50 house republicans have proposed the same payroll tax cut that's in this plan. you should pass it right away. this idea came from a bill written by a texas republican and a massachusetts democrat. it's the kind of proposal that's been supported in the past by democrats and republicans alike. you should pass it right away. you should pass it right away. president obama's just finished a 32-minute speech to a joint session of congress laying out $447 billion legislative plan he calls the american jobs act. the centerpiece of his proposal is cutting the payroll taxes for workers and employers. the president is also calling on congress to extend business tax cuts and to inject much more federal money into infrastructure, construction, and repair projects. president obama said everything in the plan has been supported by both democrats and republicans and that everything in this bill will be paid for. joining me now is nbc news political director and chief white house correspondent, host of msnbc's "the daily rundown," chuck todd. thanks for staying with us. the president did not specify a whole host of tax provisions in here. what is the white house strategy on that? >> on that specific point on how to pay for this and he hinted at it a little bit as you noted, he's going to put his own proposal to the supercommittee to deal with corporate tax reform, personal tax reform. and which by the way will come in the way of figuring out also how to find not just 1.5 trillion that the supercommittee is supposed to do but then throw in the additional 450 billion that he's asking for for this plan. that is something in the next couple weeks that he's going to do here. another reason why they didn't want to put it in this speech is they didn't want to load this speech up with washington speak if you will. for instance, the word infrastructure. something we were just talking about. never was said. it was described for a good ten minutes of the speech. it was scrubbed of washington words. it was a very simple speech to talk over the heads of washington to make him sound more of a populist and more campaigner. it sounded at the end almost like a campaign speech when he was making the threat essentially that if they don't act, he will. now a couple of first reactions that i do think merit reporting here. speaker boehner said he hopes the president considers the republican plan on job creation but then he says this. the proposals the president outlined tonight merit consideration. we hope he gives serious consideration to our ideas as well. it's my hope we can work together to ends the uncertainty faces families and small businesses and create a better environment for long-term growth. not a criticism in the release from speaker boehner. the first presidential candidate release that i received happened to come from jon huntsman calling it empty rhetoric. the reason i want to contrast those two. this is the challenge facing this white house which is politics happening inside the republican party on one hand. you have a fired up republican base that is already looking toward the next election. is that base going to have influence inside the house republican caucus essentially politically handcuffing boehner as he was almost in some ways he doesn't admit it but others will say for him that he was kind of handcuffed by his base and politics of his base before in trying to do the so-called grand bargain. >> any indication from the white house today they made last-minute edits or changes to this draft today based on what they heard in the msnbc debate last night of the republican presidential candidates? >> no indication on that. i can tell you that this speech has been tinkered with a lot today. there wasn't any excerpts. this is unlike any speech that i have witnessed in a joint session of congress. it wasn't about legislation. it was much more of a populist rhetoric saying pass this jobs bill and saying it in the prepared remarks it was some 17 times. on that front it was clear that the speech writers and the president wanted to make sure he did not sound like a guy of washington. >> and also any indication that white house legislative affairs office ran any of this by the congress in either body either chairman or democratic senate or jurisdiction chairman in the house of representatives? >> this plan, no. the argument that they made that they've been making for weeks is that this is sort of the thousand flowers bloom approach. no one idea that they have in here from the extension of the payroll tax cut, the tax credits for businesses that do hiring. all of those things. they are bills that have already had some sort of bipartisan support even inside the current congress. you heard them talk about the one bill, the bill he was referring to is a bill on infrastructure bank. my apologies for using washington speak. it's one that john mccain and kay bailey hutchinson that he referred to and didn't call by name but that was -- it's all of those that would argue that this has been vetted individually but they haven't vetted the whole bill on this front. one more point here, lawrence. tomorrow the president goes to richmond. that's the media market. home congressional district of eric cantor. tuesday the road show continues. ohio. home state of john boehner. it's pretty clear what they want to do is sort of an old school state of the union approach where you throw your agenda out there and then you actually travel the country and sell it. this president didn't do it with health care very well and didn't do it with previous state of the unions. something got in the way. the plan is not to let something get in the way. >> chuck todd, a great job of scrubbing your comments of washington speak tonight too. chuck, thank you very much for staying with us. >> all right, buddy. >> joining me now, msnbc's ed schultz and al sharpton here in new york along with chris matthews who joins us again from washington. chris, i'm going to keep going back to the practicalities of how does this thing move and how does it move given that it spreads over so many congressional committees. this is a very, very difficult challenge legislatively and boehner we now know chuck just reported the boehner reaction statement welcoming in effect. let's have the dialogue. let's take a look at your plan and please consider some of our proposals. does that indicate that this may be a smoother path at the beginning in the house of representatives for the president? >> it looks like a door has been opened by this speaker for some bill to pass this session or rather this fall. it may be a mix and match kind of situation but he clearly didn't say we're not going to do anything. i think that means that there's two tests here. one is to get them to act on something. that would include obviously these easier things the president threw out tonight. something in terms of payroll tax relief which has to be popular with business on the employer side. it has to be better to hire people cheaper. something on infrastructure that does benefit these members of congress including an incumbent's feature which every member of congress in right now will get credit for infrastructure built on their watch. it's good for them. get something through. the second step is a really campaign to get 218 in the house for something that passes that's good enough for democrats and the country and the 60 or something that avoids a filibuster in the senate to meet your standard of actual effectiveness. i think there's two standards. will there be movement? will there be action? will there be a vote on something is the first standard. i think he'll move toward success in that regard. you don't get dead on arrival statements coming out from the speaker tonight. you don't get that door is slammed look at the thing. maybe they'll get action and then question is will they get the right kind? it looks like they are moving already on the first. >> ed, how much action does the president have to get out of this to call it some form of success? i mean, does he have to get all of the way through to legislative passage of at least 51% of what he's asking for or does he have to just show that congress has gone to work for him? >> i think going to work is a big thing. that's something they haven't done in the minds of the american people. there is such a stalemate going on in congress right now. that would be a heavy lift and a good move. speaker boehner should like what he heard tonight because president obama said that it would be paid for. paid for means more cuts are on the way. spending cuts is what boehner has been talking about for months on end. so they want to chip away at the big three. the president tonight told his base you got to give up a little bit on medicare and medicaid. we'll have to make these reforms. we'll have to make some minor changes. now we get into the devil in detail. we do know this. if it's $447 billion and it will be paid for, this supercommittee has been told by the president of the united states, have at it. start cutting. i told the country i'm on record that we're willing to make more cuts. you pointed out earlier not the specifics of exactly what kind of tax increases are going to come along. we do know that boehner never had any appetite whatsoever when it comes to shared sacrifice asking the wealthiest americans to do something about it. i thought the president tonight hit a home run in asking the country and asking the congress who are we and what do we stand for and are we going to do anything for the american people in the next 14 months because there's a lot of people hurting. that's a general message that will ring across the country in a populist fashion. >> let's listen to what the president actually said about possible medicare and medicaid changes. >> i realize there's some in my party who don't think we should make any changes at all to medicare and medicaid and i understand their concerns. here's the truth. millions of americans rely on medicare in their retirement and millions more will do so in the future. they pay for this benefit during their working years. they earn it. but with an ageing population and raising health care costs, we're spending too fast to sustain the program. if we don't gradually reform the system while protecting current beneficiaries, it won't be there when future retirees need it. we have to reform medicare to strengthen it. >> al sharpton, no applause on that one. democrats sitting on their hands when he's talking about making adjustments to medicare in order to pay for these jobs provisions. >> everyone needs to know what that means. when you say gradually reform it, you're not going to touch the people that are impacted now but going down the road what does that mean and how far down the road are we talking about? i think that the devil is definitely in the details there. again, as i said earlier, i think the tone was brilliant. i think that it would be very difficult for boehner to look as a reasonable person to come out and saying with the president saying he's going to look at some of the medicare and other things that we all don't want to see touched are that he's going to deal with some gradual minor changes. how could boehner look like he is even a patriot to say no, we're not going to talk about anything. last night we talked about people talk about ponzi schemes and everything else. you hear the president saying to his base, we'll have to make adjustments. we have to be bigger americans. i think he checkmated boehner but that doesn't mean that boehner and them won't double back and extract more than we are willing in terms of the president's base to give. i think the work begins tonight. i think the president set a tone but this is far from over. >> chris matthews, when the president talked about having the rich pay more of their fair share, he actually talked as he's done before about warren buffett paying more in his higher income tax rate than warren buffett's secretary pays and republicans you could hear it, republicans in the house of representatives laughed when they heard him making the warren buffett comparison. it doesn't sound like they are ready to get in there and start changing what warren buffett has to do on his tax return. >> i don't think they take that seriously. let's look at the humor in this to some extent. people like buffett have a lot of money they'll never even look at let alone spend. they don't need it. when they talk about giving back money to the government rhetorically, it means nothing until practical sense. they're not giving back the money. a lot of these republican people would say, wait a minute, if you want to make a contribution to the u.s. treasury, go ahead, buddy. i'll make it 125 a year and i do have a couple kids in school so don't talk about me being rich. i think they are very skeptical. i don't think that's smart rhetoric using warren buffett. there's something phony about it. something phony about obama himself saying i'll pay higher taxes. everybody knows the president of the united states, this young harvard lawyer is going to leave the white house however he leaves it and makes a ton of money if he wants to. idea that he has to sacrifice because he pay as higher tax rate is ludicrous. they strike me as phony. they need to go back to values. they made a big mistake when they played around with taxes saying we'll bring back bush tax cuts or keep them for people under 250 and get rid of for people over 250. we have a progressive tax system. some playing the game. reminds me of al gore saying in florida we can recount three counties because that's where i'll do better. if you play the mickey mouse politics game, the other side will play it. >> there are things in here that democrats have been standing in the way of. he talked about free trade agreements, panama, columbia and south korea. he wants to pass free trade bills with them. if we buy kias here, the south korean car, we should sell chryslers in south korea. >> you know, lawrence, that's the dirty little secret in this. the people we're doing trade deals with, they have a level of protectionism. they protect their industries a heck of a lot more and dump their stuff on our markets. i don't see anything that says, you know what, this is really going to be great for us. getting back to what chris was talking about, one thing that the president is going to have a hard time selling to his base and that is eliminating pages of loopholes and deductions and we can lower one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. wow. hold the phone on that one. the base will go nuts on that corporate profits through the roof in this country. corporations with money offseas that are not repatriating that money. the president did not address that tonight. i think he's going to have hard time with this caucus on that one. >> his retort to that will be i can make corporations pay more taxes if i kill the loopholes i can still bring the rate down and they'll pay more. you have to do both in order to do that. you must kill the loopholes first and i don't see republicans doing that. >> i don't see how republicans allow you to do that without a real fight. i think also in the trade agreements that you've got to remember that for a very interesting reason, i would say. i'm trying to be careful with language. the first lady's guest tonight, i think part of trying to get labor on board but having them energized because they're the ones that can do the local work with having the head sitting there. part of the strategy is how this hits the ground but a lot of how this hits the ground is devil in the details on how it will be read by those that are going to have to live with this. >> al sharpton, ed schultz, chris matthews, thank you all for joining me tonight. coming up, reaction and hopefully more details from inside the white house. press secretary jay carney joins me next. and later, congressman barney frank ranking member of the house financial services committee will be here with a look at the opposition to the president. the president will definitely face in the republican house. op) ( singing along ) ( singing high note ) that should do it. enjoy your new shower. 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[ male announcer ] stay smart and book smart. book early and save up to 20% at any holiday inn express. stay you. two federal officials tell nbc news that there's a potential threat cowith 9/11. another white house official says on a ten-point scale this threat is a five or a six adding that this threat is very specific but parts of it don't add up. reporter from wnbc in new york reports that the threat is leveled at new york city and washington d.c. one threat mentioned a car bomb. a separate threat mentioned bridges and tunnels. the department of homeland security issued a statement tonight saying the threat is "credible and specific but unconfirmed." the government will continue to track down the threat and ask all americans to remain vigilant. coming up, i will be joined by white house press secretary jay carney followed by congressman barney frank. >> regardless of the arguments we've had in the past, regardless of the arguments we'll have in the future, this plan is the right thing to do right now. you should pass it. i intend to take passage to every corner of this country. >> we continue our coverage of the president's address. joining me now, white house press secretary jay carney. jay, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> lawrence, thanks for having me. >> jay, what changes did you make in the speech today based on what you saw in the republican debate last night? >> zero. no changes. the proposals in the speech have been worked on for four to six, maybe eight weeks now by the president's economic team working with the president and the vice president and there were no changes made in reaction to the debate and that's because nothing that happened in the debate has anything to do with what matters here which is that the american economy needs attention. it needs washington to act as the president said and to act now. what he put forward, the american jobs act, and what he'll submit in detailed legislative language early next week is a plan built on proposals that have historically garnered bipartisan support and if congress puts politics ahead of party and do the right thing by the american people and the american economy, they will act and they will pass this legislative bill. >> let's listen to one thing that should have bipartisan support and what the president wants to do for working families and get them a $1,500 tax break. >> the typical working family will get a $1,500 tax cut next year. $1,500 that would have been taken out of your pocket, will go into your pocket. this expands on the tax cut the democrats and republicans already passed for this year. if we allow that tax cut to expire, if we refuse to act, middle class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time. we can't let that happen. i know that some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live. now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle class taxes which is why you should pass this bill right away. >> jay, that was the democrats cheering when they heard what they believe and what i took to be a direct hit on grove are norquist and his pledge that many have signed to never raise taxes included closing loopholes. did the president intend to specify that grover norquist pledge? >> i don't think it had anything t