it? >> no, it's bright and early now i'll go to dinner. >> steve kornacki continues our live coverage on tonight's state of the union. >> up just witnessed the third longest state of the union ever delivered. >> i found the truth lacking in the state of the union. >> false claims on the auto industry, false claims on job creation. >> he led in a very divisive way. >> open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable community. >> if that was an attempt at unity, he has a lot of work to do. >> to all the d.r.e.a.m.ers, let me be clear. [ speaking spanish ] >> it is the most effective response we've seen from a member of any party for quite a long time. >> they may land a punch, may

leave a mark, but they have never not once in the history of our united states managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future. >> thank you and god polibless america. good night. and good morning to you now on the east coast. good evening on the west coast still. i'm steve kornacki, continuing coverage here on the state of the union address for an hour and 20 minutes, the nation watched a donald trump gave his first official state of the union speech declaring our nation to be strong. the president cheering the tax cuts passed by his fellow republicans, celebrating the american flag and national anthem and declaring an end to what he called the war against clean coal. he boasted about the economy and the state of american business

and he asked congress to work on infrastructure. he also made a pitch for unity. >> tonight i call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common grouchnd and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people. this is really the key. these are the people we were elected to serve. >> the president probably not surprisingly said nothing in the speech about the ongoing russia investigation. but what will make the most headlines from this speech it seems likely the issue of immigration. the president saying he wants a path to citizenship for the 1.8 million undocumented immigrants brought to this country as minors but also making clear he sees this as a concession, something to be given in exchange for some hard line policies. >> tonight i am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, democrats and

republicans, to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed. my duty and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber is to defend americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the american dream. because americans are dreamers, too. >> meanwhile, congressman joe kennedy iii the grandson of robert f. kennedy gave the official democratic response. his speech delivered in front of a crowd in fall river mass. it touched on topics president trump's speech left out. >> a government that struggles to keep itself open, russia knee deep in our democracy, an all-out war on environmental protection, a justice department rolling back civil rights by the day.

hatred and supremacy. proudly marching in our streets. bullets tearing through our classrooms. concerts and congregations targeting our safest sacred places. and this nagging sinking feeling no matter your political beliefs that this is not right. this is not who obviously we are. >> and joining us now john editor of commentary magazine, john barrett and maria teresa kumar from voto latina, all three msnbc contributors. josh, i was reading your write-up on this. you said this was the kind of speech a president aiming for about a 55% approval rating would be delivering.

trump closer to 35 right now. what do you mean by that? >> this wasn't a unity speech in trying to bring together 100% of the country. particularly on the tax plan and immigration proposal he's trying to get congress to do something, it was a pitch that more people ought to like these things than do. on tax plan, it was basically you're getting a tax cut. the vast majority of americans who obviously pay taxes will get a tax cut from the recently enacted tax plan. so the president's trying to reinforce that idea and tr to make a claim that the economy is doing really well now and this is a major reason why. this makes sense for him to harp on. this is a policy that could be more popular than it is. it's not going to be popular with the whole country. more people could like it than do right now. on immigration he tried to make the case a down the middle proposal which it isn't.

he was trying to make a case that he has a reasonable compromise pitch out there and if democrats don't do a deal with him on it, it will be their fault. i thought a weaker argument there than on taxes because his proposal is extreme in various dimensions and not an offer designed for democrats to get to yes on it. the sort of over the top fearmongering that he does about public safety concerns related to immigration, we saw this in the virginia governor's race in november where the republicans made that a central theme. it didn't serve them well. they ended up losing by nine. >> you talked about the ms-13. let me talk about immigration. a lot of things i want to bring up. it was the most fascinating part of the speech. john, josh mentions dwelling on crime, dwelling on ms-13. what i thought i might be hearing there is a president who is worried about his base priming them for something they may see as a sellout. that is the legalization for

nearly 2 million dreamers. >> that is exactly right what you heard in that speech was not a pitch to democrats but to republicans and conservatives. he's saying i want you to accept a path to citizenship for almost 2 million people and in exchange, i'm going to talk to you about all the things that you hate and fear and i'm going to talk about how the other aspects of this proposal that i'm putting forward are going to address that. so ending chain migration and various other -- he had four planks. i can't quite remember what they were. democrats are going to misunderstand the speech and liberals will misunderstand this element of the speech without understanding that the rubicon has been crossed, the most conservative on immigration figure in american history has essentially called for amnesty for 2 million people. that is an enormous movement as

he said, like, it's three times the number of people that obama had featured under his handling of the dreamer matter. that's the big takeaway because eventually, he is breaking the back with this proposal of a core philosophical and propagandistic view on the right that the worst thing that could possibly happen is amnesty for anybody. amnesty has been a dirty word on the right for almost 30 years, and he's basically just offered -- he has said i'm putting this on the table, amnesty for 2 million people. it's a very big jump and it comes from him. this is the guy who obviously spent 2015 and 2016, he was going to throw 11 million people out of the country. >> maria, i'm curious, did you hear that? is that how you interpreted the speech that he's packaging what could be portrayed as amnesty for 2 million inside rhetoric that his base might accept?

>> i think he has to figure out how to pacify the breitbts of the world saying he's amnesty don. it's not that he was trying to do that, he did it ungracefully when you try to equivocate ms-13 with dreamers is poor and irresponsible. the other pieces he was talking about is not good for the country. yes, he asked for 23 million -- $25 billion for the wall. members of congress will perhaps give him that. they will realize they have to reauthorize it year after year. that's fine. the bigger concern both among republicans and democrats is this idea of family reunification. the president himself is a beneficiary of family reunification. he wants to get rid of that. the visa lottery system he wants to get rid of. the american people needs to

understand this proposal that the white house came up with basically slashes our current immigration levels in half and brings us back closer to levels of the 1920s. what we need is a smart policy to recognize what is it the future immigration flows, what is the mixed skill labors that this country needs and not trying to pit daca recipients here legally because they came out of the shadows, have them pit themselves against the rest of the immigrants in some cases their own parents. >> the line that will get pored over most in the speech is when trump said americans are dreamers, too. and i imagine that's going to be subject to a lot of various interpretation. what's your interpretation of that line? >> it's divisive, as well. of course, americans are dreamers but also rooted in our immigrant experience. the reason the majority of us had rear with the exception of native americans and descendants of slaves came here with the idea they can become their

possibility in this country. that is not any different 240 years later. this idea that he is trying to pit this idea of what dreamers are, that is our dna. we're talking about the ones that came here through their family unfortunately without the proper documentation, at the same time, they're making great strides to achieve. these dreamers specifically have passed background checks and contributing to their local economy and what they want to make a case is, how do they participate in this america. i have to say that i think joe kennedy did a fantastic job delivering his speech. i would say though where he kind of went off guard was when he started to speaking to the dreamers in spanish. most of them don't speak spanish. this is the only country they know. >> interesting point. >> i just think you are underestimating the meaning of trump saying that he wants a path to citizenship for 2 million people because think of who he is, what he said on the campaign trail. this is a gigantic turn of direction.

this is somebody whose line was i'm going to throw 12 million people out of here. that was what he said for almost -- >> i appreciate it. the reason he's saying that is to the majority of americans not deep seated into this policy issue, it sounds incredibly reasonable. you scratch the surface and recognize how draconian he's presenting. he's trying to be the leader that most americans want him to be but in fact what he's doing is pushing us backwards instead of coming up with an immigration policy that looks at future immigration flows. >> the offsetting ask is so -- the offsetting ask is vague. maria notes describes the plan as cutting immigration by half. a leading sceptic has been complaining this plan won't decrease immigration at all. they work through all the people who filed applications. that will be more than a decade. >> a hawk on immigration. he was criticizing what trump

said about dreamers tonight. from the right he's still getting that. >> it's a proposal that's vague enough that people can see what they want to see or don't want to see in it. the white house will have to put more meat on that. if they're proposing to reduce legal immigration by half a million people, democrats won't look at that and say amnesty for 1.8 million dreamers is a fair trade to reducing immigration by half. if it's a much more modest cut to legal immigration, you could have the basis for a trade that would be a down the middle trade where everyone felt they got something. >> i'm concerned about this because i'm a skeptic about ending family migration or chain migration and but i think there's a lot to be said about this notion of getting high value immigrants who obviously come ready to sort of help the economy. having said that, democrats and liberals are backing themselves into a corner if they think that they can simply reject and act as though it's meaningless that

trump has taken this step. if they're not willing to negotiate, he is going to have very strong grounds to say we moved like we -- the mountain came to mohammed and you are acting as though that means nothing and that is not a proper way to negotiate. >> but -- >> we have to take a break. go ahead. >> i think what folks are saying is let's have an honest conversation. they're trying to mix -- the administration is trying to mix future immigration flows with the issue he created, basically repealing daca. where you have a good starting point and many republicans agree, let's figure out daca, the wall, but let's have a serious conversation on what we need from future immigration flows. maybe it's half we already have. maybe it's a third or 100%. that is very different than what the current administration is offering.

> this will be something that the government funding deadline, the latest one a few weeks away. this issue is going to intensify in the near future. john, maria, thanks to both of you. coming up, how democrats are reacting to the president's state of the union speech especially on the issue as we've been talking about on the issue of immigration. jeff merkley is going to be here. the president said the the word russia only once in his speech last night and didn't talk about what happened in the 2016 election. ♪ i'm jimmy, this is my definition of fresh since 1983. ♪

...from godaddy! in fact, 68% of people who have built their... ...website using gocentral, did it in under an hour, and you can too. build a better website - in under an hour. with gocentral from godaddy.

democrats were quiet for the first hour of the president's speech but there was a moment as the president laid out his immigration plan that elicited some boos and hisses from

democrats in the room. the president was talking specifically about ending chain migration. >> under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. >> some democrats took to twitter to criticize the president including arizona congressman ruben gallego who obviously tweeted trump blatantly lies. he has zero understanding how this works. joining us now senator jeff merkley from oregon and leonardo reyes a daca recipient. he also attended the state of the union as senator merkley's guest. thanks to you both for joining

us. leonardo, your status is in limbo here. the president addressed this issue of daca. hopefully you can hear me. the president addressed the issue of daca tonight. he said look, he does want a path to citizenship for 1.8 million dreamers who came to this country with their parents as minors. he said quite a bit. did he make that statement. what did you make of it? >> you know, it's on one hand i want to be encouraged by the president's words. on the other hand, i understand that it is a more complex issue that we have to really take back and understand and look at the bigger picture. you know, when we talk about policy, i couldn't really speak to the policy of all of it but could speak to the families and individuals back in oregon and across this country who obviously are depending on a solution that we need to reach a

dream act, that we need to enact a dream act for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are at stake here and who obviously are constantly wondering and worried about what tomorrow looks like for them, whether or not they're going to be able to stay in their homes, whether or not they're going to be torn away from their families, if they're going to be able to keep moving forward. so i hope that a solution is reached and i think you know that solution for us has been very clear for a long time and that has been the dream act. >> senator merkley, let me ask you what you made of this. because the president, obviously it's open to interpretation here. but one interpretation of what the president did tonight was try to prime his base that conservative base that he rode to the republican nomination with a hard line immigration view that he was trying to prime them for something they may view as betrayal. that is ultimately the legalization of folks like the man next to you, leonardo. >> you heard a strong reaction from democrats tonight because

there's a number of things that president trump just got wrong. when he was talking about family unification, this has been a very important thing to all of us in america who obviously are citizens if we have sisters or brothers abroad, we want to be able to bring them to the united states to share in this great nation that we're part of. this is woven into the fabric of our nation. president trump wants to wipe it out which is not, not something consistent with who obviously and what we are as a nation primarily of immigrants. and what he also got wrong is when he said that this is an offer he's making that cuts it down the middle. and i think you heard a lot of reaction to that because it's just such an absurd statement to make. not only he did not acknowledge the dreamers who obviously were

there and the important contributions they're making to their community and the fact he's the one threatening to make their status illegal. they're legal now and he's taking that away. he's saying i'll restore it if you do all these other things that my right wing base really wants to happen like wipe out family unification. and so i think it was just not a serious proposal and everyone knew it in the room. that was why you got the reaction you did. >> bigger picture though for a guy who obviously campaigned for the presidency the first press conference or the first speech he gave as a candidate for president he talked about mexicans as rapists coming across the boarder, throwing out more than 10 million folks here right now. when you consider that candidate and as president tonight he did say among other things he did say he favors legalization for 1.8 million, do you think that's significant at all?

>> it wasn't new news that he says something good in that regard. he said before he had a big heart, a loving heart towards dreamers and wanted to address this. but that president you're talking about or that candidate you're talking about who obviously had this very ugly divisive strategy, we saw that again tonight. he repeatedly made the image of immigrants one of gang members, not ones of productive folks who obviously have grown up in our community, they've been in our grade schools with our children and our high schools and our colleges and our workplaces. they are participants, full participants, full members of our community and then he equates them to gang members who obviously come and shoot and do terrible things. and so we saw that ugly side of president trump once again. >> very quickly, the clock is ticking on this, you know as well as i do, government funding running out in a few weeks. some democrats were saying it was going to lead to a resolution of this issue by then. how confident are you to reopen the government this issue will be resolved in the coming weeks. >> not at all confident. the president is reopening old wounds. he's playing to his breitbart base. that is a deal on the table right now. there is tremendous bipartisan

support for border security, tremendous bipartisan support for addressing the status for the dreamers. that deal is just sitting there wait are not the president to actually say yes. instead, he's resorting to returning to that candidate trump who obviously wants to take deals apart rather than put dees together. >> jeff merkley from oregon and leonardo reyes, thanks to you both for joining us. >> thank you. coming up, the president did not mention the russian meddling in the u.s. elections in his speech but did he refer to the mueller probe? that's next. >> the state of our union is strong because our people are strong.

around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like china and russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. >> that was the only time tonight donald trump referenced russia in his state of the union speech. some have taken his line about federal employees as a potentially veiled reference to the mueller probe. >> so tonight i call on congress to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to

reward good workers and top remove federal employees who obviously undermine the public trust or fail the american people. >> and joining us now is yamiche alcindor and jose barro. yamiche, when we talk about the role of russia in the speech or the lack of a role for russia in the speech, there's the investigation itself but also there's the question of russian meddling in the election, a governmental response to it, possible changes in policy and an approach for future elections and no reference at all to any of that in the speech. >> as soon as i got my hands on the speech which was about 13 pages, the first thing i did was search for the word russia. as far as i could tell it appeared one time in the clip you played where he talked about russia being a rival and somewhat of a challenge for our economy. he would not go into russian -- into the russian government's actions or future actions in our elections.

this is something that's continuing to plague the united states. we don't yet have and i say we meaning government agencies and social media companies, don't yet have the an idea of exactly what russia did in the 2016 election. now we have midterms coming up and there could continuously still be facebook profiles, twitter accounts that are fake bots. they could be still infiltrating the way people are thinking, the way they could be putting up fake organizations, they could be hosting fake meetups, using the russian conversation or things about donald trump to essentially sow discord in america. we don't know what they're doing. now we have the midterms coming up and the president did not explain to americans, this is how america is going to protect itself from whatever meddling wants to do largely because this president is really worried about the idea of people even talking about russia colluding with his campaign because he thinks it gets at his legitimacy. this could have been a speech where he talked about russia and whether or not we can protect ourselves from that country.

>> josh, it does seem that trump's hesitation whether it's tonight or in general he feels this is giving his opponents a weapon or acknowledges their weapon. >> i think it's two things. he may be concerned about the investigation itself and giving fuel to that. the other thing is that the interference that russians did in the election with propaganda and the creation of these fake personas, ultimately it was to influence votes cast by real american voters in the united states. for trump to focus on that is basically to buy into this idea that people were tricked into voting for him, that the russians came in here and did this influence campaign and caused people to vote for trump who obviously otherwise would not have. you would expect any president to want to believe he was elected because people thought he was the best candidate and that's why people voted for him. he's very sensitive about this

idea his election was the sort of weird fluke due to external factors and recently complained saying reporters always say that hillary ran a bad campaign. why don't they say i ran a good campaign. this narrative undermines his self-conception as a person who is a talented politician who obviously won in his own rights. >> it's interesting in terms of the investigation, no surprise that trump didn't mention mueller or the investigation but at the same time, i imagine in that room tonight in washington in general, it's just wherever trump is, wherever the conversation is about trump in politics or in washington, mueller even if he's not in the room, he's there. >> that's definitely true. what was very, very interesting to me was that bite that you played earlier in the show where it was about him talking about what congress should do. he was hinting at the fact that congress should empower the cabinet to go after people that go against account public's trust.

and in the case of andrew mccabe, the idea was he lost the trust of his superiors because his wife chose to take money from the clintons. there's this idea now that the president is endorsing the fact that if you have an employee whose spouse didn't vote for trump or doesn't support donald trump or even if you find out your own employee didn't vote for donald trump or doesn't support him, they could be undermined public trust. he's essentially asking for people to have loyalty toward him as a personal person instead of having a loyalty to the constitution which is -- which is essentially i think unprecedented. that's a very hard thing even for republicans to really get at. it's going to be interesting how republicans couch that if we see movement on this in the future, if congress is going to start letting cabinet members fire people because of political views that are personally held. >> all right. yamiche alcindor and jose barro. thanks. and president trump spent a lot of time talking about the economy and tax cuts. how much that will matter by the time voters head to the polls in november. stay with us. >> this nagging sinking feeling,

no matter your political beliefs, that this is not right. this is not who obviously we are.

small business confidence is at an all-time high. the stock market has smashed one record after another. gaining $8 trillion and more in value in just this short period of time. and just as i promised the american people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in american history. >> those tax cuts he's talking about are actually only the eighth largest in american history, fourth if you adjust for inflation. tonight the president and his speech writers clearly wanted to emphasize his economic record. that could be a preview of republicans' midterm argument

later this year. unfortunately for them a healthy economy so far isn't leading to positive approval ratings for the president. donald trump's approval rating is above 50% in just 12 states. between 40% and 50% in 20 states and donald trump's approval rating less than 40%s in 18 states. joining us now is corrine jean-pierre senior adviser and national spokesperson for moveon.org and caitlin huey-burns from real clear politics from the russell rotunda on capitol hill. corrine, is this sort of one of the political oddities of donald trump's presidency which in many ways is an odd presidency. look, opinion, public opinion on the economy is pretty strong. in the past a president's approval rating tracked with that. it's not doing so for donald trump. what would it take, put your analyst hat on. what would it take for donald

trump's approval rating to rise with the assessment of the economy? >> well, i think -- i think that's a very loaded question there. look, it's the divisiveness that he just brings to the table when he talks especially you look at his domestic policies, when you look what he's doing with the lgbtq community, the muslim ban, what he's doing with repealing tps and daca. all of those things actually play and affect his approval numbers. if we go back to even november, if you look at virginia and alabama and some of the other races that we saw last year, there was -- there was an energy there that we were all shocked that was there. it was like that resistance was electrolized and very much a referendum on trump that we saw in alabama in many particular and in virginia, one of the major issues that came out of virginia was the health care and trump and republicans trying to repeal health care and people coming out and saying no, this is not going to happen and just

speaking out loud by voting. >> and caitlin, he has been talking a lot lately about the economy, the stock market. interestingly the stock market the last couple days has not been doing well. did you see anything different tonight from the president that might cause people to take note of a message so far they haven't been subscribing to? >> the introduction to the speech tonight provided a road map for republicans running in 2018. remember, they know they are facing really headwinds just given the president's approval rating you mentioned and this energized democratic base at this point. i think you're going to start to hear republicans on the campaign trail talk a lot about the terms that the president did, talking about the economy, talking about tax cuts that they think will improve over time. they think people are going to start to see an impact of that. and also, wage growth.

that also provides democrats a lot of talking points, as well because they are going to be competing in a lot of districts that hillary clinton won, but also districts that trump won. they're still going to have to kind of appeal on an economic message, as well and their message is going to be something along the lines of, yes, but we haven't seen serious wage growth yet. are you feeling this yet? and so i think today's speech certainly falls on partisan lines but i think republicans kind of looked at it as a way to kind of figure some of that rhetoric into their own campaign messages. >> in terms of the policy put on the table in the speech, there was one section there when he talked about paid family leave. >> yeah. >> looked like the -- this is not traditionally a conservative republican issue. looked like ryan behind him maybe didn't like that too much. was there anything here?

>> i was surprised, too. i couldn't quite make -- i was surprised to hear he was talking about paid family leave. that's more of a democratic leave, paid family leave, making sure child care is affordable, making sure families are able to take care of their children and be able to stay home if they can. that whole kind of messaging is in our world. i was surprised to hear that, as well. you saw as you said paul ryan republicans kind of react to that. would love to hear more where he was going with that. i wasn't quite sure. but when it comes to the economy as, as well, look, the economy what we're seeing there is that yeah, it's doing -- it's doing well but like we were talking about before, it's like there's not -- people haven't seen a real wage benefit. right? since 2010, since 2010, jobs haven't -- 2017, i'm sorry, 2017 hasn't become compared to any years since 2010 on job, on job

growth. so that is another problem people are not feeling it, as well. >> all right. corrine jeanne pierre, caitlin, stay with us. coming up, some big names in the house of representatives have already announced they're not going to be running for re-election in 2018. that is next. took the ovulatio. it detects two hormones... ...and then the data goes onto my phone... ...and tells me my fertile days. how many days? four of more! nice! maximize your chances of getting pregnant, with clearblue connected.

hi, i'm the internet! you knoarmless bowling.lt? ahhhhhhhh! you know what's easy? building your website with godaddy. get your domain today and get a free trial of gocentral. build a better website in under an hour. w50irk #

this in fact is our new american moment. there has never been a better time to start living the american dream. to every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you've been or where you've come from, this is your time. if you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in america, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve absolutely anything. >> one thing many congressional republicans don't think they can achieve is re-election. the democratic wave coming in 2018. there are now a total of 23 house republicans who have announced they are retiring in 2018 rather than running for re-election of congress. including most recently the

house appropriations committee chairman who announced his retirement yesterday. joining me from florida, david, let me start with you. as you put yourself in a position you've been in before. endangered american republican in congress. for the one in that chamber tonight who is pressing ahead and running for re-election if 2018, looking for something to latch on to say maybe i'll be okay. can you find anything? >> no. the last year has kind of undermined the credibility of anything the president said. that's not to be dismissive of the speech. if you're a vulnerable republican, you have 23, 24 seats in the house held by republican that's hillary clinton won. you're looking at numbers in your own district and realizing the ground is falling out from underneath you.

and unfortunately, there is nothing the president can say that can undo what he's done in the last year. recall one year ago, we were talking about dismantling obamacare. that did not happen. there have been successes. the president has gotten his own way. >> the math on this 24. a net gain of 24 means democrats would get the house. publics would lose the house. what is the mood among republicans? the chair of the house appropriations committee. been there 24 years. never been in a competitive race until now, are republicans looking at that and saying this is going, going, gone? >> you know new jersey very well. everything in that district is named after that congressman.

what is surprising about that, not necessarily surprise go but what was most notable to that retirement compared to the others, we've seen several committee chairman announce their retirements but they were term limited. this one was not. he had a couple of see left on that term so that's indicative of the mood. when i met with people from the various committees today and they are trying to strike an optimistic mood. talking about the economy and the tax cuts that they think republicans can campaign on. where the tax cuts actually could have a negative impact are on these very district that's you mentioned. new jersey, new york, this is the road map for them to take over. they argue that the tax bill negatively impacts high tax states where property values are also very high. so republicans know that it would be political mpractice not to prepare for the worst. but they are hoping if the

president continues to talk about the economy, once these numbers start to settle in. that of course is a huge question mark, though. if this past year is any indication. it is not likely the president will stay on that message. >> from a wealthy district in a wealthy state. >> democrats are the opposition party. they don't control the house or the senate, the white house. traditionally when the approval rate is low, that's a pretty good landmark. what are the traps that democrats have to avoid to benefit from a climate like this? >> well, i don't know that it is traps as much as defining what the message is.

joe kennedy did very well with the we choose both line. the reality is russia is not going to decide the selection. publics will go in the november saying we voted for less taxes. democrats voted for more. they're going to say that democrats chose to shut down the government over amnesty because of the dreamers issue. the economy will be doing very well. who is the face of that message? is it really nancy pelosi that they will go into november of '18 behind? if so, how did they deliver a message that joe kennedy delivered tonight using the same leadership of a few years back when they lost the house? >> i thought that was interesting. they were five competing messages they said i'm not sure that's a party, it is too dramatic but there was some uncertainty.

>> certainly. that was one of the lessons of 2016 but it also indicates there are a lot of democrats that want a bite at this apple. i think in a mid-term election year, when an election is typically a referendum on the party in power. it can carry them pretty far. farther than it would have thought a year ago. you have the battle tested republicans in these entrenched districts. they have a history of being in tough campaigns but the enthusiasm on the democratic side is kind of overwhelming and expanding the battlefield. so democrats seem to have a lot

of options here. the question is, a message for 2018 may not be the same message for 2020. so while it could work, 2020 needs a broader vision. >> and the last two, they did bounce back in and win re-election. things can change quickly. >> thank you. >> you sat high atop your mom's shoulders and read a sign that said build a wall and my generation will tear it down.

one part of trump's state of the union that had both parties cheering. >> some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. with us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this house. a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later. the legend from louisiana, congressman steve scalise. [ applause ]

i think they like you, steve. >> good note to end this hour on. mr. speaker, the president of the united states! >> vaereaction is pouring in. he called for unity and a new american moment, but highlighted some of his polarizing policy plans. >> and the democratic response, congressman joe kennedy accused president trump of dividing the country indirectly referring to him as a bully. >> and the president picked up on a hot mic, overheard telling a lawmaker that he is 100% in favor of releasing the controversial