let's get around our group here and i'm joined by cornell belcher, ari fleischer, chief political analyst gloria borger and jessica yellin. let me start with you, cornell. at the beginning of a second term, a speech with groundbreaking on gay rights laid out an agenda via to change immigration, gun control. some of those things he could have tackled in the first term but shied away from. your reaction, where do you think we are at this moment? >> i think what is big about this speech -- look, budget battles come and budget battles go. what is big about this is the gay rights talk. i don't think we've ever seen a founding father bridge the way he did. it's the moral of our founding fathers. it's interesting because he didn't use that to pivot and put stonewall in the same space and fail without controversy. understand, a lot of civil rights leaders from that era resist putting the gay rights movement within the civil rights movement. so i think when a lot of this has gone to pass, we will remember the bigness of the gay rights. >> was it a big speech? was it a partisan speech? >> well, it

here to talk about it is gloria borger, and cornell belcher, and political contributor and republican consultant margaret hoover. gloria, let me start with you. what is so different this time around for the republicans? simply the reality of november's election? >> yeah, they are worried about their own survival as a political party. one way to survive as a party is to broaden your base and not remain hostage to a single part of it. and i think that has been the problem for the republican party when you talk about john mccain. when john mccain was challenged from the right in 2010, when he was running for re-election to the senate, he became much more conservative on immigration policy. now i think he's sort of unshackled and he's back to the position he was in in 2005 and 2007. i mean, you know, i spent a lot of time with him on that straight talk express when he was running for the presidency in 2007. and i remember him telling me that he was stunned at the vitriolic reaction within his own party to immigration. now it's about survival. so that's why you see them getting together wi

margaret hoover, and cornell belcher, a pollster for obama in 2012. sally, we haven't heard from you. you have heard a lot in washington. i wonder what you think of this speech and how it compared to the speech four years ago. >> it was not the soaring rhetoric i expected. it was much more meat and bones, but i think it was a speech that he probably wanted to give four years ago but didn't dare give four years ago. >> because? >> because it was out there. it was much more radical than the speech he gave ninety-four ye four years ago. i heard someone on fox news say it was a take no prisoners speech. and people were rating it in terls of liberal or left wing. he's been accused of being a socialist by his right-wing detractors. i think he really came out and said, talked about gays and talked about guns and talked about immigration in a way that you know he's believed all these years, that the people who voted for him knew that's what they were voting for, and the people who didn't vote for him knew that's why they weren't voting for him, and he just sa

i'm here with the panel, cornell belcher, margaret hoover, van jones.nd terms, they often do not turn out like the president anticipates. i mean, you have bill clinton who got impeached in his second term. richard nixon, we know what happened to him in his second term. iran contra, it often does not work out. >> and let's not forget, lyndon johnson and the vietnam war. one of the things we know absolutely for sure, is that something is going to go wrong in the second term. it always does. always. sometimes you can foresee it as it's coming, could be a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, it could be -- who knows what, i think that we're pretty safe in deciding that there's not going to be a sex scandal in the obama family. >> george bush it was the financial crisis. >> exactly. >> but i -- >> katrina. >> and iraq. >> the idea is how they handle it, how they handle it. >> i'm going to go out on a limb. i think the worst may be behind him. he's actually got more momentum going in than most presidents do, his numbers are actually going up. the k34e's gett

here with the panel of cornell belcher, margaret hoover, van jones and also sally.not turn out like the president anticipates. i mean, you have bill clinton who got impeached in his second term. you have richard nixon and remember what happened to him. iran-contra for president reagan. >> and lyndon johnson and vietnam war. >> right. >> one of the things we know absolutely for sure is that something is going to go wrong in the second term. >> it always happens. >> always. sometimes you can foresee it, natural disaster, a terrorist attack. it could be who know what is? i think that we're pretty safe in deciding that there's not a sex scandal in the obama family. >> george bush, it was the financial crisis. >> right. >> and katrina. >> and iraq. >> the idea's how they handle it. >> i'm going to go out on a limb. i think the worst may be behind him. he's actually got more momentum going in than most presidents do. his numbers are actually going up. the economy's getting a little bit better. the wars are winding down so he does have a shot but most important thing to sa

i'm here with the panel, cornell belcher, margaret hoover, van jones.ond terms, they often do not turn out like the president anticipates. i mean, you have bill clinton who got impeached in his second term. richard nixon, we know what happened to him in his second term. iran contra, it often does not work out. >> and let's not forget, lyndon johnson and the vietnam war. one of the things we know absolutely for sure, is that something is going to go wrong in the second term. it always does. always. sometimes you can foresee it as it's coming, could be a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, it could be -- who knows what, i think that we're pretty safe in deciding that there's not going to be a sex scandal in the obama family. >> george bush it was the financial crisis. >> exactly. >> but i -- >> katrina. >> and iraq. >> the idea is how they handle it, how they handle it. >> i'm going to go out on a limb. i think the worst may be behind him. he's actually got more momentum going in than most presidents do, his numbers are actually going up. the k34e's get

let's bring in our panel, van jones, sally quinn, margaret hoover and cornell belcher.y to paint him as elitist and what not, but this is a couple that seems very accessible to many americans. >> one of the things we pick up on, focus groups, way back early in this sort of organic, when we start talking about their relationship and how they sort of love each other and it was a partnership, and that was something that helped draw women in. it was really important to their brand, that strong family. black women, hispanic women, also white women, but the ideal of them being a strong family, a woman being a strong partner with the president, drew in a lot of voters, especially women voters. >> it's clear they make a lot of time in the white house to preserve and protect that family. i mean, the fact they're trying to eat dinner together every night, the fact they try to spend time. >> and some people beat up on them because the president doesn't schmooze enough because he's home with the family. >> you see the two of them together, and from a woman's point of view, he reall

joining me for today's strategy session, our democratic strategist cornell belcher and ari fleischer. welcome to you both. as we look at the white house rolling out all of these executive actions they called them, 19 actions relating to different types of gun control and so on, it reminds me of some conversations i had with people in what would you call gun lobby, even before newtown. there are people out there who believe for some time that this president essentially was going to sign a bunch of executive orders removing the rights of people to carry and own guns, throw it all into the courts and sort of fight it out until the president leaves and now it's happened, which raises a question as to whether this was all sort of a self-fulfilling prove gue prophecy on the part of the nra and others. i'll ask you first, ari fleischer, what do you think about that? >> the fact of the matter is, the president is constrained. he has the right and all presidents do, through executive orders to take lawful actions allowed by congress. he cannot ban weapons on his own. only congress can do that

sally quinn, margaret hoover, republican consultant, cornell belcher, democratic strategist who servedy, this martin luther king day, informed and was infused throughout president obama's remarks today. >> i'll go back to even when he was senator obama. he always talked about, he also understood the gravity and talked about, i stand on the shoulders of the great men and women of the civil rights era who made this possible. even early on, many of the civil rights leaders early on in the primary process were with hillary clinton and it took a while for them to get used to obama and sort of trust him and know who he was. and he used a lot of that conversation saying, look, because of you all, i am possible. and i remember we saw congressman lewis there, he was one of the people who had sort of that great turmoil because he was originally for hillary, then he said his consciousness, he changed for barack obama. i think the president gets it, he understands it, and he's very respectful of it. >> i also think about, he spoke about the fierce urgency of now early on. for many in the gay commu

cornell belcher, a cnn political analyst. good to see both of you. m going to start with cornell first. because anna -- and you're not going to say anything, because your mic isn't work. ing oh, it is working -- >> this is embarrassing. >> what did you say? >> i said i'm having a great chocolate sandwich. >> she is the luckiest woman in d.c. right now. you know i love you, anna. so good to see you. she said she was in the middle of a chocolate sandwich. >> and i like chocolate. >> tell your republican colleagues. >> president obama came into office promising a lot of change but the tone in washington really got worse. what gives here? what happened? >> it did. i think when you look at the history of it, you had something very different with president obama, something that never happened before. and sort of culturally -- >> hang on. your beard. just pull your mic away -- there you go. >> there we go. is that better? >> yeah. >> sorry, got to shave tomorrow. so i think you -- >> come here, cornell. >> you're going fix it? >> yeah. >> that's love right t

joining us, two cnn contributors, cornell belcher and david frum. her legacy.s very popular, hillary clinton. but her legacy over these four years, what she accomplished as secretary of state, david frum, what do you think about that? >> the obama administration and secretary of state were dealt a lot of problems but they are leaving behind a lot of problems. the interview dealt with the middle east. i think we have to stop calling the events in middle east the arab spring. things clearly are getting worse and worse and worse. the situation on syria, all of those completely unresolved, especially in egypt. the interview dealt with what's going on the teu. the europeans have made a series of decisions that have pushed us deeper into a global recession and they have not listened to the united states. i think the obama administration is giving them good advice on what to do but they have not heeded it. >> early on in the obama administration you remember two very sensitive issues, the special envoys, richard holbrooke, george mitchell on the middle east peace proj

the democratic pollster cornell belcher and republican strategist alex castellanos. t laid out a very am bishops shous plan to deal with guns. cornell, you're familiar with this issue. can he deliver? >> well, i think he can deliver. if you look poll after poll, this is where the american people are. what happened in connecticut was a conscience jarring for americans. similar to what we saw on 9/11 where the world is not the same. americans are hungry for change. the assault weapons ban, the commonsense registration laws, fixing the loopholes, these are commonsense things that congress should get on board. you're seeing a lot of grumbling from congress right now. they don't understand where the american people is on this, they are going to pay a price for this in two years. >> all of the other polls show there is a sigma majority who want to see greater action. >> we all want something done. something that the american people are suspicious of, is this another placebo drug that makes you feel better but doesn't do anything. for example, mayor bloomberg from new york p