0 somebody else, somebody who is being watched all the time, somebody who they are not going to be able to ask for help. they are tram mat clee bonded to that trafficker. >> you are here and working with the state attorney general, nita bells, thank you so much for calling attention to this major, major problem. i'm brooke baldwin. thanks so much for watching. "the lead" with jake tapper starts right now. making headlines and prompting conversations all day, our exclusive interview with president obama. and now for the very first time this hour you can see the whole thing in its entirety right here. i'm jake tapper. this is "the lead." >> i can't wait and the american people, more importantly, cannot wait. >> the national lead, the lead exclusive with president obama. his first interview since the state of the union. the commander in chief very frank about using his pen as a sword against congress. also talking about compromise with republicans on immigration, afghanistan, the nsa, why his policies still heroin and marijuana. and, of course, a few lighter moments including -- >> i think it's going to come down to the last play. >> like the rest of the america, the president will be in front of a tcv and watching the super bowl. i will try to pin down his call on who is going to disneyland after the final play. and the sports lead. why don't you guys refill the bean dip this year? the ladies are watching the super bowl. women have become a huge part of the nfl and they have the peyton manning jerseys to prove it. good afternoon, everyone. welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. the country watched as president obama laid out his agenda in his state of the union address and warned that if the potential gridlock in congress continues, he will not hesitate to go around them wherever and whenever he can. but there is only so much detail the president could get into during an 1:05 speech so he decided to sit down with us in waukesha exclusively where he filled in some of the details of the grand plans he announced in his speech. but our conversation went much further than that, encompassing everything from his battles with the republicans to his views on legalizing marijuana and to whether his early idealism has been tarnished. the president is making good on his vow about going ahead with executive orders. today he met with ceos from companies like apple and walmart. he got 300 companies to sign a pact to give more consideration and not discriminate against the long-term unemployed despite gaps. there are nearly 4 million of the long-term unemployed. perhaps, the biggest part. when i sat down exclusively with president obama, our conversation quickly turned to them. >> thanks for doing this, mr. president. >> great to be with you. >> your big push is whatever you cannot accomplish with congress you will take executive action or issue executive orders. how much can you really accomplish doing that? >> well, first of all, my big push is making sure we're focused on opportunity. making sure that every single day all of us in washington are trying to think about ways that we can help folks get good jobs, make sure that they are trained for the good jobs that are out there, make sure that those jobs pay, make sure our kids are getting a great education. those are the issues that the american people still very much are concerned about. and obviously there's going to be more than we can do if congress is able to break through some of the gridlock and if we're able to, for example, pass immigration reform, that is going to add growth to our economy, reduce our deficits. >> you don't seem confident that that's going to happen. >> i actually think we have a good chance. >> i mean the jobs issue. >> i think there are going to be some issues where it's going to be tough for them to move forward and i am going to continue to reach out to them and say, here are my best ideas. i want to hear yours. but, as i said at the state of the union, i can't wait. and the american people, more importantly, cannot wait. we know that unwith of the biggest problems right now in the jobs market is the long-term unemployment. >> people won't hire them because they've been unemployed for so long. >> because they have been unemployed for so long, folks are looking at that gap in the resume and they are weeding them out before they have a chance for an interview. so what we've done is to gather together 300 companies just to start with, including some of the top 50 companies in the country, companies like walmart and apple and ford and others to say, let's establish good practices. do not screen people out of the hiring process because they have been out of work. i'll be convening a meeting where a number of these top companies will be coming in agreeing to these best practices and we'll have an opportunity to encourage more people to come in. all those things cumulatively have going to have an impact. if we can get congress to pass a minimum wage law that applies to everybody instead of me through executive order making sure that folks who are contractors through the federal government have to pay minimum wage? absolutely but i'm not going to wait for them. >> i've been covering you for a long, long time, 2005, 2006 in the senate, i remember during the campaign when you talked about your presidency being a moment when the rise of the oceans would slow and the nation, the world would heal. and now you're talking about pen and phone and executive orders and executive actions. do you think you were naive back then or have you recalibrated your expectations and your ambitions? >> well, part of it is, we got a lot of that stuff done. we got, in this country, a health care reform that has already signed up millions of people and make sure that everybody who is watching, anybody who has insurance will not be dropped because of a pre-existing condition. if they don't have health insurance, they can get it at healthcare.gov. we have made enormous strides on the education front changing our student loan programs. the millions more young people get student loans. and so part of what's happened is, that check list that i had when i came into office, we have passed a lot of that. so in no way are my expectations diminished, but we have a divided government right now. the house republicans in particular have had difficulty rallying around any and genergeh less mine. and what i don't want is the american people to think that the only way for us to make big change is through legislation. we've all got to work together. >> let's talk about house republicans and senate republicans. there has been a large contingency of republicans critical of your new approach. senator ted cruz, who may run for president, calls this the imperial presidency. how do you respond to that? >> well, i don't think that's very serious. the truth of the matter is that every president engages in executive actions. in fact, we have been very disciplined and sparing in terms of the executive actions that we've taken. we make sure that we're doing it within the authority that we have under statute but i am not going to make an apology for sa saying that if i can help middle class families and folks working hard to get into the middle class work a little harder, then i am going to do it. not only are they willing to not do anything, they also want me to not do anything in which case the think the america people whose right now estimation of congress is all right pretty low might have an even lower opinion. >> it's not something you take seriously? >> i'm not particularly worried about it. >> let's talk about areas where you may be able to make some progress. i know that a path way to citizenship and immigration reform is very important to you and to democrats and others. it's possible that you might be able to get an immigration reform bill on your desk that has legal status for the millions of undocumented workers in this country but not citizenship. would you veto that? >> well, i'm not going to prejudge what gets to my desk. >> but in principle. >> well, i think the principle that we don't want two classes of people in smerk a principle that a lot of people agree with, not just me and not just democrats. but i am encouraged by what speaker boehner has said. obviously i was encouraged by the bipartisan bill that passed out of the senate. i genuinely believe that speaker boehner and a number of house republicans, folks like paul ryan, really do want to get a serious immigration reform bill done if the speaker proposes something that says right away folks are being deported, families are being separated, we're able to track young top students to provide the skills s or start businesses here, then there's a regular process of citizenship, i'm not sure how wide the divide ends up being. that's why i don't want to prejudge it. >> i just wonder if you see this at all in terms of especially the pathway to citizenship in the way that you seem to when you were passing health care reform and i was covering it, the public option. in other words, it will be great, in your view, if you could do it. it's not going to happen and there might be some expectations that you have to do because i have, having reported on this, don't think house republicans can pass anything that has a pathway to citizenship. >> well, here's the good news, though. number one, there is a desire to get it done and that particularly in this congress is a huge piece of business because they haven't gotten a lot done over the last couple of years out of the house republican caucus. they have been willing to say what they are against, not so much what they are for. the fact that they are for something is progress. i do know that for a lot of families, the fear of deportation is one of the biggest concerns that they've got and that's why we took executive actions, given my prosecutorial discretion, that we're not deporting kids who grew up here and are americans, for all practical purposes, but we need to get that cotified. and including strengthening borders and making sure that we have a legal immigration system that works better than it currently does. we have more from my interview with the president coming up. including his connection to sergeant first class corey remsburg, the wounded army sergeant that he honored during his state of the union speech. and then i got to the question on everyone's mind. >> i'm going to give you a choice. you just have to pick one. i'll give you two. >> yeah. >> hillary versus biden or broncos versus seahawks? 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