[Harlow:] All right. We're back with CNN commentator, Ben Ferguson; and CNN legal analyst, Mel Robbins. Thank you both for being here. Let's talk about the president. He will face as we all know a Republican Congress come January, but he seems determined to dispel any notion that he's become a lame duck. He just announced this historic deal to realign the U.S. relationship with Cuba back on November 21st. And before that, there was the really big climate deal with China. Ben, to you. Is this a president saying he won't be a bystander and he will "go it alone," even though some of the executive orders can be overturned by whoever the next president is?
[Ferguson:] I think it's bigger than that. I'm not listening to the American people and I know they sent new leadership to Washington and I disagree with those voters, so, therefore I'll do exactly what I want to do how I want to do it through these executive orders and that's not what the American people like in a president when they send a message that they want to go in a new direction or they don't like the way that things are going and I think this is going to end up hurting him in the long run. I think it's really going to hurt Democrats in the House and the Senate who maybe are sitting there going, hey, a bunch of our friends just packed their boxes and they were sent home. We don't want to be the next round of that in another two years, Mr. President, so we got to play by the rules of the Constitution and you're the president. You got to work with Congress. That's how it works.
[Harlow:] Ben, how do you explain Mel, you can jump in here.
[Ferguson:] Sure.
[Harlow:] How do you explain these new poll numbers? Let's pull them up, showing a President Obama, his highest approval rating since spring 2013. 48 percent. So
[Ferguson:] Sure. It's below
[Harlow:] Go ahead, Ben. Then, Mel.
[Ferguson:] It's below 50 percent. So we can't actually act like this is somehow amazing.
[Harlow:] But it's better than it was.
[Ferguson:] But it's real easy to figure out. Hold on. Hold on. It's real easy it's real easy to figure out. Where was he just a month and a half, two months ago? As soon as the gas prices dropped drastically. The average American said, "This is amazing. I like the president now more than ever."
[Harlow:] Mel, is this all gas prices?
[Robbins:] Well, you know what, I can't believe I am agreeing with Ben, as much as I adore him.
[Ferguson:] Yeah.
[Robbins:] The average American feels that in their pocketbook, and they start to feel the steady recovery that has been happening in inches. Also, you see the Dow Jones hit 18,000. But you know, one thing, yes, he does not hit above 50 percent approval rating, but his approval rating is a hell of a lot better than the 114th Congress that's coming in. And the one that he was just working with.
[Harlow:] Very true.
[Robbins:] So, you know, I don't I don't think that he's a lame duck. I do think that he's going to continue to go forward, Poppy, as you suggested, by executive order and making these big games that a lot of Americans will agree with, immigration reform, relaxing all of the restrictions with Cuba. Even though the Affordable Care Act is something that most Republicans can't stand and a lot of Americans don't want to, you know aren't that happy with it either. It would be a huge mistake for Republicans to focus on trying to repeal that. So I don't I think that you're going to see these numbers climb. And as long as gas stays at two bucks or less
[Ferguson:] Yes.
[Robbins:] there's not going to be a lot of people complaining about this president.
[Harlow:] Ben, to you, looking ahead to 2015, what is the number-one thing you would like to see the president work with Congress on and not go it alone on.
[Ferguson:] Well, I think there's two things. One, immigration reform. I mean, there are a lot of congressmen that were sent home and a lot of congressmen that are now going to get a new job in Washington over the issue of immigration. He has to work with Congress and do it in a way where the American people get to sound off through their elected officials. He is not a dictator. He does not get to decide policy, as big as immigration reform, from the White House. And I think he understands that. The issue is he doesn't like what Congress is going to want to do with it. And so if he's smart on this, he leads on it. He has a he has a platform that I think a lot of people are very interested in hearing in a positive way. If he walks up to Capitol Hill and invites them, and says, all right, where can we get along, there are a lot of areas. But as long as he says I'm going to do it through executive action, it's going to be a disaster and it's going to be more Americans frustrated with it, you're going to see more gridlock, you're going to see more fighting and then nothing will get done on the issue.
[Harlow:] Let's hope it gets done in 2015 and not gridlock.
[Ferguson:] Yeah.
[Harlow:] Guys, thank you. Stick around. Interesting story we talk about next. A look at a very controversial new state law that requires drug testing on welfare recipients being tested out of Michigan. The details ahead. But first, this. Fareed Zakaria with a look at President Obama's special initiative that examines the human brain.
[Fareed Zakaria, Cnn Host, Fareed Zakaria, Gps:] President Obama announced the brain initiative in 2013. It's an effort to show how the brain's neurological circuits work together in real-time.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] It won't be easy, but think about what we could do once we do crack this code.
[Zakaria:] Is it more difficult to map the brain than it was to map the human genome, which took about initially 10 or 15 years?
[Michio Kaku, Physics Professor, City University Of New York:] It will take a lot of time. Realize that the human genome project only talked about maybe 20,000 genes or so that govern the human body. The brain has 100 billion neurons, each connected to 10,000 other neurons. That's as many stars as there are in the Milky Way galaxy, and so it will take time.