SOTU: What's Obama Trying To Do?; White House Takes SOTU Message To Social Media
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Almost half past the hour here on NEW DAY, here's a look at your headlines. Breaking this morning: another chilling ISIS video surfaces. This time, the lives of two Japanese men are at stake, in exchange for $200 million. The jihadist in the video warns Japan's prime minister he has 72 hours to comply or those men will be beheaded. The prime minister of Japan responded by saying the international community shouldn't give in, but he stopped short of denying that Japan would consider paying that ransom. An international manhunt continues for the suspected ringleader of the Belgian terror cell that was targeted in a deadly raid last week. Authorities believe his last-known location is Greece. Anti-terror agents in Brussels also confirming a connection between the cell and ISIS. There's mounting concern this morning that surviving members of the group may seek revenge. Drama surrounding the sudden death of an Argentine prosecutor who had accused the country's president of working with Iran in the country's worst-ever terror attack. Alberto Nisman was found in his apartment dead from a gunshot wound to the head it happened just hours before he was expected to give damning testimony against President Christina Kirchner. At this point officials say all signs point to suicide. However opposition party leaders are calling this an assassination. Earthlings, I assume Chris and Alisyn that you are indeed earthlings -- or are you beings from another planet. The truth is finally out there on the web. Nearly 130,000 pages of declassified Air Force records on UFO sightings are now online. UFO enthusiast, John Greenwald, spent two decades appealing to the government for access to these documents. He just posted the fabled files known as "Project Blue Book" as well as the 1940s "Project Sign" and "Project Grudge" on his online database want to know where the two of you stand if indeed you are earthlings.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I'm intrigued. Which one of us is going to pore through the 130,000 pages? Chris, do you have time tonight?</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I have time, but not to do that. Do you think there will be anything in it that gives a real certainty to the unknown of what was seen in the air like this could only be something that we've never seen before?</s>PEREIRA: Depending on who you ask, depending on where you stand on is there life out there.</s>CUOMO: And the government would put that in their files if there were such a thing? Very suspicious as they say down in Washington, D.C. namely a man named John King says that a lot, suspicious, the "Inside Politics" now on NEW DAY. What do you think? UFOs, up or down?</s>JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": I'm going through the files to find my way home.</s>CAMEROTA: Back to the mother ship.</s>CUOMO: I'm sorry -- with the deflated ball, that's got to hurt, John.</s>KING: Deflated ball is just whining, I was at the game. They got thumped. That's what happens. Super Bowl time, let's move on. Let's be uniters, not dividers. Let's get "Inside Politics" this morning on State Of The Union day here in Washington. With me to share their reporting and their insights are Lisa Lerer of "Bloomberg" and Ed O'Keefe of the "Washington Post." There's a lot of discussion in part because the White House leaked so much of the details early probably discussed not just leaked the details early of the president's State Of The Union Address. So let's get into the whys. The president tonight is going to say let's raise taxes on affluent Americans. He is going to say let's raise fees on big financial institutions and give some of that money back to the middle class, either tax credits or subsidized community college. He does this Lisa, knowing that the Republicans like none of it and they control both chambers of Congress. So what is the political calculation coming forward with this knowing you're going to get almost nothing?</s>LISA LERER, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": We're going to see the president in my prediction is we'll see him do two things tonight. One is shore up his legacy. He's going to talk about how the economy recovered. He knows and his advisers know that his tenure in the White House will be judged largely in large part by the economy. So we're going to see him make the case for how we've come out of the recovery and we're also going to see him and this is part of what you're talking about, lay out the rationale for his party going into 2016. He is still the head of the party for two more years. He wants to set the agenda for what the contours of the presidential debate are going to look like. He wants it to be framed around the issue of inequality as do many in his party.</s>KING: And so do the Republicans run a risk here, Ed. They just won an election and they won convincingly, 31 governors, majority in the Senate, a bigger majority in the House, where they say they ran against this, they ran against big government, they ran against Washington telling states what to do. Yet, the president's poll numbers and your poll, "Washington Post"/ABC poll up around 50 percent now. Back at 50 percent, Democrats must be saying why January, why didn't this come last October. But he's up around 50 percent and people feel better about the direction of the country. Let's look at the drop in wrong track from 2013 to 2015 here. People, majority still feel we're on the wrong track, but it's way down all of a sudden. So the president is in stronger standing. Do Republicans feel any risk in saying no, no, no.</s>ED O'KEEFE, "WASHINGTON POST": Absolutely, they do because they've got to prove to the American public over the next two years, just as he's trying to set the agenda for his party ahead of the elections, they've got to set an agenda and demonstrate competence and ability to govern as Mitch McConnell has said, to make it less scary to have a Republican president and a Republican Congress. And so if he continues to introduce these things that they're not going to agree with and continue to threaten vetoes on things they're moving through the capital at that time. It becomes a real challenge. They're going to have to at some point come up with something. It's not likely to get discussed tonight. They're going to have to appear to at least give him his moment and then go back to the drawing board and try to come up with something.</s>LERER: And you know, you've already seen some folks that are talking about running in '16 on the Republican side talking about the inequality issue. This is something that many people in the country are very concerned about. So this puts them in a rough spot. Do they agree with the president on anything? That's always difficult if you're a Republican to be on the same side as Obama, particularly when you're heading into a Republican primary. It's not something Iowa voters are very keen on. It puts them in a uniquely challenging position, which, let's be honest, is a little bit the goal here.</s>KING: Yes, the president is trying to put them in that position. It's interesting to watch, remember, Republicans, this is the first time in the Obama administration. They control both the Senate and the House. They can't just keep saying no. If they are going to say no, they have to have an alternative. You say especially not just for their party, but going into the 2016 cycle. One of the interesting things about the State Of The Union address, it's always big theater. There's a question as to whether it's less than it used to be. Let's look at it from the perspective of TV ratings. Back in 1994, four networks when Bill Clinton addressed the nation, 45.8 million viewers. Last year for President Obama, 13 different networks, 33.3 million viewers. So more options, but fewer eyeballs, how much of that is a factor in the fact that the president was out for a week or two in advance of the speech saying here's what I'm going to do. And he seems less worried about hitting the international road pretty quickly after thinking it's fine. I've made my case.</s>LERER: I mean, it's a huge factor. The White House has been calling this a roll-in, rather than a roll-out, and they're trying to get the most publicity possible for these proposals. They understand the way the people consume the State Of The Union or how many people consume the State Of The Union at all has changed. So they're trying to find other outlets to get that to people. The White House would argue they're saving the institution of the State Of The Union by turning to social media and things like that. Other people might say look it doesn't seem very presidential to be sitting down with blue-haired YouTube stars, but I think that's the reality of the media world we live in today.</s>KING: Since you mentioned that, let's take a look, among those, yes, the president has done some traditional media interviews, if you will, in the lead-up and I'm sure he'll do some after the State of the Union address. But among those who gets to sit down with the president tonight, this was announced last week, if you don't watch YouTube, then you don't know Glozell Green. Take a look.</s>GLOZELL GREEN, YOUTUBE CELEBRITY: I have been asked to interview POTUS, the president of the United States of America. I know you're like, what did she just say? I know, the president of the United States. I'm so happy that I watch every episode of "Veep." I need questions, please, leave your comments and questions in the comment section. I wonder if anybody -- I'm going to play it cool. Yo, what's up? I'm ready, I'm ready!</s>KING: You got to love the lips. A lot of people say this is un- presidential. I remember when the Bill Clinton went on to Arsenio Hall with his saxophone. I think you got to go with the eyeballs are, right? Different people to watch you not just people who always --</s>O'KEEFE: Remember when he talked to Zach Galifianakis, "Between Two Ferns?" They could measure enough people watch that and then went to sign up for the Affordable Care Act. So to the White House, that's success. If it means talking to a blue-lipped lady, so be it. The other thing to keep in mind --</s>LERER: Online video viewing.</s>O'KEEFE: And that's the other thing, the White House itself is doing its own enhanced viewing. If you're not watching CNN, let's be honest, you should be tonight or Bloomberg or washingtonpost.com. They're doing this thing where it's like pop-up videos. Where they're going to be throwing up charts and graphs at the same time that he's speaking. They believe there's enough of an audience for that, too, now. If it's only 30 million people, they think three million are watching online.</s>KING: Adopt to the environment you live in whether you like it or not. I guess, quickly on this one, a lot of talk about Mitt Romney last week and Jeb Bush, the establishment. Ted Cruz was in South Carolina at a Tea Party convention, making clear he doesn't think that's the right approach. Listen to this, he said, if we nominate a candidate in that mold, the same people who stayed home in 2008 and 2012 will stay home in 2016 and the Democrats will win again. He has said this before, but I found it interesting that he sort of made it a point to get some attention right after this Romney/Bush boom.</s>LERER: Right. Look, the folks on the more conservative side of the party see this Romney/Bush infighting is great for them. Let those guys suck up all the oxygen over there and it will create more opportunities on the right. Of course, they are going to have their -- it's not like there's an empty field. What are we up to two dozen people who have said they are running for the Republican presidential nomination? So there are five or six guys on the more right-leaning side of the fence and so they're going to be fighting amongst each other, too.</s>KING: Ideological splits, generational splits, it will be interesting to watch. We'll let 2016 presidential politics step aside a little bit tonight. When you watch the president tonight, one of the subplots is watch down on the Senate floor for mostly Republicans. But there's a Bernie Sanders down there. There's a Democrat, Elizabeth Warren. Let's watch how the Democrats who maybe, maybe, might want to run, to react.</s>CAMEROTA: Let's do that, John. I thought that you were going to show me a little joke about that. But, no, you were being serious.</s>KING: I was being serious about watching the Democrats, we decided to save the humor for tomorrow.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, very good. I'll look forward to that. All right, John, thanks so much. Thanks for the preview too. All right, there's drama and mystery surrounding the global manhunt for the most wanted woman in the world. Where Amedy Coulibaly's wife may be this morning and how she got there. Plus, is sitting the new smoking? How much sitting puts your life at risk? Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with what we all need to know.