kennedy with us and contributor michael smerkonish. talk about the silence of the nra here. you have a couple of article that is described this as the duck and cover noting that when we have seen past tragedies like this of mass killings that the nra will lay low and then fight legislation proposed. will that work this time around or will they be forced to come out and make a statement that goes beyond saying we are sorry for the loss of life in. >> you know, tamron, as i have expressed to you in the past i feel like i answer the telephone for a living. that's what i do 15 hours a week and i have therefore covered any number of these sort of instances in the last decade plus. this one is different than any i have talked to my audience about in the past. the depth of the feelings, the fact there were 20 first graders puts it on a new level. i might be proven incorrect but i think this time the memories longer than the nra hopes and coming february, march, people will be demanding changes. >> john, you were on with us yesterday. you're chairman of the stop handgun violence. in

joining me now, msnbc contributor, michael smerkonish. michael, we heard the host of the nra webcast saying the president, getting his hands on essentially their guns. why would we expect the nra to say anything different from what's being broadcast on its show tomorrow? >> that's a narrative they have fostered about president obama for the last at least four years. and the practical effect of that, tamron, is to cause a run on guns and ammunition, the likes of which you are seeing right now at walmart where certain of the weapons have run out. they're selling them at that rapid of a clip and yet the reality is that the folks at the brady foundation given very poor grades to the president throughout the course of the first administration. why would they say it? that's what they're in business to do. i'm optimistic they'll take a different approach tomorrow because of that pledge of meaningful contributions and two things to know right off the bat. one, will they embrace a concept of background checks because nearly half 069 weapon that is

neimalik henderson and goodfreend and contributor michael smerkonish. people, you talk to folks all day long on the radio show that you have that's syndicated in cities and states. what do you make of the president picking up where he left off so often going straight to the folks at snoem. >> he is really mained a full court press that began in the campaign season and never ended after election day and i think that two-prong attack you reference is good politics and seems to be working in large part because there's a vacuum within the republican party or on the right generally. you could say speaker boehner is the head now for negotiation purposes but i don't think anybody is really the president's equal in this dynamic and he's exploiting that to great advantage. >> let me bring you in on this, david. last week we discussed this, as well. the first read team pointed out we see a small deal, if you will, addressing the tax rate and then the later next year deal with some of the other things such as entitlement reform. you have republicans conceding to t

chris cafinus, michael smerkonish and louies romanis. what are we to make of speaker boehner coming out today, not sure of the overall message other than he wanted to have, i guess, a sound bite to play today as we continue to talk and the president is off at least negotiating behind the scenes on the fiscal cliff. >> i think you called it, tamron. look, the rhetoric is scaled back dramatically in the last few days. they're talking and seriously evidenced by the fact we're not learning that much. they're keeping it pretty close to the vest. i think the speaker is under enormous pressure of his own caucus to get something, to extract something in return for these tax hikes. and that's why he's talking about spending cuts. but i think that they're moving along on this process is my interpretation of it. >> as we understand it, both sides are asking for more specifics regarding tax revenue, the president and the white house wants more specifics from boehner. boehner wants more specifics on spending cuts. they have to come to a point of agre