joining me now, perry bacon, political editor for thegrio.com and an msnbc contributor. perry, good to see you. let's start with the states where democrats or republican senators are retiring. montana, south dakota, west virginia, georgia. any of those likely to change hands? >> i don't think so, particularly when you talk about south dakota, montana, west virginia, democrats pretty strong underdogs in those states. those are states where mitt romney won by large margins in 2012. unlikely to see a change of hands there. i would say georgia is a little different in that the demographics of the state are moving in the democrats direction, meaning that there are increasingly numbers of voters who are black, latino and young. that group is growing. obama only lost there by seven points in georgia in 2012, so that's the one place where you could see an upset. michelle nunn, her father was a senator so she has name recognition. >> let's look at the democrats who do have a fragile ten-seat majority. which democrat incumbents face the most serious challenges? >> the most serious

here in new york, perry bacon, political editor of thegrio.com, and center for budget and policy priorities and former beam administration official. jared, people know that by now. perry, i want your thoughts on this press conference, the president obviously trying to say that even if you are concerned about some of the government's activities right now, from health care to the nsa, he is in charge, he is hands-on, and as the world changes, he's changing with it. >> exactly. he's trying to get away. he acknowledged in a bunch of ways, joking otherwise, not a great year for him. but he talked about two issues i thought were important. kristen mentioned the nsa changes. the second big issue, there has been talk from the republicans about trying to do another big debt ceiling debate with threats and so on. he was very emphatic in saying -- he said it before, but very emphatic in a new context, saying no, i will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. politically, i think the important question is, julie pace, good question, thought, was this the worst year of your presidency. he said a lot of wor

we want to bring in perry bacon, the website appears to be getting better far closer to what the whitese would like it to be. so republicans aren't going to have a website to kick around anymore, are they? >> they won't. although i wouldn't say that right now. i think two issues still remain to be resolved, tour'e. the first issue is i talked with a woman in georgia, trying to enroll in health care for a long time. she told me she got the same message before, the users had too many on the site and couldn't login and get the insurance. the big question will be december 22nd and 23rd, will the website work well then or will we have an october 1st? same question as peter noted. the insurers are not confident they are getting the right information. you don't want a situation where you come in for insurance and they say, well, we don't have the right info. i don't think we should say mission accomplished for the website any time soon. >> perry, we've all been predicting how is the website going to play in the 2014 election cycle but we forget that many congressional hopefuls and incumbent m

perry bacon from the grio, rick hertz berg, "the new yorker," bob franken and msnbc contributor, goldieo thrilling this year, had some in the past. i want to know what was it -- who talked politics with their family, how did it go this year? goldie, sounded like you had a particularly interesting family thanksgiving. tell us about it. >> you know, it isn't often but my family came to atlanta from east st. louis and so we had a sort of wild and raucous thanksgiving, a great one, got to spend time with my 80-year-old aunt. her oldest daughter, my cousin, janice, we call her bump, loves president obama and i mean, she idolizes him. she named her shih tzu mr. president. so i meet mr. president, the small, white dog over thanksgiving. and i'm -- hill lairity ensues but the real story is my mom had some really important questions about the affordable care act and she and my oldest nephew had enrolled online. they paid that first payment. they weren't sure about a lot of things and so there are lots of questions to be asked. what didn't happen this thanksgiving? we don't do a lot of disagreeme

thank you very much, lauren fox and perry bacon jr.py new year, guys. >>> now to what captivated americans in 2013, at least using the internet as a measure. specifically, a website that looked at the year's biggest phenomena. ask.com's robbie washenfelder is joining me now. a good day to you. i know your top searches have been broken down into categories. i want to go in news first. the royal baby, the boston marathon bombing, and the crisis in syria top that list. i'm curious about the questions that were asked. what did you get on that? >> well, good morning, alex. at ask.com we have this special way of looking at the searches because people mostly ask questions on our site. we have this unique perspective at each of these events. obviously, the royal baby -- it really has been the year of the celebrity baby, the royal baby being among the item most people were interested in. a lot of the details. the name, what is the royal baby named? how much did it weigh? how many georges have there been before? but obviously also, you know, eve

perry bacon, thank you for joining me, guys.e are awaiting that ntsb press conference. so forgive me if i end up having to cut you off if we have to go to that. i want to start, though, with you, perry, in talking about sort of this organization, you know, the crossroads gps. because in many ways it sort of is emblematic as to why the rules need to be changed. sort of what defines social welfare activity is pretty loose. >> it's incredibly loose. to the point where you can't really tell what it means at all. you had in 2012, 28 groups which spent more than a million dollars on election activity. and almost -- most of them are conservative. and most of them are doing things which you couldn't tell a difference between them, the social welfare group. >> right. >> and a political operation. and that's what the change. it's not like big money is leaving politics because you can still give money to superpacs as well. >> right. >> what the administration wants to do, they want to make sure 501-c4s are not as powerful. superpacs have t

dana milbank, and perry bacon in a few moments. first we start with senator bill nelson live from capitol hill. hello, senator. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon to you. let's start with the basics. what are the democrats' priorities here if you get to a budget deal this week? >> well, i can tell you what my priorities are. and that is, to avoid the sequester, to get a deal, change the entire atmosphere in washington, where it's been just totally at logger heads. no negotiation. we're seeing the changes to that. this is very encouraging. and i think we will have a deal in the next couple of days. >> yeah. and it is encouraging compared to where we have seen the budget process break down, for sure, senator. >> amen. but let's turn, of course, also to something a lot of people care about, those jobless benefits, the president says they're crucial for many families. republican senator rob portman, however, outlined a different approach yesterday. take a listen. >> it's about $25 billion that no one was talking, george, until the la