic growth so people can get better jobs. >> but shouldn't there be a case where, you know, we always go through this debate and it seems

to take five, six, seven years for an agreement to be on a minimum wage increase, should it be pegged toward cost of living? >> i actually doesn't think that's a good idea, either, because it produces a heck of a lot of uncertainty with respect to labor costs and businesses. more importantly, our economy's not doing as well as the president, you know, intimated last night. we have very high unemployment when you factor in all of the people who just stopped looking for work. and you don't want a soft economy like this do something like that. >> let me ask you about your future. you ruled ever ever wanting to be speaker of the house. why is that? >> you know this job, the speaker, and in congress i'm here in washington four days a week, at home three days a week with my family. my kids -- our kids are 9, 10, 11. with speaker, you're not even doing that. with vice president, i would have seen my family more than being a member of congress.

>> so do you think running for president is family friendly? i guess president obama used -- >> relative to the speaker -- >> -- to the store -- >> well, you're under the same -- see, as vice president i was saying, we would have been under the same roof seven days a week, so we felt like that was still -- that was good for our family. it was something that was helpful for bringing us together so we could spend more time together. as speaker of the house, you're here in d.c. four days a week, then running around the country three days a week. and it's not something that with our family, jen and i feel is the right thing to do. there's this leadership speculation. i didn't want to fuel that leadership speculation. i thought put an end to it and tell people, don't look at me, because i have other things i want to do here in the majority. i like being a policymaker, committee chairman, i can make a difference doing that and i spend the weekends with my family. >> by 2016, you've not ruled that out. what would be your timetable for deciding on that? >> i want to get through this session. we've got a lot to do. i still think we need to make this divided government work.

we've got a lot of things in the budget and ways and means committee i'm working on, and after this session, i'm keeping my options open. >> can two republicans from the same state run for president at the same time? >>ive even other things happen like that. >> so you'd be okay running against scott walker? >> scott and i are close friends. he wished me happy birthday this morning. scott and i are focused on 2014. we've got to focus on solution in 2014. that's where our minds are. we'll figure the rest of this stuff out later. >> well. you brought it up, i meant to close it this way, happy birthday. >> thanks. appreciate it. >> thank you for coming on. >> you bet, chuck. take care. >> we want to remind you 10:00 eastern, the mayor of atlanta plans to hold a press conference on the efforts to clear the mess that is on his city's area highways. look at these pictures, they're out of atlanta, just a few moments ago. this tells you what we're talking about here. this is, i guess you call it traffic. this is more than traffic. this is a pileup.

keep in mind, folks, the snow started falling yesterday. it led to literally hundreds of accidents, jackknifed tractor trailers and forced people to spend the night in their cars. we'll have a lot more on this as the day wears on. first, today's trivia question.

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now it's time for our "hump day databank." first number is three. the number of morning shows that featured interviews with vice president biden, sort of a habit with the white house these days. he was on to discuss the president's state of the union, but a few other answers that caught our attention, and we think you ought to hear them, including this response about former defense secretary bob gates' criticism of him. >> bob gates and i have disagreed on almost every major foreign policy since vietnam. we had a different view in vietnam. we had a different view on bosnia. we had a different view on iran contra. it's one of the reasons why i voted against him at the cia, and we had a different view on afghanistan. i let the american public judge who's been right or wrong, bob gates or me, and history will ultimately judge who was right or wrong. >> notice the three incidents he brought up, vietnam, iran contra

and bosnia. and he was asked how he felt about a presidential run in 2016. >> in my heart, i'm confident that i could make a good president. it's a very different decision to decide whether or not to run for president. and there's plenty of time to -- i've not made a decision to run. i've not made a decision not to run. >> and he also said hillary clinton's decision whether to run or not will not impact his decision. next number, 24 seconds. that's the length of a bizarre confrontation between a reporter and michael grimm, a staten island congressman, michael grimm. after the reporter tried to ask him about an ongoing campaign finance investigation, here's what ensued. >> since we have you here, we haven't had you -- >> i'm not speaking about anything off-topic, this is about the president's -- >> well, what about -- all right. so congressman michael grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances. we wanted to get him on camera

on that, but, as you saw, he refused to talk about that. back to you. >> why -- grimm didn't back down after the fact. he released a statement that reads, the reporter knew i was in a hurry and i was only there to comment on the state of the union. i don't know, not many of them

threat ton throw a reporter off a balcony and also don't expect to maybe see that come back up in a tough re-election year. somehow he survived last time. that's a youtube moment that's going to live for a while for mr. grimm. coming up, making it last. how president obama's state of the union speech stacks up against his predecessors'. we'll also do a little polling in here in a minute. first, white house soup of the day. it's chicken noodle. a cold day. a good day for chicken noodle. ♪ [ screaming ] ♪ ♪

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this easy-to-understand guide will answer some of your questions and help you find the aarp medicare supplement plan that's right for you. i took medicine but i still have symptoms. [ sneeze ] [ male announcer ] truth is not all flu products treat all your symptoms. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus severe cold and flu speeds relief to these eight symptoms. [ breath of relief ] thanks. [ male announcer ] you're welcome. ready? go. now, our "deep dive" into the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. a striking disconnect between the economy and how people feel about it. take a look at this. back in january 2013, 72% of americans said they were dissatisfied with the economy. 57% said america was on the wrong track. at that time, the unemployment rate was near 8%. the inflation rate, 1.7%. the dow around 13,400, and consumer confidence was pegged at just above 58%.

it's a dramatic turnaround since then year-to-year. today, the jobless rate is down a full percent. inflation is down, and the dow has climbed more than 2,500 points, and the latest consumer confidence number has soared from 58% to 80%, and yet with all of that, the public's view of america and the economy is the same or worse than it was 12 months ago. our latest poll finds 71% of the people still dissatisfied with the economy, essentially unchanged, and now 63% say america is off on the wrong track, six points higher than this was in january of 2013. joining me now to go deeper into the polls, democratic pollster fred yang and mike o'roberts, part of the team here that does our poll. are there, very quickly, such things as state of the union bumps? i've not seen it in my -- in my years of covering this. but i just -- you're a pollster.

how often -- is there such a thing? >> i'm sure there will be a bump today, maybe tomorrow. in terms of the next month, i think in the second terminate -- term, the state of the union addresses, you know, the ground is pretty firm. look, he had a good speech. and like a lot of these things, it will be in the follow-up. >> you know, what's interesting, mike, obviously our poll set this tone, it's an amazingly pessimistic public decade -- i still can't get over this idea that we've been a decade now, so it's sort of in many ways a lost decade. i'm guessing if we polled this much in the '70s, only the '70s would have given us a period this long and sustained. over the last year, where we were in january 2013 versus where we are january 2014 on economic data versus the perception of the economy, why the disconnect? why do we see this disconnect where the data says one thing -- consumer confidence is up, this is something that your boss, big, is always obsessed with, and at the same time, the public is not seeing it? >> well, there's a lot of different factors at play there. of course, your perception of

the economy has to do with your own personal perceptions of how the economy is working for you. and our poll shows it's not working for most people and the family. it's not working for the middle class. that's an important part of the psyche around how the economy is working. you can see that the words that were being used to describe the direction of the country were very negative. and as you said, even consumer confidence is at an -- at least in the last four years, at an high. the disconnect is also because, look, there are less people looking for jobs today, even though the unemployment's going down, there's less people out there looking for jobs, and that's got to be playing a part in it. >> fred, i guess one of the more remarkable things last night, the first ten minutes of the speech, was instead of channelling the public's discontent, the president made the decision -- first time we've seen him to do this -- essentially, no, the country is headed in the right direction, and let me tell you why. do you think it's time for the president to start almost campaigning on an economic that,

hey, the economy has turned around, and because that might actually turn public opinion? >> i think two things involved with these numbers, right direction, wrong track. one, the economy, as mike said, and there's positive signs. but then there's this disconnect. and i think a lot of this is political. so i think there's lack of confidence in a political system, and i think what the president was trying to do last night was to not necessarily, you know, be polyanna-ish, chuck, but say, look, there are things going on, things are happening, we've gotten things done in washington, and i think what, you know, what he's trying to do is sync more up the political confidence with the growing economic confidence. >> you know, mike, the other thing that struck me about the speech, we laid out a list of 15 priorities, issues, priorities. it seems as if anything that got a majority of support was in the speech. when you read the speech, you just said before we started, he had a lot of agreeable language in there.

did you look at the speech and look back at it as a pollster, and, boy, they message tested this to the inth degree? >> yeah, i would -- like watching it as a republican, i said, wow, that's language that i could -- that i could understand and kind of speaks to where i'm at. especially when you talk about job training. you talk about the middle class. of course, everybody -- the one thing that combined everybody across party is the want for jobs, the want for economic -- >> the number-one issue on here, and it didn't matter whether it was republicans -- creating jobs was number one for both -- members of both parties, and reducing the deficit was number two for members of both parties, interestingly. that was something he didn't touch on. >> he didn't. you know, we look back to 2006 when we had the same item on that same scale. >> yeah. >> and it wasn't as big of an issue. and that has something to do with having a republican versus a democratic president at the helm, and, also, what has

happened over the last four years in terms of our deficit. >> fred, another part of the poll that's interesting, we're able to look republican distric those that live in democratic congressional districts. a few things where there's not surprising diversion, right, in republican districts, the president's rating is 62%, and 56% when it comes to direction of the country. health care law, 56% say it's a bad idea, democrat districts, 52%. that's not surprising. here's where they do agree. they have a negative view of the republican party. does that give the democrats an opening? right now the midterm conventional wisdom says republicans have the advantage, but even in republican districts republican brand is negative. is that enough to help the democrats? >> and that's the contrast, i believe, if there was a political part to last night's speech, the president was trying to make between a president who

wants to agree on consensus items, we've talked about why isn't it getting done, it's the republican congress. and look, i think in a -- as a democrat and as american, a democrat second, you like the numbers with the republicans being so low, but i think again it's part of the overall malaise americans are feeling about the political system in general. >> they don't like anybody -- >> ultimately in the big picture, that just can't be great. >> mike, a lot of republicans, including your boss, doesn't matter, we know congress is unpopular, doesn't matter, presidential job approval trumps everything. do you still believe this, are you concerned at all the republican brand is this low, even with republicans? >> i don't think anybody said doesn't matter. i think it's not indicative of electoral outcomes and that is what matters to, as a pollster, if you're doing work and you want to win elections, we are not looking at that going, oh, no, that means we're not going to win.

when we look at obama's approval or any president's approval, it is a much more consequential number and you can tie electoral outcomes to that number and that's what we're saying. it is important that the republican party has standing with the american public and that's something that we have to work on. >> and as a democrat, i kind of see it as the same way, i don't take great heart from that number, doesn't mean we're going to -- >> you think the president's -- >> i think it matters, but also provides -- elections are about choices and contrasts. this is a good contrast for the president and democrats to have. >> all right. we have more coming friday morning on football and what parents think how safe the game is. anyway, thank you both. trivia, it was the 20th amendment that moved the start of congress to january 3rd, which, of course, then led to the state of the union happening in late january, early february,

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change is looking pretty good after all. ♪ so what does the length of a state of the union say about a president? well, last night president obama gave the second-longest state of the union of his presidency, one hour and five minutes. today's takeaway, we decided to look back at where this one ranks against modern history. nixon to reagan, over 35 minutes, carter's averaged just shy of 37 minutes. since 1990, the averages jumped to 59 minutes. only one other president besides obama has delivered addresses lasting longer than one hour, it is, in fact, bill clinton. all of his speeches were over one hour. president obama has only had one

under an hour. last year it clocked nine seconds shy of the 60-second mark, however, still has a few more minutes to go if he wants the title of all-time longest ever, that, of course, goes to bill clinton. his 2000 state of the union, the last one, clocked in at one hour, 28 minutes and 49 seconds, so what does a length of a state of the union say about a president? i think you learned something. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." chris jansing is next. see you tomorrow. tomorrow we go live... it's a day full of promise. and often, that day arrives by train. big day today? even bigger one tomorrow. csx. how tomorrow moves. but with less energy, moodiness, and a low sex drive, i had to do something. i saw my doctor. a blood test showed it was low testosterone, not age. we talked about axiron the only underarm low t treatment that can restore t levels to normal in about two weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer.

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♪ [ male announcer ] bob's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. mr. president wants to finish a job. >> he presents a decent speech, but the follow through isn't there. >> the republicans have said, no, and they have been the ones saying my way or the highway. >> that's the problem president obama will run into as he pushes limits on executive orders. >> we have negotiated a small force of americans could remain in as we -- >> reaction to the president's state of the union as he hits the road to