Obama continues a public pressure campaign

>> today, try tomorrow. as the president continues a public pressure campaign today, the first decent set of national poll numbers are coming out since the squirs battle began, and it shows republicans are going to pay a steeper price right now if cuts go into effect next friday. but the white house --

>> today the president will take his pitch to african-american radio. he'll do interviews with radio shows hosted by yolanda adams . yesterday the president did his best to make sure communities across the country know they'll feel real pain in their homes.

>> we've got some automatic spending cuts coming up in nine days that will lay out of hundreds of thousands of folks. there's no reason they should lose their job or be laid off. this is a problem the congress can solve. things like head start programs and help for the mentally ill , all these things have a direct impa on people's day-to-day lives. we do not need these automatic, mindless spending cuts that could hurt our economy. all of us need to take responsibility for thinking about the same patriotism, duty that we see on display in our military.

>> somewhat awkwardly president obama discovered that that's "not in my backyard" can apply to things like proposal to --

>> nobody who is going to buy a corporate jet is going to not buy it because of a small tax break .

>> but you understand these middle class workers say it is because of the threat of this proposal to take away.

>> i'm sure that some of these companies who want to keep these tax breaks for their customers, i get that, but that's not the reason that there's going to be an impact in terms of their sales.

>> you could tell which states actually have some of these companies that build some of these private planes. president's pressure shows no signs of swaying republicans . both sides are digging in their heels, leading to a game of finger pointing about who loved the sequester more. democrats, they participated yesterday by circulating a 2011 powerpoint that speaker boehner's office had put out at the time. they did that yesterday. he created it when he was trying to sell the deal to his more conservative members. so republicans , they spent the day yesterday passing around this video of a montana democratic senator, max caucus who's up for re-election in 2014 , who was saying this about the sequester.

>> the white house recommended it frankly, back in august 2011 , so now we're feeling the effects of it.

>> of all the dumb things washington does, this who started it argument has proven to be one of the dumber ones. this morning usa today and the pew research center are out with new numbers showing the president is winning the issue. 45% say they support the president, 38% support the republicans . three out of four americans do say a deficit plan should include tax increases and spending cuts, a combination similar to the balanced approach the president backs. if the sequester does go into effect, this poll shows republicans stand to pay a steeper price. 49% would blame congressional republicans . just 31% would blame the president. 49% said the cuts should be delayed. and most worrying if you're the white house , most americans aren't paying attention to the coming deadline. only about a quarter surveyed say they have heard a lot about it. some fatigue, is it setting in on this issue. that said, if you're the republicans , you're losing on a whole slew of these issues right now as you're getting measured on the sequester. if the public is paying attention, you look at these signs as a warning more tot gop than to the white house . we've said before that a second term really isn't four years long. the president himself acknowledged that that is true and that he only has about a year to enact what he has, an ambitious agenda, pushing things like tax reform , budget cuts and gun control.

>> i'd like to get as much stuff done as quickly as possible. even though i'm just starting my second term, i know that, you know, once we get through this year, then people start looking at the mid-terms and after that, they start thinking about presidential elections.

>> the president also made his first public comments on the white house immigration leak.

>> that certainly didn't jeopardize the entire process. negotiations are still moving forward. information floats out of washington all the time. that shouldn't prevent anybody from moving forward.

>> the president was also asked by a san francisco station about whether the white house will weigh in on proposition eight, which bans gay marriage .

>> the solicitor general is still looking at this. i have to make sure i'm not interjecting myself too much into this process, particularly when we're not a party to the case. i can tell you my personal view, which is that i think that same-sex couples should have the same rights and be treated like everybody else.

>> all signs a are pointing that they're going to file some sort of brief. and the president made his first public comments about his golf outing with tiger woods .

>> he plays a different game than i do. is he more nervous because he's playing with you or are you more nervous?

>> i don't think either party was nervous. i think he knew i wasn't a big threat to his world ranking and i knew that i better keep my day job .

>> when it comes to the day job , south carolina congressional race which may end up hitting steven colbert 's sister, the president declined to weigh in on the democratic primary but said i'm sure it will be a spirited contest. and elizabeth colbert busch, she goes by colbert, will be on this show next week. finally, the other big political story today has to do with healthcare. florida governor rick scott has announced he will expand medicaid under president obama 's healthcare law. scott becomes the seventh healthcare governor and the fifth running for re-election in 2014 to accept the expansion. basically you could look at it that just about any blue governor in a state that obama carried seems to be finding a way to compromise on healthcare and that includes scott , even before he was thought of as a candidate in any state, he put his opposition to healthcare and he made it the center of his 2010 campaign.

>> so i bet you're wondering, where have i seen that handsome bald guy before, right? it was here, when i was a leading critic of the obama health plan . he asked for it. he thinks more government is all the the answer.

>> not surprisingly conservatives land blasted scott 's decision. quote, today he came out in the medicaid expansion he vowed to oppose. at every level of government, it is too easy to spend other money. when politicians feel they must do to get re-elected instead of doing what's right, they often lose re-election, and if not, they lose their way. it is a sad day for conservatives. folks, this is political pragmatism from a guy who has to turn around and run in florida next year. there is one exception to this blue and purple state . it's virginia's bob macdonald . macdonald doesn't have to run for relocation. he doesn't have a governor's race in his future. the next one he faces may be with republican primary voters in the state of iowa in 2016 . when it comes to health changes under the healthcare law, 25 of the 50 states have -- looks like the red-blue map. 17 states in the district have said they are planning on running their own exchanges. we're going to go more into this throughout the months ahead.