avlon, the senior contributor also with daily beast.com. my conversation with bernie sanders he said a moral outrage. do you think, john, that the liberals are being too rough on the president? well, they re definitely spoiling for a fight. they feel betrayed to a certain extent by this president. at this moment they feel the poker playing he s done with the republicans hasn t been sufficient in terms of defending their interest. that said, i think the president at this point is acknowledging the results of this election. he s trying to lead from a point of let s see where we can come forward together to put forward a proposal so the vacht majority of american people don t see their taxes go up. there will be a fight. when he announced this that was already in the cards. whether it s enough to stop the whole compromise that s where the delicate dance and game goes today. this is all still unfolding in realtime up in washington. john avlon go ahead, jess.
he wants to weigh in as well. what did you think of the president, especially the final summation, the final arguments he made in the final two or three or four minutes of his statement? that last question was fascinating. that deserves on a obama high light reel. it showed a president who was strong and defiant and making a case he had a responsibility beyond partisan politics. that seemed to be the theme throughout the press conference, that he is the last adult in washington. when everyone else is engaging in bargaining he s watching out for the american people and not going to let them get caught in collateral damage. it was a strong president, a decisive and defiant president and that last question he made the good for the incremental change. that was quite a statement. hold on. roland, i know you want to weigh in. what does it say though when the president says at a news conference that the american people were with me poll after poll after poll, yet he was unable to rally
president obama saysa his tax deal is a necessity to defend middle class americans. he promises to keep fighting over taxes over the course of the next two years. wolf blitzer watched that whole conference from washington, he s in the situation room. you heard the metaphor about the hostage takers, the president accusing the gop of holding the middle class hostage to get what the president called their, quote, holy grail. what did you think of that? a lot of republicans hate it and a lot of others think it s an inappropriate comparison to compare the gop to hostage takers if you will, because it reminds a lot of folks of terrorism, if you will. so the president used that metaphor once before, he s using it again today, i think he s going to be criticized by a lot of republicans for making that
i m going to roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. for the wealthiest americans. for the wealthiest americans. it is true that i want to roll back the bush tax cuts on the very wealthiest americans. wow! reporter: so i m not sure you got that there. during the campaign he frequently said i think i got it. you got it. it was a centerpiece of his campaign. and i was following him through all of those states and we heard it at every single stop that i can remember covering him during that campaign. so will this come back to haunt him? the white house will take the position that they had no choice. you heard the president say. and will try to slam republicans going into the 2012 campaign for putting washington in the position of having to re-enact bush s tax cut plan. but the problem is as i m sure you know and everyone has been discussed this, he s been so have you gone i. vigorously attacked from the left by the
now in her home surrounded by friends and family including her estranged husband john edwards. we re going to talk to an insider tomorrow. some high school teachers and students in one school district, they re trying a brave experiment. they re giving up texting, tweeting and facebooking for a whole week. i m going to talk to a teacher and a student from shore crest high school in washington state to see how they re coping without one of these, a cell phone. and we re going to spend a couple of minutes now on a story that really addresses the heart of this country s core ideals, freedom of speech. there s this group of people who some say take full advantage of that freedom for their very own unusual agenda. they re the members of the kansas based westborough baptist church. it s a small congregation, but it s a very controversial one. why? because they tend to make news