Signed and refuses to get rid of. We learned the president will make a major announcement of afghanistan announcing that 34,000 u. S. Troops will return home from the region exactly one year from today. Thats about half the troops there now. Joining us now, maryland congressman chris van hollen, Ranking Member of the house budget committee. Thank you for joining us. Great to be with you, tamron. First, what are the expectations for the president tonight . Well, i think as you said the president s going to lay out his plan for xik growth, for job creation but focusing on the fact it is not good enough just to have Economic Growth for the folks already at the very top. That we need broad based Economic Growth where wages and middle class americans go up, where their incomes go up so that we can all participate in growing the economy and weve made progress. Weve had 35 straight months of job growth over 6 million jobs created but i think the president would be the first to say thats good but not good enough and going to talk about how we really lay the foundations far long term job growth and strengthening the middle class. You heard the remarks of senator mcconnell saying he can write the remarks and saying that the president will say the hands are tied by republicans and agreeing to the sequester and that looms over all of our heads. Well, tamron, it was disappointing to hear the Republican Senate leader. Mitch mcconnell who in president obamas first term said it was his number one priority to defeat the president. Not to get people working or the economy going. I hope he gives the president a chance tonight. The president s goal is to lay out a plan to grow the economy with respect to the sequester. The president s been very clear it would be irresponsible and reck tols allow the sequester to take place. We now know from the Budget Office it would cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs if we dont find a smarter way to reduce that deficit over a longer period of time. Democrats in the house have put forward a concrete plan to substitute for the sequester for the remainder of the year. Unfortunately, we havent had a chance to vote on it over here but hopefully the president s speech tonight will lay out a plan that some of the republican colleagues will agree to join with us in trying to pass. And then last hour, as you well know, the rally outside of the capitol, number of Union Workers were told roughly 300 supporters joined in chanting sequest traditions got to go. And hands off medicare. In addition to perhaps giving jagged pill to the republicans to swallow, we understand the president will discuss entitlement reforms, the same deal on the table back in december. We understand still on the table. But you have some progressives who are concerned about the middle class or those who are in need the most and may again have to take, you know, take a hit here. Well, tamron, the reason the president has insisted all along on taking a balanced approach to reducing the deficit is in order to make sure that the middle class does not take the burden, does not take the hit. If you pursue the cuts only republican approach, that would mean big cuts to medicare and to important social safety net programs. But if you take a balanced approach and you begin by closing some of these tax loopholes and tax breaks for special interests, that means that the burden is not only on seniors or on the middle class. And so its unfortunate that our republican colleagues continue to fight the idea of closing tax breaks, for example, for Big Oil Companies in order to help reduce our deficit. If they would come to the table and take that kind of balanced approach, we could reduce our longterm deficits in a sensible manner. As you know, it would be a big mistake to do deep austerity cuts now and thats why allowing the sequester to take place would be very bad. We have seen in places like england and other European Countries that tried that strategy. It tipped them back to recession. Congressman chris van hollen, thank you for your time. Hope to see you soon. Thank you. Thank you. Lets bring in the political panel. Democratic strategist chris kofonis. Shar ra totlis and aaron blake. Thank you for joining us. Aaron, you are the newest, i think, to the news nation panel. The expectations for the president as we know, he plans to talk about immigration we form and the situation with guns, as well. But this outline if you will that threepoint questions of what the white house wants answered seems a daunting task for the president because we have seen jobs bills come and go, die and go by the wayside and because of the republicans being obstructionist. Yeah. Well see same things we have seen. We have been seeing the president deliver speeches now for more than a year because of the Reelection Campaign so the big challenge for him today i think is to Say Something new, novel that people are going to be talking about. Especially when it comes to jobs, we seem to be kind of repeating the debates of the past and so i think people are batching out for that new thing he says in the address and that will be the big story tomorrow. Chris, what could that one new thing be for this president . As aaron pointed out. And perhaps in a more skeptical way, mitch mcconnell, a lot of this we have heard before. How does the president as the First Read Team indicates use this last big chance before people get caught up perhaps in will run for president the next time around, the big chance. How does he take advantage of it . Well, in terms of the one big thing, im not sure its one big thing to focus on. One new thing. Lets say one new thing. I dont think its one new thing but laying out the vision for where he wants to take the country. Obviously its about the middle class and going to paint a very clear picture on different facets, on the economy and jobs and investing in education, talking about the deficits, debt in a responsible, balanced way. Talking about guns and how do we come up with common sense reforms and then on immigration, how do we finally deal with the intractable problem we have ignored . I think thats a powerful vision. In terms of the what is the powerful vision coming to jobs, though . Well, i think that he can lay out. He can talk about key investments to make to put the country on a path to create more growth, more jobs. We have created over 5 million plus jobs since the recession has been over. Thats a significant accomplishment. But more needs to be done. You cant just snap your fingers and say invest in one area and create millions of jobs but paint a broader picture and do the most difficult part which is how do you work with a Republican Congress that seems unwilling to make any deal or any compromise on any area that the president believes is right for the country . So that i think is the most interesting for me at least, what does he say to republicans to motivate them to move them to finally realize, you know what . You have skin in the game, the skin in the game is the direction of the country. We all rise and fall together. Its not just one party. Right. I want to get you guys to hold on for a second and your thoughts and bring in quickly here live from the white house, director of the white house domestic policy counsel. President obamas point person on Immigration Reform and outreach to the hispanic community. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. We just heard chris point out when were talking about budgets and jobs how the president can bring if you will republicans in to the fold of his agenda to get people back to work. Were seeing a different kind of discussion coming to immigration. Colorado Republican Congressman kaufman said a year ago opposing birth right citizenship and now supporting a pathway to citizenship for young illegal immigrants. Eric cantor now indicates hes willing to support the dream act. You are seeing some republicans come in to the fold if you will on the conversation of comprehensive Immigration Reform. Do you believe that the president will have a successful agenda relating to that issue . Well, this is exactly what were hoping will happen, not just on immigration but jobs and the economy. If you heard the president talking about Immigration Reform, we placed it squarely within the Economic Vision to grow the middle class, to create ladders of opportunity for people getting the middle class and focused like a laser on growing the economy, creating jobs after the 6 million jobs created over 33 months. So the fact that theres signs of bipartisanship on immigration, very good sign that, you know, folks in congress may be willing to stand up and Work Together to do the peoples business and must begin and end with the economy and jobs. Not all flowers ian sunshine here. You have Speaker Boehner saying the thing hes most concerned about with Immigration Reform is the president is getting in the way. He says sometimes i think hed rather have an issue than a solution. Also, the Washington Post has this headline, what president obama should and should not say in the state of the union. According to their new poll, with obama mentioning citizenship, path to citizenship, 59 of the people favor this. Without the president mentioning or the president s name, 70 favor the path to citizenship. The implication with this poll, obviously srks that when the president comes out in favor, theres some kind of repelling force, if you will, for people. What do you make of Speaker Boehner saying the president is in the way and at least one poll indicating people are in favor if the president doesnt mention it . One way or the other, majority of the people favor the kind of proposal that the president is putting forward. He is making room for the bipartisan process that started in the senate to work its way through the process and not waiting forever. We dont want to wait six months or a year to get to the peoples business. He wants to make sure to get from bipartisan conversation which is good to action which is even much better so on issues like immigration, the proposals talking about tonight, to grow the economy and create jobs, we want to work in a bipartisan way. The end of the day, the people should be measuring the policy makers based on the results we produce. You heard her say that the people should measure the politicians on what theyre able to get done. With that thought in mind and the president s address and were posing our gut check question to the viewers, do they believe that the president can Bring Congress on board for big things to happen . How would you answer that . It is going to be very difficult and the success with this kind of thing in the path is not very good. The makeup of congress generally did not change too much. Democrats hold the senate. Republicans hold the majority in the house. That continues to be the recipe we have been tasting for last cycle or so and stalemate. Its very difficult. But i do want to say if theres one thing the president might mention in terms of plans to stimulate the economy, bring up infrastructure. President s often bring it up in the state of the Union Address and usually makes viewers eyes roll over and for democrats, investment. For republicans, they see dollar signs and spending and i bet well see pushback of republicans on this. Regarding the sequester, aaron, Public Opinion obviously against the automatic spending cuts. I believe 700 billion for domestic programs. 500 billion for defense. Both sides agreed to this deal and we were talking yesterday perhaps this is another example of i think how people are baffled by washington, d. C. You agreed to it and now with the days away, no one wants to do it but no one has a solution. How does the president address this properly in the speech tonight . Well, theres not a great way to do it. The problem is that whatever cuts that would be proposed in place of the sequester also terribly unpopular with the American People so proposing an alternative to this is not going to erase the opposition to whats going on. I think the president sought to get out in front of this a little bit proposing the temporary solution to the sequester situation and expect him to push that and say lets give ourselves some more time and the history of the situations in past couple of years have shown that the American People are open to kind of these temporary measures for a short period of time. And transitioning to the republicans, you have the gop response, rubio, the Tea Party Response with paul. Many believe that this is another indication of a divide if you will within the Republican Party. I want to play what senator paul had to say on marco rubio. Lets play it. Theres a lot of energy from the tea party and consider themselves mostly republican, they will chastise even the republican establishment so they want an independent voice. I dont see it as necessarily divisive. I wont say anything that marco rubio is wrong. This isnt about he and i. This is about the tea party. So he wont say marco rubio is wrong but he might not say hes right. So here we have the second story line. Exactly. Of the night here. Is this, though, really a rubio versus rand paul . I think it could be a foreshadow of something in four years to tell you the truth. No. I think at a time when republicans really needed to show a unified front, this is doing exactly the opposite. I think a lot of people in washington, i know a lot of journalists will tune in to we just lost her mid sentence. Lets bring in chris. There was an article yesterday that the president sees the republicans as divided and vulnerable and that will give him an opportunity if he is if you will going to go big as the First Read Team. This is the opening with the fractured Republican Party who could have decided i assume to have one face but that is not the road that they have chosen for tonight. Well, yeah. I mean, theyre pretty divided party and see that seemingly every day. Im going to be optimistic for once in terms of the direction of the country politically speaking. I think theres potential Real Progress and on immigration i think republicans got a wakeup call from the last election and the country is definitely, you know, eager for some kind of real significant policy change and thats good and also on guns, we may not get what a lot of progressives and others and myself may like but we may get background checks and a significant step forward and where the problems begin jobs. Where you talk about deficits and debt. Absolutely. For example, marco rubio in his comments, they want to offer an alternative, they say, not just a critique. But that government or Big Government is part of the problem. And that i believe falls in with stimulus and some of the other things that democrats believe if theyd gone big would perhaps have helped the economy. Thats fundamentally against what rubio and republicans believe. It is the economy and spending but it is also related to jobs. Yeah. I think thats absolutely right and i think the problem there is you have a republican vision, one we had a referendum on that. Its called the last election in terms of vision of tax cuts and greater growth and jobs and still stuck because thats a mindset as a party. The problem i think that they have not come to terms with is the country is facing real big problems. How do you create longterm growth . And the president i think goes out there and says very clearly, listen, we have got to make investments today. It is not just spending for the sake of going to debt. Its spending in order to put us in a stronger footing for the future and good for the middle class and the country. Chris, aaron and shira, thank you all for joining us. See you soon. Msnbcs special live coverage of the state of the union begins this evening 5 00 eastern with hardball. How would you finish this sentence . The state of our union is take a picture of yourself holding up your answer. Thats me with my answer. Resetting is what i put. Facebook. Com msnbc. Coming up, overnight, north korea conducted a Third Nuclear test. The white house says president obama will definitely address and respond to the developments in his state of the Union Address. Plus, last year rocker or former Rocker Ted Nugent was a focus of a secret Service Investigation after saying he would either be, quote, dead or in jail if the president was reelected. 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