Bipartisan group of senators join together on immigration overhaul plan

>> is mike allen .

>> never.

>> 2:00 in the morning, he's on the show.

>> and he looks great.

>> handsome son of a gun . mike allen , chief white house correspondent of "politico," good morning.

>> good morning. i actually go for the richard haass six. jim vandehei says six hours is the key to being healthy and wise.

>> i tried to crunch the numbers on it, though, because the "playbook" goes out at 6:00 on a saturday morning which means you've been up since 3:00 working on it. so when do you sleep? do you go to bed at 6:00 at night? i don't believe you.

>> don't ask too many questions.

>> there's going to be a press conference up on capitol hill this morning. a so-called group of eight senators, very high-profile senators, going to unveil a bipartisan immigration reform , at least the outlines of some kind of a plan. take us through it a little bit.

>> yeah, willie, this is going to be immigration week, certainly immigration month, maybe immigration year because as joe suggested at " national review " this weekend, i popped in there yesterday with the " national review " institute here in washington. more and more republicans are open to doing something on immigration. so today, these senators, these include some of the biggest players on the democratic side. senator schumer, senator durbin, on the republican side , senator mccain , marco rubio , coming out with a plain before the president unveils his. tomorrow the president is going to jet to las vegas to unveil his immigration plan. these senators putting out a marker. here are the three big points of this plan. and this is going to be the biggest debate on immigration in six years since back in 2007 when president bush 's plan was deeted. he defeated. here are the three big paths. it will provide a path to legal citizenship for the people in the country illegally. that's dependent on increasing border security before that happened and some other procedural safeguards. and three, there's going to be a little faster path to citizenship for seasonal agricultural workers and for young people who are brought to the country illegally. so that's the nod to the dream act that's so popular on the left.

>> andrea, what chances do a major plan like this have of getting through congress?

>> i think better than ever. and the real sadness here is that john mccain , lindsey graham and others are totally behind this now. if they had been able to do this in 2007 and had not run away from george w. bush , they could have achieved this then, and perhaps the republican party 's trajectory would be different.

>> andrea, a big fact, and john mccain didn't allude to it, he said it flat out on tv yesterday. he said the election returns are what's motivating this. let's be clear about that. this isn't any revelation coming out of church. it was election returns that are motivating this.

>> by the way, you've got to tip your hat to the bushes. they saw this coming, not in 2004 , not in 2000 . jeb was talking about this in 1997 . his brother was talking about it in texas. in 1999 . they talked about it nonstop, mike allen . the bushes were warning of this back -- you know, karl rove who's, of course, vilified now all the time in most quarters. karl rove was warning about this back in '98, '99. back then they were all saying fastest demographic group , republicans get smart faster, you're going to pay, and we've paid.

>> we're seeing signs now -- i'm sorry?

>> i was going to say, jeb bush is very actively involved in this right now.

>> motivated by the politics, this will do more to still late america's economic growth than most of the stuff we normally talk about. getting more people, ph.d.s, technology, able to stay in this country after their get their ph.d.s. this will make a big difference.

>> mike.

>> jeb bush on the president's side saying they need to go big. that you need to do a comprehensive plan like the one we're talking about that takes in -- not the piecemeal approach, the republicans have talked about. marco rubio , just in the last week, really moving the debate on this, convincing republican talk show hosts, other influential conservatives that what we have now is amnesty, that there need to be changes. change on this just in the last couple weeks is astonish iing. joe, i know you heard some of that this weekend at "national preon you review."

>> mike allen , thanks so much. we'll talk to you.