joining us now is ashley parker, senior national political correspondent for the washington post.thank you for being with me tonight. i found this such a timely and deeply relevance assessment of what is going on in american politics. the label, loser is something that feels like a crop of candidates refused to wear. a scarlet letter that is unimaginable, i guess, in some corners. can you talk a little bit about the way in which the definition of losing an election has changed in the last 20 years? >> it is both the definition and how the populations politicians that you just highlighted -- the sort of maga conservative republicans in many cases are choosing to behave after losing. so, typically, if you lost democrat or republican, you could certainly try to run again, as those like kari lake may do. but you sort of quietly slump off. you retreated into obscurity and -- a republican strategist put it to me -- we became a question on jeopardy. but what we are seeing now with these republicans is, first of all, when they lose, a lot of them do not admit that they lost. that is one o

ashley parker, an msnbc political analyst. these are devastating numbers for both biden and trump. i mean, is there a strategy to overcome them? are you hearing any sense of concern from either camp of supporters? >> the numbers are devastating, as you said. it's a fascinating new poll. i will say they are in line, somewhat, with other polls we've seen. in a lot of these other polls, there's a second number that's similarly interesting. for as many republicans who would prefer trump not to be the nominee, and as many democrats who would prefer biden not to be the nominee, if they are asked, okay, well, let's say this worst case scenario happens. you're a democrat, would you vote for biden, you're a republican, would you vote for trump, an overwhelming number, not all, but an overwhelming number say, yes, if they are the nominee, they would vote for them. in some ways, the best thing for both candidates to overcome the numbers is to win because there's a lot of democrats who might prefer someone other than biden but will support

joining me for this and more is zolan kanno-youngs, scott macfarlane, eva mckend, and ashley parker.hat is the thinking win president -- with president biden leaning into the president going after entitlements while they are juggling a lot? zolan: it almost seems an unofficial start to campaign messaging for a likely reelection announcement, right? talking to people around the white house and allies of the biden administration, this is really going to be the messaging going forward. for a while, particularly in the absence of former president trump, who was an easy photo for them to contrast to their agenda with, they've been looking for a foe. anyway they got it just before the midterms by pointing to some of these certain propols coming from a limited number of members of the republican party. and by that i mean sunsetting medicare as well as social security. for those in the white house, just putting a spotlight on those plans basically allows you to contrast what some say is big spending also programs they say will invest in making your quality of life better with those proposals

. >> joining us now is nbc news correspondent, ali vitali, ashley parker from "the washington post,"mocratic representative, donna edwards. ali, what more did mike pence tell you about that subpoena? his attempts to fight it? >> it was one of the topics we covered on friday. you heard some of the news he made there on the front of starting to draw contrast with his former boss, but not going so far as to delineate a policy difference. instead, making a broader argument on leadership. on the idea that he thinks they'll have better options for republican voters in 2024. notably he is openly thinking about being one of them and said for the first time in that interview with me that that decision will probably come by the spring. so that's important, but looming over pence's potential candidacy are things like that subpoena from the department of justice where he has said and continues to say that he thinks it's unconstitutional to ask a former vice president to testify against the president that he served with, but what i asked him was if the special counsel, which he is, asks a federal

. >> and correspondent ashley parker is also with us. your colleague reporting that the trump campaign paid an outside firm to find election fraud in 2020 and found nothing, so the report was not made public. could that indicate that donald trump if he was aware of that report and of keeping it quiet knew that those charges of fraud were not -- were inaccurate? >> that report is fascinating for just that very reason. trump and some people around him had become convinced that he had won the election, that there was fraud. so they hire this outside firm, they had them look into many different instances of potential fraud, about kind of 12 different types across six states that if true, and of course it wasn't, could have maybe flipped the election results to him. and then in the weeks before january 6 in december, there is a call between this company with then president trump with his then chief of staff mark meadows where they basically go to them and they say, look, we found sort of the normal irregularities you often find around the edg

ryan nobles, and "washington post" senior national political correspondent, and msnbc analyst, ashley parker. all right, so kelly, the president's going to go out today and talk about all the bipartisan deals he's made over the past two years. the infrastructure act. standing next to mitch mcconnell in front of the brent spence bridge. the covid relief bill. chips, gun reform, burn pits. all of these things. he's done them all. what is he going to lay out that he can do next with bipartisan support now that house republicans are in charge? >> well, a couple of things we expect will be key tonight and part of that will be all the things you just laid out require follow through. so expect the president to talk about finishing the job. a phrase we expect the hear again and again tonight. that those initial steps of legislation, which this white house believes are significant accomplishments that did include republicans and are about long-term change that they believe is very positive for the public. a lot of that is still in a phase of going from what happened in washington to what needs to hap

beach where we find mike memoli and alongside him in another part of the world is parker at "the washington post." ashley is an msnbc political analyst. mike, i know the president's about to start, but part of this is trying to sell to the american public and voters there in virginia beach that the democrats again have their back. the democrats are the ones making their lives better. >> that's right. the president's being introduced on time, which we know is not always the case from the president. what we've seen from him since the state of the union is an effort here to speak to the important constituencies that are going to be critical ahead of the 2024 campaign. the day after the state of the union address, he was speaking before union workers in weather wii then to seniors in florida. today, this is a middle class focus audience here in a swing district. this was a congressional district president biden won in the 2020 election but that republicans won in the midterm elections in 2022. actually the democratic congresswoman is in the audience and really what the president has been trying to do is spea

ashley: absolutely. i think that is true. this one is interesting, former fbi agent claiming the bureau has become politically weapon eyes to. lauren: nicole parkerre than a decade and said there's the washington fbi at headquarters and then other offices. >> the fbi's trajectory has transformed. on bureau, the bureau's mission range the same but its priorities and governing principles shifted dramatically. the fbi became politically weapon eyes did starting from the top in washington and trickling down to the field offices. >> reporter: she got emotional. bottom line for americans, all the stories we been hearing the past couple years, most americans have lost trust in the fbi which used to be this pristine image of justice and doing the right thing, not being political. ashley: exactly right, thank you very much. now this, changing gears, your super bowl party is going to cost a whole lot more thanks to inflation. madison alworth will show us how much your big game spread could set you back. if you are heading to arizona for the super bowl it will cost a good chunk of change to get into the big game, we are going to speak to us to about spokesp