i've got ryan lizza and larry sabato back with me. i'm going to throw these out, guys. actually picked a few of these myself. and you tell me where you think they fall. i think i have a good idea. immigration, larry, what do you say? winner, loser? >> big loser. big loser. just go back a year. what was everybody saying right after president obama was re-elected? hey, the democrats want this and the republicans need this. therefore, it's a commonality and it might produce some comprehensive reform or at least some big pieces of the comprehensive reform. absolutely nothing emerged. nothing at all. and i don't think the prospects are very good for 2014. >> do you share that view for 2014. >> i pretty much agree with him there. i this i the one person who could maybe unlock this is the person we talked about in the last break, paul ryan. he's the one republican leader who has shown a little bit of an ability to get the right and left flanks of the republican party on board. and if he stepped up and if he could find a bipartisan solution in the house, maybe you could get som

cnn political commentator and washington correspondent for the new yorker magazine, ryan lizza.enior vice president for american values and new communities at the center for american progress, daniela gibbs and former spokesman for speaker of the house john boehner, terry holt. bin laden's dead, yet 60% of americans think we're losing this war and you saw this unbelievable lack of support for it. what happened? why? >> i'm not really surprised. we've been at war now for basically 12 years and i think the american people are just tired of being in armed conflict. so despite the fact that the president said we are going to get out at the end of next year, despite the fact bin laden is dead, the american people are just ready to end. i'm really not surprised by these numbers. >> ryan, when i tweeted this information earlier, a lot of people on twitter were surprised by it because of the intensity of the opposition to the war in vietnam. but the truth of the matter is, opposition to the iraq war never got higher than 69%, and while the vietnam war, that war was a mistake, according

ryan lizza is joining us as well. talking about robert levinson, we have no idea what his status is right now, whether or not -- the assumption is the iranians have him. >> yeah. that's what we know. look, i think if there is a deal to get him back, we're not going to learn a whole lot about it. we're just going to be in the dark for awhile while this plays out in iran. >> you've got a major article in "the new yorker" talking about the nsa, what's going on. you obviously wrote it before this court ruling today which is obviously very significant as we heard jeffrey toobin say, potentially a game changer as far as the way the nsa would operate in the united states. but how much tension is there right now based on all the reporting you've done between the nsa and the cia? >> well, i don't know that there's necessarily a whole lot of tension between those two organizations. the traditional tension in the intelligence community is often between the fbi and cia. the nsa has been running these programs on their own. they d

joining us a ryan lizza and michael, senior media reporter for huffington post and, ryan, let's start with that tweet. i wasn't watching "60 minutes" so it was your tweets that made me curious. why a win for nsa and a loss for viewers? >> the reciporter who did it number one. nothing wrong with that experience who is now obviously a journalist doing the report, right? he's got access. he's got knowledge of the system. you have to judge it by final product and if you're going to have someone who has a conflict of interest like that do the report, it has to be tough. we're in the middle of a massive debate in in country about privacy and security and the entire piece was a one-sided show for the nsa to get their message out with not a lot of pushback on some of the pr that came out of the mouth of the director of the nsa. >> were you surprised we heard from no outside voices in that piece? >> it was strange. afterwards in the cbs overtime john miller says they went to outside critics and factored that into their questions. now, none of that criticism was evident in the softball question

neera tanden, ana navarra and ryan lizza. we reach out to cruz's office.can find hateful stuff on the white house's website as well, one writing mandela was a well-mannered demon in the flesh. cruz's comments got more likes on his page than obama's got on that page. is this something we should even be paying attention to? or is this just the bathroom wall of the internet? >> frankly, we shouldn't be paying attention to it. let's hold ted cruz, let's hold people on facebook and twitter accountable for what they say, not for what followers say. also, keep in mind they're not all friends. some may be enemies. look, you tweet, we all tweet. you can tweet the earth is round and get hateful trolls saying terrible things. so this is -- >> no, no, i'm not implying any way ted cruz is responsible at all for what people write on his facebook page. i think what's interesting about it, if anything, is the fact that these are conservatives upset with ted cruz and that doesn't happen. >> how do you know they're conservatives? maybe they are liberals pretending to be con

strategist, kevin madden and cnn political commentator and washington correspondent for "the new yorker" ryan lizzast have to share, i checked with her, an e-mail that candy crowley sent which said it all. i'm confused, talking about the president. he signs up for the health insurance he doesn't need but he can't do it because he has to do it in person, and he's not in person, and then they send an unknown staffer there to verify it because it's not really him. the white house thought this was a good idea? maria, sorry. you're on the hot seat since you're the democrat here. >> i figured. >> they didn't need to do that. obviously it was symbolic. but the fact that you just read that e-mail i think signifies that the story's not what they would have wanted. >> you think? >> they just shouldn't have done that. they should have focused on there is some good news today about obamacare. they had over a million visits to the website just over the weekend. and they had more than 200,000 calls to the call centers. there is massive interest in this. they have now over a million people who have actually signe

blanche lincoln and cnn political commentator and washington correspondent for "the new yorker" ryan lizzaat's most striking. we all know his approval ratings are low but on the question of who could do a better job for the middle class, just 46% say the president. that's still a teeny bit more than the republican party but last year, the president had a 26-point advantage on this question. 26 to now six points. ryan, what happened? >> well, 2013 was essentially a wasted year for obama. if you compare with what he ran on in 2012 and what he got accomplished, the score card doesn't look so good, right? immigration reform got through one chamber of congress, not the other. most of his economic ideas have not been instituted into law, including this package that -- the small package today but that's not what he really campaigned on. if you look at things like climate change and implementation of health care, big unknowns, question marks and health care a bit of a disaster at least in the short term. so he's had a year like george w. bush had in 2005, the first year of his second term. can he

analyst, ron brownstein, editorial director of the national journal, and cnn political commentator, ryan lizza, also washington correspondent of "the new yorker." thanks for being with me on boxing day. happy holidays to you. you saw dana's piece. americans think this congress is just the worst but she also said the bar is low. is this the worst congress ever? >> it could get worse. we're only halfway through. it's year one of a two-year congress. >> wait, there's more. >> they could do even less next year. but look, when you have divided government with a democrat in the white house and democratic controlled senate and republican house, that's historically a unique set of circumstances and not a lot gets done. now, even given those circumstances, these guys managed to do less than previous congresses. >> it raises the question of what you think the purpose of congress is. if you think the purpose of congress is to, in a very forceful way, articulate the divergent views of the country who disagree, they are doing that. most members feel they are articulating the politics of their districts. ve

cnn political commentator and washington correspondent for the new yorker, ryan lizza.nifer steinour of the "new york times" and buzzfeed's washington bureau chief, john stanton. easy for me to say. all right. maybe i'm a sucker but i actually want to believe what those senators said, that things are going to get better in 2014. you guys are hill rats. you cover congress, you walk around the halls like i do. what do you think? are you going to poke a hole in the bubble? >> well, i thought one of the most interesting things that happened at the end of the year, really one of the most interesting things that's happened since republicans took the house in 2010, was john boehner standing up as you remember, you were there, and denouncing some of the right-leaning outside groups that have been pressuring members to vote certain ways to bring down bills, to bring down compromise bills that a lot of people even in the party had been supporting. i think that could presage a different era. at the same time, we saw over at the senate, the right-leaning senators, particularly thos

john king, our senior white house correspondent brianna keilar and our cnn political commentator, ryan lizza, the washington correspondent for "the new yorker." what do you think? will it be even more difficult, more partisan, if all of this falls out like that? >> i think so. the history, the recent history of these retirements is even in a district that may be a 50/50 district who are moderate, after they have been around for a long time and retire, they may be able to keep that district for a long time and keep a moderate record. but as soon as they retire, what happens in the last 20 years is a far right or far left person takes over the seat. that's more likely than not what's going to happen with these seats. i think the biggest mistake barack obama made when running for president in 2008 is he described this country as not red america, not blue america, and the history of his presidency is this deepening polarization and a middle carving out. >> he has three years in office. he has his legacy. i know officials at the white house are thinking about all of this. >> i think when he lays