and the world. it has been and still is a hard time for many. but tonight we turn the page. >> at this moment with the growing economy, shrinking deficits bustling industry booming energy production we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on earth. >> america, for all we have endured, for all of the grit and hard work required to come back for all of the tasks that lie ahead, know this -- the shadow crisis has passed and the state of the union is strong. [ applause ] the state of the union is strong. that was the president's sixth state of the union address but republicans say that is far from the the truth. >> in a speech riddled with

unrealistic wishful thinking president obama told the nation last night that the shadow of crisis has past. that news came as quite a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to what has been happening around the world. >> all the president really offered last night was more taxes, more government more of the same approach that has failed the middle class for decades. >> there is not a lot of serious lawmakers can do with talking points designed specifically not to pass. >> i wish i had better news for you. but all is not well in america. america is adrift. what america desperately needs is new leadership. >> the president told the american voters not only does he not hear their message, but he intends to do precisely the opposite. >> the new republican congress you elected is working to make washington understand that too. and with a little cooperation from the president, we can get washington working again. and despite those critics,

the president is taking his message back out on the road. this hour he's in idaho. the first stop there since he became president. now let's get started with kristin welker at the white house. kristin, the big question this year why idaho? >> reporter: a couple of reasons, ari. first of all he's never been to idaho. this is a deeply red state. part of president obama saying yes, democrats did lose congress but he won't be cowed, he'll continue to propoet policies he mapped out last night. take a look at the election results from 2012 to give a sense how deeply red this state is. president obama lost the vote there, only got 33%. kansas where he will visit tomorrow 38%. but idaho tells the story that president wants to tell which is that the economy is resurging and he took a victory lap for that last night. the unemployment rate in idaho, 3.9%. if you look at college tuition, $6,000 dollars per year for the

average resident for four-year college. and one of the president's big policies he would like to see enacted is for everyone to have to free years of community college. so i think there are a lot of reasons that he thinks idaho is a good place and he is speaking at boise state and will go to a lab that has been spurring. and you'll hear him talk about that. and then he heads to kansas where he will continue to campaign on the message he talked about last night and also talking about education in kansas. and it doesn't stop with these two trips. he is crisscrossing the country i'm told in the coming weeks to continue to promote increased taxes on the wealthy so that he can provide tax breaks for middle class americans. of course that is something that republicans have said is a nonstarter. you heard those comments there that you all just played. but this is really about more than just enacting the policies. i think this is part of president obama laying down the

marker for his final two years in office. this is about his legacy and laying the groundwork for 2016. another thing that the white house is going to continue to do is enact executive orders. they think that is a winning strategy for them. president obama, as you know after losing congress continued to sign executive orders. the american people like that. >> yep. >> it looks like he's getting something done. and it puts the pressure on congress to try to get something done on the issues that he's advocating. >> kristin welker at the white house. and you mentioned congress. let's go to kelly o'donnell on the hill. kelly, a big night last night on the hill. republicans pushing back. where do they go from here and where is the action? >> well it feels like it was the longest day of the year every year with the state of the union and today talking with members of both parties in the hallways you get a starkly different view. democrats believe that the president laid out a plan that is sellable to the country.

middle class issues and trying to boost the middle class. certainly republicans want to see that too but the path to get there very very different. so what we'll find from the republican side since they now have both house and senate is they get to call some shots and they have a different view of how to move forward. they are open to tax reform, but want to see some of those breaks to middle class and working families come without raising taxes on the high earners or people with family wealth. they worry about that. so they would be willing to close loopholes but not raise the tax burden on individuals, and people who own businesses and pay business tax like an individual. so that is a long slog. there is no easy answer there. also today in the senate keystone pipeline, the president said he will use his veto. today we are seeing amendments argued and debated and votes taken today. we'll see democrats make use of that amendment process to put down a marker themselves over

climate change with a couple after mendments that will -- of amendments set to put republicans on the defense to talk about the fact it is man-made or mannive influenced iveman-influenced and it is real. and that matters to progressives. don't expect that to go my where but it will be part of the dialogue today because keystone is expected to get the congressional approval heading with a showdown to the white house with a veto. >> and now with us at the table for a post-state of the union run down joined by howard fineman, the new editorial director at the huffington post. congratulations. >> thank you. we have 15 international version and we want to put together with what happens in the u.s. with what happens around the world. it used to be said all politics is global as the president demonstrated last night. >> thank you for that title. congratulations.

>> integral actic is -- integral actick. >> there was some nasa in that statement. >> and boy was he strong last night on the progressionive vision and how to get the economy moving on fairness and recovery. fantastic speech. some reporters think where was this man during the first term? >> yes. were i a losing democrat from the last election i would say where was this guy during the campaign? where were these ideas during the campaign? these are not radical ideas the president was pushing out. yes, they are progressive but hardly earth shaking. paid sick leave, help with community college education, student loans, packaged under the new slogan of middle class economics. it would have been perfect for the campaign. but i think congressional leaders were telling people mr. president, we got this.

be quiet. the american people will reject the right-wingers of the nasty republican party. this was harry reid's theory which is why he didn't let democrats vote on anything let on anybody vote in the senate. they think if they got out of the way and the american people focused on what the republican ss focused on the democrats would win by default. well it didn't happen. and now the president is free to vent what he probably wanted to say back then but the congressional leaders told him not too. >> you could tell he was feeling free. it is one of the best speeches i've heard him give. he was optimistic and unified. giving us hope for a better tomorrow which is what you want to get out of the speeches and a message a lot of people wanted to hear last night. on the other end, i wonder if he was giving people a false reality because it was our problems are behind us thanks to what i'm doing, we have

turned the page in a sense. i would word that as maybe we are turning a corner. there are a lot of people not feeling like they've turned the page. >> yes. i have to say there was an element of the mission accomplished banner in this speech. >> words, howard. >> no because first of all, i understand why the president felt as exuberant he did. in each of the previous students virtually every speech since he became president, he said times are tough, we're in the midst of recession and we have to work our way back. every speech has begun with a long admission that things weren't good. here he flipped it around. finally because of economic numbers because of economic growth he could beat his chest a little bit. he's been waiting six years to do it and i sympathize with his desire to do that. >> and the other formulations did not work that well for him. >> they did not work that well. but the problem is the real growth in wages of average

middle class americans shaept -- hasn'ted changes. and there are terrible pockets of things in the united states. but the good thing from his point of view is he offered a way to deal with them and that was his middle class economics package. basically globalization. the global economy is putting huge downward pressure on the wages of average people. this president is not going to attack the entire global capitalist system and no president would but he's offering these fixes and the republicans have no answer for that. >> and this is the question i'm going to ask you, because he has this package of middle class economics proposals, but we all know that they are dead on arrival in this congress. even he knows this. but i wonder if the administration is hopeful that republicans in both those chambers will see this as the start of a conversation a start of a negotiation, rather than an

end to one. and maybe we have a little sign of that. let's take a look at what paul ryan said this morning on morning joe. >> he just offered a big tax increase. he knows we're not going to do that. i'm glad he dialed down on the partisan class warfare rhetoric on that. we won't raise taxes. last thing the economy needs is the tax increases. reagan worked with democrats in the congress to do the last form of tax breaks. >> should we take that as a good sign -- a glimmer of hope that they are open to negotiating with the white house and the president? >> paul ryan bowed out of the presidential race. i think he wants to be a legislator. i'm not sure how many want to. the president is looking toward 2016 and his legacy and giving hillary guidelines for what she should do going down the lientd and -- the line and if he can

get the legislative victories if he can take them but otherwise he is pointing the finger toward the republican party. >> and many believe this was aimed at hillary clinton, and every time he advanced a concept that base he created a dilemma for hillary clinton. >> well i'm sure that david -- i shouldn't say what david's motives are. well i think a lot of republicans are looking forward to what they hope will be vast angry divisions within the democratic party. i think the president here was right where the bulk of the democratic party is. and probably with some plans with where hillary clinton will be. there is room for hillary to be a full-throated liberal in the old sense of the therm than used to be the case. because the wall street people she has curried favor with over

the years, a lot of them wouldn't be with her to begin with. and she will be forced to do what may be in her benefit which is to run a more populous campaign than what she was planning to do. >> and we didn't get a chance to ask you why the president was in idaho. maybe next time. >> if it's on this planet then i can deal with it. >> that is right. global. idaho is global. it is a treat to have you. >> thank you. still ahead, what the president did and didn't want to talk about last night. the economy, domestic policy and no specific details discussion of our terror problems. we're starting with a 360 view of this speech. it is "the cycle" and we're rolling on, wednesday, january 21st. introducing preferred rewards from bank of america the new banking rewards program that rewards our customers, every day. you'll get things like rewards bonuses on credit cards.... extra interest on a savings account...

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five minutes, that is roughly the amount of time the president spent talking about terror during his hour-plus long speech last night. you and i have seen the images. isis continues to carry out unmanageable atrocities like these two japanese host anls the group is holding -- hostages the group is holding for a $200 million ransom. a 72-hour deadline is running out quickly. they carried out the attack in paris and the grief is still settling in and terror is the number one priority according to our brand new nbc news-wall street journal poll. but last night it was worthy of five minutes and al qaeda was not mentioned in the state of the union. that is the first time it was left out since 2001 where the president did have this to say.

>> we stand united with people around the world have been targeted by terrorists from a school in pakistan to the streets of paris. we will continue to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks and reserve the right to act unilaterally as we have done recentlessly since i took office to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to us and our allies. >> for more gideon rhodes editor of foreign affairs magazine. thank you for being with us. were you surprised that he spent so little time talking about terror and was it a conscious effort from the white house not to mention al qaeda at all? >> well look the state of the union is an act of political theater and they are obviously going to do things that play to their strengths and tell the story they want to tell. so in general foreign policy gets less attention in domestic affairs and when things are going well you focus on successes rather than things that are still problems. so i wasn't surprised. yes, there is still a terrorism

problem. but it is not the most problem in american foreign policy and it hasn't been that bad for us. so i don't think there was any obligation for him to moan and grown about that in a speech where he was trying to take a victory lap. >> so no need to moan and grown. and he only talked about five minutes and they were jam-packed with feel-good rhetoric for lack of a better word. but he didn't go into any detail. he talked about china and it seemed like he was running down a checklist of things in the speech. >> did he go into detail on the tax increases. >> and he laid those out beforehand too. >> but on foreign policy to me it felt like, foreign policy, yeah, i have to talk about this because it is the state of the union but i'll move on to the next thing. >> so i'll say something that is not politic. >> excellent. we love that. >> but these do not have simple answers. foreign policy is not something

you can wave a wand at and make it go away. it is a 60-40 and when you do things right, sometimes they go wrong and when you do them wrong, sometimes you get lucky. the president benefited from the shale and the fracking. and there were things he was in favor of that didn't work out. you could have had more things like cuba which were successes and gotten an iran deal if they wanted one a few years ago. they didn't. i don't think he had an obligation to get into the difficult details about what to do about isil or isis. was he too positive on that? exactly. his policy isn't working. >> and there is another possibility that history will look at this differently and we are all misreading it the day after because what he did do which you rarely see in the state of the union, he asked for a new war authority. in world war ii is the last time you had an explicit discussion

of that kind of push in the state of the union. let's take a look at that speech from fdr in 1941. >> the future of all mesh republics today is in serious danger. that is why this annual message to the congress is unique in our history, to me the moment is in our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily almost exclusively to meeting this foreign peril. >> that was a very different time and pre-pearl harbor but we had a call for war without much detail. i asked speaker boehner about this and their response was to say, traditionally the white house drafted an aumf and works to pass it. one para grave in the state of the union doesn't count. but i think boehner is right with that skepticism you don't go out there and tell 30 million americans and say we have to go to war and not say how, why and

what the limits principals were. >> and when you say this was going to be looking at by different directions i thought you were going into a different direction. i don't think the authorization is a deal. it is a domestic constitutional issue, it is not going to change poll sixty we will not engage on the ground in a significant way in syria and iraq. and i don't think we should. >> but respectfully we've been told that about other wars and those wars expanded and americans were in danger and we were asked to go on the ground. >> that is true. i think that is highly unlikely given the experience of the last dozen years. no one wants to go back into that particular pot. what i thought you were going say was this would be seen significant by the future because of climate change. and if it is a issue that we debate and discuss, but that future generations may seem as much more important to the climate change.

if they don't do anything about it but that is the issue of which future generations say why the hell were you talking about this when you could have been talking about this. >> and one thing he did get specific on was iran and issued a veto threat that if congress issued sanctions and he said we have a chance to negotiate an agreement with iran and i'm interested in if you -- if you think that is true and your take on john boehner inviting israeli leader benjamin netanyahu to come and insert himself into american politics in response to the president. >> there is a chance of an iran deal and nobody knows what that is. because you are guessing those people in the iranian leadership would decide what to do at the end of the day. it is no better or worse than 50/50. and i think obama is right to try to play that out and get it.

there is time enough for more sanctions if the deal doesn't go off. there is no need to discuss that right now. with regard to inviting netanyahu, the republicans have done this in the past and democrats have done it in the distant pass. i don't think they are inviting the israelis in to act like they are the 51st state and dictate american policy is a wise move. the israelis can make their policies and we will make ours. and we can take that into account as we wish but we don't need to be told by a foreign leader what washington should do. >> if anybody can bring these parties together in a peaceful way, it is b.b. >> getting the president high remarks on the president's foreign remarks yesterday. thank you. and the president just stepped down to talk about what he talked about last night.

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that is what middle class economics it. the idea this country does best

when everyone gets their fair shot. everyone does their fair share. everyone plays by the same set of rules. president obama there making a strong push for strengthening the middle class in last night's state of the union. and while the president talked about united red and blue america to achieve that goal economically, the blue of the country like here in new york and california and crimson states like arizonaor texas couldn't be farther apart. what may surprise you is where the american dream is currently most within reach. our next guest, a professor from florida. said for a middle class person the american dream with a big house and a backyard and a couple of cars is much more achievable in low-tax arizona than in deep blue massachusetts. housing costs almost twice as much as in those markets than at others. he is a senior editor for the atlantic. welcome and what do you mean? >> when i looked at the data it

was quite shocking. a house in a red state, according to research but ed cocoa. $100 a square foot. in the blue state, it is $200 a square foot and five or ten times that in a metro market in manhattan or boston. so this middle class lifestyle i grew up in new jersey is out of reach for those in the blue states. red states are delivering that to their folks. >> now in terms of in equality, there is a great chart that we have over time you've seen the shift in inequality move from mostly red states in 1979 to blue states today. that is an effect of government or an effect of economics, the business cycle, and the market? >> i think it is only party effective government. we know the red states have been low-cost, unions, right to woncht butwork. but in the blue states the good

high-paying manufacturing jobs disappeared our our economy is cleaved and our labor market is cleaved into the high-paid knowledge that 20% to 30% get and the rest are left with low-wage service jobs and in blue states that is magnified. >> i think this piece hits at the heart of the debate in this country in terms of how to move forward with the economy. there are pros and cons for both and that is why there is an opportunity if they get it right. one thing that stood out is blue and red states depend on each other. they can't have all red or all blue. they rely on each other to survive. >> in blue states like in kansas what is the matter with these states? they are voting this in because it is delivering them a high-quality way of life. it makes perfect sense. it is not irrational. but the red states have economies based on suburban sprawl and building homes and

fracking. i think don't two things can't be depended on. the blue states have the high-tech economies that will power america forward and in some ways the two groups of people need to get together. one example would be a place like houston, that took the resource and that energy money and turned it into great universities, great knowledge centers. so i think there is a way forward. we'll have to figure out how to do that. >> and abby's question points to something that might huckabee is arguing in a strange way in his book gods guns grits and gravy, and gratuitious pandering. so he makes this simplistic argument that it is the bubbas and on the coast it is the people living in the bubble but i do think there is a divide culturally between the blue and the red states. we talk about wealth inequality but that is another divide and two americas. >> we've looked a lot at this on everything from gun control to abortion and can you go down the

list. there is an incredible cultural divide but that is under-pinned by economic circumstance. the people to come to work in the blue states or migrating from everywhere to the blue states they want to work in a knowledged economy and work in high technology and they know women and men and gay and straight have to get along, but people in the red states have a different philosophy and a different set of cultural values. so our country is polarizing but it is the economics that lead the culture rather than vice versa. >> that is a big point the president was making in his speech. richard florida, thank you very much. >> great to be with you. up next we'll dig deeper into the economic policies and what they mean specifically for you. and later, the other story everyone is talking about and tweeting about today. >> deflate-gate. jonathan is on it. and patriots, he's watching you.

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we've seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade. our deficit is cut by two thirds a stock market that has doubled and health care inflation at the lowest rate in 50 years. [ applause ] this is good news people. [ laughter ] yes, it is hard to ignore the good economic news these days. plunging unemployment numbers and plunging gas prices and a stock market mixed today but the value of the dow is more than double than what it was when the president took office. news like that was the overarching theme from last night and something he's taking

on the road to idaho and kansas and then to mayors. it is clear the president's message resonated with americans but not with gop. on record economic growth they sat. on equal pay for women, they sat. on raising minimum wage they sat. on lowering childcare cost for families, yep, they sat. this all sounds familiar. so let's bring in someone who is very familiar with the cyclist, josh barrow who writes for the new york times and hosted three cents on msnbc's shift. a long title there. make sure i say it right. so josh i just laid out all of the things that the gop sat on. >> right. >> what is the likelihood that the republican party and the republican-controlled congress is going to counter the president with proposals of their own and make this a real negotiation, a real debate? >> i think that is very unlikely. this presidency is almost over

especially in the view of the republicans in congress. they are very close to the point that anything they will pay attention to is the presidential candidates and the congress has to pass a series of bills to keep the government open and raise the debt limit and things like that but i don't expect big policy moves. there are small ideas showing up in the state of the union, some things in cooperation between the president and congress on. you saw enthusiasm from both sides about trade agreements so i think it is possible we'll see some action on trade over the next few months but mostly i think very little policy news out of this congress. >> so josh on the policy piece, put aside the politics of it. one of the things the president advocated for is lifting the capital gains tax rate not to match the income tax rate but lifting to be closer. which got me thinking, what is the justification for having the capital gains rate, for having capital gains receive

preferential treatment and it seems that provides people with incentive to shield their income and pretend it is capital gains. >> there are two reasons. most capital gains are investments in companies and corporate income gets passed on to sharmds and taxed -- shareholders and taxed again at the end. but if you ask left-leaning economists they will tend to agree that income coming through a corporation is taxed twice and so that is why through the history of the u.s. income tax we have had a preferential rate. and there was a 25% rate for capital income. and what economists thought was a great idea and enshrined in the tax code for a long time. and some people con tend that capital is more than labor incentive. if you raise taxes on labor, people won't work. there is less evidence for that

justification. i think we've seen less evidence over the last few years and that is where preferential tax rates have fallen out of fashion. we had big tax gains cuts in the bush administration. no apparent increase in economic growth out of that and that is why even among republicans, there is not a lot of push for cuts in the capital gains push. >> and an economics professor at syracuse looked at a correlation between capital gains rate and growth and didn't find any. there isn't very much evidence for it ari. >> well you do joni ernst and then i'll ask. >> i wanted to ask you about joni ernst. you laid that out so well because i was jocking, you did it so brilliantly. the republicans spent a lot of time sitting last night but a number of responses after the speech one of them the main one joni ernst, freshman from iowa if you had never seen her

before you see a women -- a war veteran, really the first female to win the senate in iowa. from very humble beginnings and she spoke about that last night. let's take a look at that. >> we were raised to live simply not to waste. it was a lesson my mother taught me every rainy morning. you see, growing up i had only one good pair of shoes. so on rainy school days my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry. but i was never embarrassed because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young people in iowa with bread bags over their feet. >> this is a new face and someone who can speak to the middle class and something they are hoping to do in 2016. was it effective? >> i think it was effective in her senate campaign when she won

by a wide margin. i was interesting about this speech is she could have given it a year ago. with struggling to getting by and health plans getting canceled and the need for the keystone pipeline to bring in gas and bring down prices. there is economic change in the last year. we've had a plunge in gas prices and we've seen soaring consumer confidence and well above normal for the last 35 years so the gop tapped into the voter frustration with the economy in the sense they are not living as well as they could be. but if the economic growth trend continues to improve and consumer confidence continues to improve, i think this message won't work as well for the last few years. so can joni ernst and other republicans in washington come up with new things to say that connect with voters. >> and you have to talk about consumer confidence not bread

bags. >> josh barrow thanks for your three cents. >> absolutely. we'll get the latest on accusations of the super bowl-bound pats straight from espn's andrew brand. sound good? great. because you're not you you're a whole airline... and it's not a ticket you're upgrading it's your entire operations, from domestic to international... which means you need help from a whole team of advisors. from workforce strategies to tech solutions and a thousand other things. so you call pwc. the right people to get the extraordinary done. ♪ ♪ ♪ with the incredible fuel efficiency of 38 miles-per-gallon highway you can feel like royalty in the nissan altima.

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up in the nfl. as if the nfl hasn't been through enough this year. now allegations of cheating by the patriots. the espn report claimed 11 out of the 12 footballs used by the team during the sunday's championship game against the colts were under-inflated. killy yi-- willie geist has play-by-play. >> the fact there were 11 out of the 12 balls discovered under inflated was certainly a big disappointment. >> over night chris mortenson citing league forces not verified by nbc news saying the nfl found 11 out of 12 patriots game-day balls were significantly less inflated than required. by two pounds. the league now trying to determine just how it happened. >> this initial finding doesn't feel good to anybody. >> the colts reportedly grew suspicious after dah quell jacks

interkepted ed-- intercepted a ball. brady was asked about it on sunday. >> would you compare to comment. >> i think i heard it all last night. >> the nfls with made aware of the findings. the team saying we have been in complete corporation with the league and will continue to do so. if they are found to have deliberately doctored the footballs, they could be fined a minimum of $25,000 and take away a draft pick. reaction to the espn report came quickly on social media. jerry rice tweeting 11 of 12 balls underin freighted. can anybody spell cheating. and on instagram, people took note of a poorly time post of the nfl, behind the scenes making the super bowl xlix footballs. >> willie geist, thank you for that. nbc news has reached out to the nfl, the league said it has no

comment on that espn report. we also reached out to the patriots. they also did not respond. as you know, espn was the first to report on all of this and we have their nfl business analysts in the show. andrew brandt. and thank you for being with us. we got all of our bad puns out of the way before the show so we'll try to act like adults here. tell us what the latest is. >> the latest report is they are investigating. what that means, it is not the ray rice investigation which took four months by former fbi director robert mueller, this is more focused more quick. in fact league vice president troy vincent said it could be wrapped up in a couple of days. what i think they are doing, to take you inside of the building nfl investigators are interviewing all the way up the chain. ball boys officials, players, coaches, management and perhaps even ownership. we have a that 11 of 12 balls were underflated, which is

against league rules. the question is under whose direction? at whose direction are they underinflated. that's what they have to get to the bottom of. >> so andrew the question i have is how did the refs not notice? one ball. i can get that but 11 balls? >> again, this is going to go into what the patriots defense is, if you will when they talk about the cold weather and those kind of things as was reported in your setup. this only came to the attention by an interception of the colts who handed it to someone who said it seems a little fishy. then it went up to the chain to the general manager. that led to where we are today. it was reported that the balls were fine when the games started and the balls were not fine at

halftime when they were pumped up for specifications in the second half. we have to find out what happened, and that's what the league is trying to do. you mentioned it. from september 8th on the issue of integrity and creditability has been at stake for this league because of that ray rice video. it all changed that day. we thought the creditability and integrity issue was off the table, but here we are at it back at it again at the biggest time of the year. >> when you have this much riding on these games, it matters a lot what happens to the footballs and the equipment. you have chain of custody. when people care about the gun as evidence in a trial, there's a very specific process of everyone who gets near it. what is the chain of custody on these footballs, if they can be so manipulated, to throw the entire playoffs into doubt? >> this is the question being asked around the nfl, around

sports today. what happens to these balls? for the first time a lot of people are finding out they use different balls, the colts and the patriots. the opponents play with different balls. the balls are handled by the officials in a bag or basin. they're taken out to the sideline of the team that isthe team is using. we didn't really know about it until right now. i have worked in the nfl for ten years. i didn't know the ball transfers with the referees. sure, they pump them up to specifications, but what happens then? that's the key. >> andrew brant, thank you so much. up next you've heard of peace through strength. a ari is going to introduce us to the concept of compromise through strength.

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the shadow of crisis has passed and the state of the union is strong. >> the most memorable line in obama's state of the union wasn't in the written speech after obama said he had no more campaigns to run and a few republicans started sarcastically applauding. the president ad libbed the theme of the night. >> i have no more campaigns to run. my only agenda -- i know because i won both of them. >> yes, he did. obama was intent on pushing the

agenda that the public backed in his reelection. a roman developed a concept of peace through strength which reagan invoked. last night, obama invoked something different. compromise through strength. it didn't offer the other side anything. >> the president calling for compromise then blasting republicans and vowing to block even bipartisan ideas. >> a liberal speech by a liberal president, no surprises there. >> that's not really true. they were distragtcted by the strength and swag but then from that position of strength from that double mandate earned by vanquishing the business and security wings of the gop, he did more. he renewed calls for compromise. working together and combining ideas, and that's what the president did offer on several specific policies last night and

much of it was realistic. it was possible. we know that because these are issues we have collaborated with more. >> surely we can all see something of ourselves in the striving young student and agree that no one benefits when a hard working mom is snatched from her child and then it's possible to shape a law that upholds our tradition. surely we can agree that the right to vote is sacred. it's a good thing that for the first time in 40 years the crime rate and the incarceration rate has come down together. use that as a starting point to reform america's criminal justice systems. >> it was 41 house republicans

who passed it and a republican president signed it into law. on immigration, there's already a majority of votes in the house for reform. then on voting rights there are house republicans backing the voting rights act. in the good ole days of 2006 that same bill passed the senate unanimously. every republican backed it. on crime and punishment, there are leaders in both parties who want to reform sentences for nonviolent offenders. the president has welcomed those kinds of reforms for years and he did it again last night. the barrier is some republicans have kept those bills from floor votes. so when you hear some republicans complain that obama's talk of compromise won't lead to any action you've got to remember that's the way they want it. all right. that is my take on the state of the union. what is yours? you can tell me on facebook or

instagram at ari melber. you can weigh in. what would the country look like without the great recession? last night we may have found out. it's wednesday, january 21st, and this is "now." >> president obama displaying renewed swagger. >> this was a born again obama. >> the president confidently calling for action even if little is likely. >> an ambitious agenda. >> laying down a marker for his legacy. >> democrats looked like they were attending a