>> from washington, "the mclaughlin group," the american original. for over three decades, the sharpest minds, best sources, hardest talk. john: issue one -- state of the union finale. president obama: i believe in you, the american people! and thats why i stand here as confident as i have ever been that the state of our union is strong. thank you. god bless you, god bless the united states of america. john: president obama delivered his last state of the union address to congress on tuesday. notably the commander in chief

gun control and an increase to the current minimum wage, now fixed at $7.25 per hour. mr. obama also posed quote four big questions that we as a country have to answer regardless of who the next president is, or who controls the next congress." first, how to expand opportunity in the u.s. second, how to use technology to promote social interests. third, how to protect the u.s. without presenting yourself as the world's policeman. fourth, how to strengthen bipartisan democrat-republican cooperation. he also pushed back the curtain on his election-year opinions, on donald trump's immigration views, and the foreign policy ideas of ted cruz and marco rubio. question, how did president obama do, pat buchanan? pat: it was a good speech as a speech but it stated less about

state of barack obama's mind. he's very positive on where the economy is going. bernie sanders is out saying the middle class is going under, the rich are getting everything and then obama says look, this isn't like the cold war or the cuban missile crisis. all the nuclear weapons threatening us. a bunch of guys in pickup trucks. what do we find, explosions in jakarta, in paris in san bernardino. everybody tremendously concerned about isis, which is a cancer that is metastasizing. it's not the cuban missile crisis but it is deadly serious and 2/3 of the nation -- excuse me, 3/4 of the country thinks the united states is going in the wrong direction and that was not the mood or the tenor of the

so it reflected more the mind of barack obama than it did the state of the union as the american people see it. john: was it pollyannish? pat: i don't know that it was pollyannaish. but it didn't seem to go with what the people see. john: barely 45% of americans approve of the obama administration. obama is trying to talk his way than his results have is that the height of is it vainglorious? hold on, eleanor. i'll give you two questions. pat: look, the president, there are things that have improved dramatically. unemployment is cut in half, although the labor force is a smaller percentage of the population than it's been in 40 youers so he emphasizes the things that are positive, and there are positive things, but the larger people the american people see does not comport with what the president said. john: only 23.4 million

since neilson started rating the speeches in the 1990's. his low raters are an stents to which he has polarized the country, some believe. eleanor: where are you getting that from, the right wing site? jim: where are you getting yours from, some left-wing site? eleanor: you got it. [laughter] i thought it was a terrific speech. it was modeled structurally after f.d.r. and the four freedoms. he set up four questions and he he set up four questions and he answered them. it was a description of the problems we see in the world. it was a realistic description of the problems we see in the real world and he fired that quite nicely at the republicans who want to carpet bomb our so-called enemies, that would include civilian populations. condemning muslims you're making it a lot harder to fight isis. because we have to join in a coalition with arab countries.

but i think he nicely set up the trask, -- contrast, as we go into this election year and the economy a disaster right on the heels of job creation of almost 300,000 jobs and 70 months straight of job creation i believe is fiction, which is what the president said, and running down america and saying we're weak and everybody else is stronger is hot air and i think that's the argument the democrats are going to make while the republicans say everything is terrible. john: was the speech too political with its criticisms of republican candidates? tom: no, i think that was inevitable in an election year and i think the way he did it was a relatively small part of the speech. the disagreements. i would say, the problems with the speech were notably foreign policy because of his idea that everyone else is delusional if they think isis is an existential threat. could it destroy the united states? no, but it could destroy the

you see that in paris, how people interact with each other. do they go out, do they go out for dinner? what is the impact of kids going to school? the call for bipartisan. the part at the end of the speech talking about what makes america great, which is true and it deserves to be said and the president was right to say it and finally the idea that we can expand opportunity. and i think it was positive that the president, as a just position of the criticism of republican presidential candidates, had some words of prays for paul ryan. -- praise for paul ryan. perhaps now going garrard there can be at least a dialogue in opportunity that we can come together and discuss. there were positives and negatives but as the president's final state of the union, inevitably it was going to spark controversy on both sides. john: will the speech lead to a positive reevaluation of obama's record? clarence: he was talking about his legacy without mentioning

looking at the long-distance future, usually these state of the union speeches are a laundry list of different interests and all. in -- on this occasion, as tom was saying, focused more on the long-range values. what struck me was his saying that his biggest regret was that he had failed to bring the country together more, bridge those gaps, which is how he arrived on the national scene with his 2004 democratic convention speech. that great one-nation address and we've seen anything but that. we've seen division. the division didn't begin with his administration. i feel like while people are just noticing these divisions now because barack obama is president. we had them under bill clinton and hillary and all along but right now they've become more of a signature part of his legacy. john: would you buy a used car from barack obama? clarence: i would. i wouldn't buy one from donald trump.

many people are supporting him 6. pat: he doesn't sell used cars. clarence: he sells things, though. and i'd be very skeptical about buying. john: let me try and persuade you why you wouldn't buy a used car from him. he's detached from reality. state of affairs he has create and would ask those who believed him when he said they could keep that you wanted. overselling that is what it was. donald trump never oversells, right? no, the fact is that that was overselling the program but it was still viable. john: issue two -- sixth g.o.p. debate. republican presidential candidates debated each other in north charleston, south carolina, this week. hosted by the fox business channel, there were two debates. the first early scheduled debate featured carly fiorina, mike

rand paul boycotted this debate, saying he was wrongly excluded from the primetime debate. that primetime debate featured seven participants -- donald trump, ted cruz, marco rubio, ben carson, chris christie, jeb bush and john kasich. and with the iowa caucuses just two weeks away, the major candidates jockeyed aggressively for the limelight. >> we are going to kick your rear ends out of the white house. >> there's a big question mark on your head and you can't do that to the party. >> the constitution hasn't changed. [laughter] but the poll numbers have. >> this is the difference between being a governor and being a senator. >> she might be going back and forth between the white house and the courthouse. >> we have to find out what's going on. i said temporarily.

i said temporarily. >> with more than 10 million people talking about the issue, is there anything you've heard that makes you want to rethink this position? >> no. >> no serviceman or servicewoman will be forced to be on their knees and any nation that captures or fighting men and women will feel the full force and fury of the united states of america. john: who triumphed in the debate hall? pat: donald trump did, john. it was his best debate of the entire session. the really critical moment was when he stood up and defended new york against the values, etc. and it was very, very effective. secondly, even though cruz, i thinking, won the engagement over the birther issue, the very fact that they're discussing whether or president, that they've elevated this issue is damaging to cruz. i think what happened is trump has emerged, i think even by critics as the winner and the

people challenging him most closely are cruz and rubio with cruz the closest and one other figure is in it and i would say chris christie but it was trump's best night. eleanor: what's fascinating is to watch the republican establishment begin to rationalize trump as the nominee. they're now saying that if he does win the nomination, nobody is talking about not supporting him and trump seems to be taking on more of a teddy bear style in these debates. [laughter] kinder, gentler. but the other star was clearly ted cruz. he is one heck of a debater and even on the 9/11 thing where trump clearly won that and i'm a new yorker and i -- when trump said if you're going to criticize new york you have to come through me. i was hey, yes, yes. clarence: i want to see you and trump together. pat: eleanor is softening on trump.

eleanor: i'm adjusting to reality. but then on 9/11, cruz was clapping. i mean, that was a very clever turnaround on his part. and the people in the hall were clearly with cruz. they booed trump a couple of times, which is interesting. john: have you heard of lawrence tribe? eleanor: oh, very much so. in fact, he recently filed a brief in the supreme court opposing the obama administration regulations on coal and obama ted cruz was one of his students. pat: last night tribe was on the air and he said there's a very powerful argument that trump is basically right and cruz is not qualified and it does have to be adjudicated and see, this is why, even though i thought cruz won the exchange with trump right there, i think the fact that the issue is out there and

about it on tv. tom: quickly, one of the key takeaways here as well as that is that the establishment republican candidates have a big problem. jeb bush is -- i think jeb bush is really done now. i think you see chris christie coming up to challenge him there in that position. but i think rubio had a bad night in the sense that ted cruz and donald trump, that was the real choice that came out of it. that's who we're discussing, that's the narrative and that will generate the news cycle and also, at the lower level, it's generating that primary discussion. you are seeing people for rubio who really don't like trump potentially going towards cruz. john: did cruz do a good job handling his "new york times" report concerning his $1 million loan from goldman sachs for his senate race? who wants it? clarence: i'll take it. i thought that he did a surprisingly good job because the issue seemed to die after he dealt with it. they went back and forth on it but compared to the canada, the

that one still has legs but i think he put the goldman sachs to rest. john: how did he describe the "times" interview or piece? eleanor: hit job. john: he called it a hit piece. yeah, hit job. pat: where trump succeeded is he elevated the trade issue, the trade deficits, the tariff issue, and you saw kasich, people starting to agree with him. the republican party is moving towards economic nationalism. eleanor: that 45% tariff. trump is alone on that, with you, of course. the rest of the republicans don't like that. tom: i think the trade issue is very important to debate on. but i'm on the flip side. you start having trade tariffs coming up, the prices of goods that americans don't know -- are

absorb cost going up. that economic coast -- cost to those families -- pat: you tell them the chinese are stealing our jofpblgts we're going to put a 20% tariff on american goods and cut taxes on small businesses, it's a winner. clarence: that's what has kept the argument of walmart -- pat: they'll be making walmart clarence: we've been hearing that for 30 years. pat: we have to change. john: chris calizza calls trump and cruz the winners of the debate. he's a "washington post" guy, who came out hot from the start. he called ben carson a loser saying the neurosurgeon has these debates but never more do you share these views, i ask you, clarence page? clarence: i say, as far as -- well, trump and cruz i thought tied last night for different reasons. for one thing, cruz is an

trump is not as articulate but genuine. that 9/11 moment. i don't often say this but that was trump's finest moment. it came across with real siber pat: we were talking before the you see trump is making all these faces. obviously he's not a skilled, experienced debater but there's a reality and an authenticity that you start chuckling -- he grimaces and does all these things you're not supposed to do but it's authentic.

meltdowns. john: issue three -- media meltdowns. al-jazeera america will cease broadcasting in april. owned by the government of qatar, this u.s. tv news channel began airing in 2013. this executive had bold ambitions to challenge cnn, fox news and msnbc. towards that end they spent hundreds of millions of dollars recruiting senior journalists from major u.s. networks and establishing lavishly equipped view rows. but while al-jazeera won awards for its investigative arrived. today, as closure looms, the

time. 5% to 10% of u.s. -- other u.s. news networks' viewing figures and other major media outlets also got bad news. the tv arm of huffington post, huffington post live, will soon abandon live broadcasts and focus on social media video content delivered to various outlets. and note this -- the new republic, a seasoned liberal magazine, was also put up for sale by owner chris hughes. multimillionaire co-founder of the website named facebook. he says his magazine needs a new owner to make it profitable. question, is al-jazeera america a casualty of the falling price of oil? pat buchanan? pat: no, it's not, john. it's a casualty of the splintering of the cable audience not only cnn and msnbc and fox but also bloomberg, you

many ways a good channel. you have the bbc, which puts on good work. i'm sorry to see al-jazeera go because i know a lot of folks over there and some good people and they're going to lose their jobs. but also, and you have to admit when you call it al-jazeera and it's coming out of the arab world, there's sort of a recoil over here because of all our problems with that part of the world which causes people i think to be skeptical of its product. they're not going to drop al-jazeera. if they did, i would agree with you. eleanor: al-jazeera america is just one arm of that network. al-jazeera arab and al-jazeera english continue. the problem with the american channel is they didn't get enough cable outlets, they didn't have a big enough audience. so in terms of media meltdowns, the three you cite are fairly minor compared to the meltdown of the entire media world that we've

last three or four years. it's really transformed the whole landscape. john: streaming video is replacing cable. the growth trend line favors streaming video over or instead of cable subscriptions. tom: you do see that and that's why you see concerns about disney and the stocks and espn. the takeaway, though -- john: putting yahoo! and the huffington post in this sphere are not indicative of the overall trend. tom: people are still going to watch cable but the new republic, the concern now is that you have a disagreement with someone who wants to shake up the industry and you have to be profitable. i made nothing when i started working at al-jazeera because there's so much saturation of competition. on al-jazeera, they did great reporting but at the same time, there were people who are never going to brand into them. i would disagree with pat about russia today. eleanor: the new republic never

it's not ever going to make money and mr. hughes transformed it in a way that didn't work. john: why are you so gently -- why are you so gently criticizing hughs? first, he alienated the staff, leading to mass resignations, then dumped $20 million trying to remake the magazine as a for-profit business venture. it was folly. clarence: it was folly. eleanor: i agree with that. i think i just said that, that the new republic never made money and wasn't ever going to make money and he had all these fantastic dreams. but the business model for print journalism is still very tough and he didn't figure out how to crack it.

[laughter] john: i want to say that i rue the day that we will not have "the new republic." tom: i think we're going to have it. eleanor: somebody will buy it. somebody will buy it that's willing to lose money. john: i thought "the new republic's" their editorial positions were beautifully worded. clarence: don't give up on them. they're still online and they have more subscribers online than any other brand. john: i'm not saying necessarily point of view but they were able to map then? s and talk like educated -- pat: those were the days of michael kinsly. michael kinsly did a great job. clarence: they had some great articles but the thing is, the whole media landscape is changing now. it was never intended to be a for-profit publication and i

john: thanks for that insight you're sharing with us. clarence: i'm always happy to

john: we'll be right back. john: out of time.