0 how shaheen starts to distance herself from the president. >> to the point about the georgia senate race, the way the governor is handling the snow has republicans nervous. thanks for sharing your sunday morning with you. watch cnn's exclusive interview with president obama next. "state of the union with candy crowley" starts now. on super bowl sunday, there is no "i" in team. but there is in politics. today, game on. >> wherever i can take steps to expand opportunity to help working families, that's what i'm going to do, with or without congress. >> presidents do not write laws. that's what congress does. >> as house republicans plotted legislative strategy, the president took his one-man show on the road and sat down with cnn's jake tapper for an exclusive interview that covered the water front on how much he can really do by himself and whether sochi is safe. then, dissecting washington from the outside in. louisiana governor bobby jindal joins us on what the president said, how he thinks washington republicans are doing, and -- >> i first found out about it after it was over. >> -- what he makes of the ongoing saga of chris christie. plus, our political panel with its take on the new jersey governor and weather democrats have pretty much ceded control of the house to republicans. this is "stun of tate of th union." good morning from washington. i'm candy crowley. at the urging of the obama administration, some of the nation's biggest companies have pledged to adopt hiring practices that ensure applicants are not screened out of contention simply because they've been jobless for too long. president obama signed an executive order friday requiring the federal government to do the same. the white house ceremony was designed to show the president making good on his state of the union "i'll act if congress won't" promise. cnn's jake tapper caught up with the president in wisconsin and asked him how much can the president really accomplish without congress. >> my big push is making sure we're focused on opportunity, making sure that every single day all of us in washington are trying to think about ways that we can help folks get good jobs, make sure that they're train for the good jobs that are out there, make sure that those jobs pay, make sure our kids are getting a great education. those are the issues that the american people still very much are concerned about. and obviously there's going to be more that we can can do if congress is able to break through some of the gridlock. and if we're able to, for example, pass immigration reform, that is going to add growth to our economy, reduce our deficits. >> you don't seem confident that that's going to happen. >> i actually think that we have a good chance of getting immigration reform. >> i mean the jobs issue. >> i think there are going to be some issues where it is going to be tough for them to move forward and i am going to continue to reach out to them and say, here are my best ideas. i wan to hear yours. but as i said at the state of the union, i can't wait and the american people more importantly cannot wait. we know that one of the biggest problems right now in the jobs market is the long-term unemployed. >> they're having trouble -- people won't hire them because they've been unemployed for so long. >> because they've been unemployed for so long, folks are looking at that gap in the resume and they're weeding them out before these folks even get a chance for an interview. what we've done gathered together 300 companies just to start with -- including some of the top 50 companies in the country, companies like walmart and apple and ford and others -- to say let's establish best practices. do not screen people out of the hiring process just because they've been out of work for a long time. we just went through the worst recession since the great depression. all those things cumulatively are going to have an impact. will we be able to have more of an impact if we can get congress, for example, to pass a minimum wage law that applies to everybody as opposed to me just through executive order making sure that folks who are contractors to the federal government have to pay a minimum wage? absolutely. that's why i'm going to keep on reaching out to them but i'm -- >> your critics say this is dimmished expedim i nished expectations. i remember during the campaign when you talked about your presidency being a moment when the rise of the oceans would slow and the world would heal. now you are talking about pen and phone and executive orders and executive actions. do you think you were naive back then or have you recalibrated your expectations and your ambitions? >> well, part of it is we got a lot of that stuff done. we've got in this country a health care reform that has already signed up millions of people and make sure that everybody who's watching, anybody who already has insurance will not be dropped because of a pre-existing condition. if they don't have health insurance they can get it on health cak healthcare.gov. we've made enormous strides changing our student loan programs. millions more get student loans. part of what's happened is that checklist i had when we came into office we've passed a lot of that and we're implementing a lot of it. so in no way are my expectations diminished. what's happened is we have a divided government right now. house republicans in particular have had difficulty rallying around any agenda, much less mine. and in that kind of environment, what i don't want is the american people to think that the only way for us to make big change is through legislation. we've all got to work together to continue to provide opportunity for the next generation. >> let's talk about house republicans and senate republicans. because there has been a large contingency of republicans critical of your new approach. senator ted cruz of texas who might run for president calls this the imperial presidency. and in the house there is this thing, as you know, called the stop act. they want to rein in what you're trying to do. how do you respond to that? >> well, i don't think that's very serious. the truth of the matter is that every president engages in executive actions. in fact, we've been very disciplined and sparing in terms of the executive actions that we've taken. we make sure that we're doing it within the authority that we have under statute. but i am not going to make an apology for saying that if i can can help middle class families and folks who are working hard to try to get in the middle class, do a little bit better, then i'm going to do it. i think it is a tough argument for the other side to make that not only are they willing to not do anything but they also want me not to do anything, in which case i think the american people whose right now estimation of congress is already pretty low, might have an even lower opinion of them. >> the stop act is not something you take seriously? >> i'm not particularly worried about it. >> let's talk about areas where you might be able to make some progress. i know that a pathway to citizenship in immigration reform is very important to you and it is very important to democrats. and others. it's possible that you might be able to get an immigration reform bill on your desk that has legal status for the millions of undocumented workers who are in this country but not citizenship. would you veto that? >> well, you know winl, i'm notg to prejudge what gets to my desk. >> i know, but what do you think of the principle? >> i think the principle that we don't want two classes of people in america is a principle that a lot of people agree with. not just me. and not just democrats. but i am encouraged by what speaker boehner has said. obviously i was encouraged by the bipartisan bill that passed out of the senate. i genuinely believe that speaker boehner and a number of house republicans -- folks like paul ryan -- really do want to get a serious immigration reform bill done. if the speaker proposes something that says right away folks aren't being deported, families aren't being separated, we're able to attract top young students to provide the skills or start businesses here, and then there's a regular process of citizenship. i'm not sure how wide the divide ends up being. that's why i don't want to prejudge it. >> i just wonder if you see this at all in terms of especially the pathway to citizenship in the way that you seemed to when you were passing health care reform and i was covering it, the public option. in other words, it would be great, in your view, if you could do it. it's not going to happen and there might be some expectation setting you have to do, because i, having reported on this, i don't think house republicans can pass anything that has a pathway to citizenship. >> well, here's the good news though. number one, there is a desire to get it done. and that particularly in this congress is a huge piece of business, because they haven't got a lot done over the last couple of years out of the house republican caucus. they've been willing to say what they're against, not so much what they're for. the fact that they're for something i think is progress. i do know that for a lot of families, the fear of deportation is one of the biggest concerns that they've got and that's why we took executive actions given my prosecutorial discretion to make sure we're not deporting kids who grew up here in our america for all practical purposes but we need to get that codified. the question is, is there more that we can do in this legislation that gets both democratic and republican support but solves these broader problems, including strengthening borders and making sure that we have a legal immigration system that works better than it current cannily does. >> another big issue in this country has to do with the legalization of marijuana. you gave an interview to "the new yorker" where you said you thought smoking pot was a bad habit. you didn't think it was any worse for a person than drinking. that contradicts the policy on national drug control policy and also because marijuana is considered a schedule 1 narcotic along with heroin and ecstasy. do you think you were maybe talking about it a little too casually with the knocker or are you considering not making marijuana a schedule 1 narcotic. >> first of all, what is or isn't a schedule 1 narcotic is a job for congress. >> i think it is the dea. >> it's not something by ourselves that we start changing. no, there are laws undergirding those determinations. >> will you support that? >> but the broader point -- i stand by my belief, based i think on the scientific evidence, that marijuana for casual users, individual users, is subject to abuse just like alcohol is, and should be treated as a public health problem and challenge. but as i said in the interview, my concern is when you end up having very heavy criminal penalties for individual users that have been apply unevenly and in some cases with a racial disparity. i think that is a problem. over t over the long term what i believe is, if we can deal with some of the criminal penalty issues, then we can really tackle what is a problem not just for marijuana but also c l alcohol, also cigarettes, also harder drugs and make sure our kids don't get into these habits in the first place. and the incarceration model that we've taken, particularly around marijuana, does not seem to have produced the kinds of results that we've set. but i do offer a cautionary note and i said this in the interview -- those who think legalization is a panacea, i think they have to ask themselves some tough questions, too. because if we start having a situation where big corporations with a lot of resources and distribution and marketing arms are suddenly going out there peddling marijuana, then the levels of abuse that may take place are going to be higher. a quick note about who sets federal drug policy -- the president can in fact downgrade marijuana from a schedule 1 narcotic but only congress can pass a law to make it legal nationwide. when we return, ted cruz says obama's executive orders amount to an imperial presidency. i'll ask louisiana governor bobby jindal for his take. ay, l! i'm re-workin' the menu. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here! aah! 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