House promises a more aggressive response to hacking attacks. Were joined by house intelligence chairman mike rogers. And eyes on the road. Well reveal the real reason why almost everybody has dash cam in russia. Apparently in russia its common in your morning commute to involve a hatchet dispute, fighter chopper fly by, or, i dont know, tank how unfazed are russians . And the cows, they just got up and went on their way across the street. Unbelievable. Good day. Jim will bring us more on that in a few moments. Im Andrea Mitchell live in washington. If you ever wondered just why comprehensive Immigration Reform is such a heavy lift for lawmakers, just ask john mccain. He got an earful at a town hall meeting in arizona last night. Why didnt the army go down there and stop them . Because the only thing that stops them, im afraid to say and its too damn bad, but is a gun. Thats all that will stop them. The borders 2,000 miles long, sir. I dont know how much troops and army people you think would have been required. I dont know how many you think will be required, but ill give you expert information that shows you probably maybe youre talking about 2 million soldiers. You want to round up 11 Million People and send them back to their country . Youre not going to do that. They are not going to do that, though. They are people who have been here illegally for 50 years or 40 years. And then telling them to become guest workers . No, you cant do that. Why cant you do that . Because were a Judeo Christian nation. Youre a senator with a government doing nothing about it. You said build a dang fence. Wheres the fence . In case you missed it, i showed you. Thats not a fence its not a fence . Its a banana. We put up a banana with about 600 million appropriations we have. That is just sort of a snapshot of what these senators and members of congress are encountering on their recesses. Joining me now for our daily fix, chris cillizza, managing editor of postpolitics. Com and New York Times david sanger. A lot to get to today. First, chris cillizza, build the dang fence. That was john mccains Campaign Advertisement a couple of years ago, and now its being thrown back at him and hes trying to take a rational approach and hes facing the anger of the people who live near the border. You know, andrea, you can sort of follow the politics of the attempt to comprehensively reform immigration through the sort of lens of john mccain. Remember in 2007, john mccain was very involved in this idea of comprehensive Immigration Reform. That support virtually ended his candidacy for president. He abandoned that and wound up in him coming back to be the 2008 nominee. In 2010 where the build the dang fence ad ran, he was facing a republican primary in his senate race saying that mccain was for amnesty, mccain wanted to let people who were here illegally stay. Mccain ran hard to the right, won the primary easily. Now its john mccain looking at his legacy, i think, and saying coming back to sort of where he was in 2007 and saying, look, these 11 Million People arent just going to go back. We need to do something about the system thats broken and still there is that opposition. In some ways its not different from the opposition that was there in 07, frankly, andrea, that led him to kind of walk away from his initial support from Immigration Reform because he wanted to be the republican president ial nominee. Now, david sanger, you have john mccain facing this, but for the first time now, the president called marco rubio in israel, reached out to marco rubio, reached out to lindsey graham. Hes finally calling the republican members of the Bipartisan Coalition after only dealing with Chuck Schumer and the democrats up until then. Its a big change for the president. I think as chris indicated, you saw in that clip a Republican Party that is caught between its traditional base and its past. And in marco rubio, what it hopes is its future. They all saw the numbers coming out of this president ial election. They saw how hispanics voted. They recognized that they needed to change, but the partys having a difficult time just getting back to where george w. Bush was in 2001 when he first came in and proposed an Immigration Reform that sort of went away as soon as 9 11 happened. Let me ask you about the sequester, chris cillizza, because the pentagon is suggesting there will be 700,000 civilian layoffs. Real people are being effected now, but everyone expects this will kick in in nine days and then, i guess, the white house thinks theyll negotiate the continuing resolution and some sort of an agreement will occur magically before the end of march. Republicans still say they wont buy into any taxes. So we havent bridged any of these gaps. We havent, andrea. Look, i know the president came out and gave a statement yesterday sort of expressing his desire for a deal, but i think this is really about and republicans are doing this too about positioning for march 2nd and beyond. No one expects a congress, who isnt even here this week, they are taking the president s week off, fine with me if i had that week off. They are taking this week off. Next week they are back. Congress doesnt get big budget deals done in eight days time, seven days time. The political positioning to see who has the upper hand in the negotiations that, in theory, will go on once we past march 1st and the cuts, as you point out which will, particularly in the federal workforce, will effect things. Once people realize those are happening and demand of their elected officials something that averts those cuts in the future. And the whole question of Cyber Attacks, the administration, eric holder and others are going to come out with their proposals this afternoon. Weve been reporting on this, but you, david sanger, were the first to report on the study by a top security firm, which for the first time zeroed in not just on china, but a particular building in shanghai, which is believed to house a unit, a top elite unit of the chinese army. I think the difference in the long report that we published in the times yesterday, which was based on what they did, then we went off on other security firms to see if we could confirm their findings, and we did. Was that for the first time these attacks that the chinese have largely denied are coming out of the government have been taken right down to a neighborhood thats dominated by the headquarters of this unit 61398. Its the cyber unit, a major cyber unit, of the Peoples Liberation army. And the element of surprise here is how much is coming either out of that building or youve got to believe out of the noodle shops surrounding that building, given the volume, its hard to believe were talking about thousands of Cyber Attacks against at least 141 companies, 27 industries, at least according to this one report that officials have confirmed for both you and me. Thats right. And this was just following one Major ChineseHacking Group called comment crew or the shanghai group, which is believed synonymous with this p. L. A. Unit. That does not include many of the other chinese groups of which there are probably about 20 that are followed regularly. By the way, the New York Times was hit by a chinese group, but wasnt the one we wrote about. Separate. Yes. Well, david sanger, more to come on this. Thank you very much for joining us. And chris cillizza, as well. Joining me now for his first Andrea Mitchell reports debut as an nbc news and msnbc political analyst, david axelrod, former senior advisory to president obama. Thank you very much. Great to have you with us on this team. Lets talk about the sequester. Good to be with you. I bet its better to be with us than back in the white house right now, given what the president is facing. Theres a lot of posturing from both sides. How do you see the president working his way out of this budget situation . I assume that you think he has the politics behind him. Well, the dilemma for him in moving forward here is i think you have a country that is kind of inured to fiscal crisis like this. Theyve always resolved themselves, so its hard to raise peoples sense of alarm about these things, because their assumption is this is just washington being washington. So, it may take, as chris suggests, and i think were going to see the deadline passed, it may take actual pain for people to pay attention, say, this one is real. This is meaningful. There has to be action. And, david, john kerry gave his first speech as secretary of state. He was at uva in charlottesville this morning and this is what he had to say about the impact of the budget. Think about it. Its hard to tell the leadership of any number of countries that they have to resolve their Economic Issues if we dont resolve our own. Lets reach a responsible agreement that prevents these senseless cuts. Lets not lose this opportunity because of politics. David, hes pointing out that this is a National Security issue. This is an issue of Foreign Policy and domestic policy merging. Well, theres no question about it. I think there are real consequences to the sequester. Remember, it was put in place because the thought was that the cuts were so odious that no rational legislator, no rational government official, would allow it to happen, and so they are painful and they will have impact. And it is troubling. And the question is whether when Congress Returns next week there will be a sense of urgency about it, but i do think, as i said earlier, the problem right now is the public has sort of tuned out to all this because its part of the washington follies at this point. And their sense is somehow it will all work out. And theres also a feeling that washington leaders on both sides have been crying wolf for so long and they always somehow kick it down the road and it never crashes the markets. But you never know until it happens whether or not its actually going to happen. I want to ask you about i also think, andrea, one other thing i believe is that there is a belief on the part of some of the republicans in congress that maybe the sequester is all right. Maybe this is another way of shrinking government in a dramatic way. And i think, you know, thats a dangerous idea, but its not uncommon in some quarters on capitol hill. No doubt. I want to ask you about Immigration Reform, because despite what happened to john mccain at a town hall meeting last night in arizona, there is a general feeling that i know ive talked to Chuck Schumer and other democrats who are working on this that something may actually happen, that copy of the president s plan, perhaps, was poorly timed. The fact that a reporter got a copy of it and it did upset marco rubio and a number of the republicans, but the president s now reached out, called rubio, called lindsey graham. Is this the start of a real effort by the president to try to bridge these gaps . Well, first of all, i think he had to make those calls. It was a mistake that that report was leaked. I think it was disseminated too widely. I know from my own experience in the white house when these reports are disseminated among agencies, inevitably, they get leaked. And this got leaked in an untimely way, so he had to call them and settle down the brew haha that ensued as a result of that. I believe it will move forward for the reason david sanger suggested. I think republicans are looking at the results of the last election and theres no doubt that the president got 71 of the latino vote. It was the reason, part of the reason, that he carried states like nevada, colorado, florida. They are looking at their future. A state like texas in one or two cycles is going to be in play because of the large hispanic population there. So they are wanting to get right on the issue. In terms of the president s moves, my understanding is his staff has been meeting with the staff of the gang of eight right along two or three times a week. So theres been communication, but i think its a very delicate dance because of what senator mccain encountered in arizona. I think the republicans are very sensitive to how this is orchestrated, and so the leak of that report was an unfortunate thing from the standpoint of trying to get something done. And, finally, i dont know if youre a golfer, but the best golfer and perhaps the most famous golfer in the world, tiger woods, had this to say about the president on the course. He hit the ball well. Got an amazing touch. He can certainly chip and putt. If he ever spent, after these four years, if he spends more time playing the game of golf, im sure he can get to where hes a pretty good stick. I think its going to be a while before the president gets enough time to really work on that golf game, but thats pretty good. You need a good touch to play in washington, ill tell you that. I think tiger also showed some good political skills there and good diplomatic skills in his description of the president s game. So, maybe he has a future in politics after golf and the president has a future in golf after politics. Lets be more sure of the second than the first, but thats another whole story. I agree with you. David axelrod, thanks for having you. Thank you very much. I hope this is just the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I look forward to it, andrea. Thank you. Now the sequester nine days from now kicking in. Are there any options left . Former director and member of the president s Debt Commission alice rivlin joining us. Still ahead, live in south africa where there were chilling new details today revealed by both sides in the case against Oscar Pistorius. This is Andrea Mitchell reports only on msnbc. No two people have the same financial goals. Pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. Visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. I took something for my sinuses, but i still have this cough. [ male announcer ] a lot of sinus products dont treat cough. They dont . [ male announcer ] nope, but alka seltzer plus severe sinus does it treats your worst sinus symptoms, plus that annoying cough. [ breathes deeply ] oh, what a relief it is [ angry gibberish ] with simple, real ingredients, like roasted peanuts, creamy peanut butter, and a rich darkchocolate flavor, plus 10 grams of protein, so its energy straight from nature to you. Nature valley protein bars. One of the nations leading budget experts says that its still possible to revive that grand bargain, the real budget deal, if politicians would only stop playing the blame game. Joining me now, alice rivlin, the founding director of the cbo and former omb director, also a former member of the fed, former vice chair of the fed. Youve done it all. Well, alice, why do you have some optimism that there is still a chance to do something significant about the budget . I cant believe were going to be stupid enough not to. I think thats the main reason. Everybody who is involved understands that what has to happen is to get our debt under control, not immediately, not too fast. We shouldnt do this dumb sequester thing, but we should get the partys back to the bargaining table and say how are we going to stabilize our debt so it isnt growing faster than our economy can grow. That means entitlement reform. It means tax reform. Everybody knows that. And weve got to get back to it. The president said that hes in favor of entitlement reform. He has been specific about dealing with medicare and some aspects of retirement, but has he been specific enough . Im going to ask you about taxes in a minute, but from the president and the white houses perspective, as he put enough out there on the table to reel in the republicans and get them to negotiate seriously . Well, i hope so. Hes put some things on the table that his own troops didnt like, which is absolutely necessary. He had to do that to show that he was serious. One thing is the reform of the Consumer Price index, which is really a technical adjustment, but it would mean slightly lower Social Security benefits and other benefits going forward. Now, you could offset that with other changes in the law, but it is the right thing to do. And his own troops were kind of unhappy about that, but he put it out there and he has certainly put medicare adjustments of various sorts on the table. The table that matters is the one that they will actually be negotiating around, and theyve got to both get there and then cut a deal. What do you say to republicans who say we did revenue last time to avoid the last deadline and were not revisiting that and thats what the republicans say . I think they are wrong, because since we started into this effort to contain the debt, we have done a large piece of spending reduction. The budget control act of august 11, you remember that, that froze Discretionary Spending for ten years. That picked up a trillion dollars or so over the ten years. Thats not small change. And in addition to that, the various continuing resolutions have cut Discretionary Spending. So, its not the problem. The problem is the entitlements and taxes. So, thats what they ought to be talking about. What do you think of Simpson Bowles revisited this slightly scaled back plan they unveiled yesterday . Its the right idea. They are saying exactly what im saying, get back to the bargaining table and work on the things that are driving the debt in the future, which is the aging of the population, the fact that Health Care Costs have been going up rapidly. We need to slow the growth of the health care spending, and were going to need some more revenue from a reformed tax system. Thats what im saying, thats what they are saying. Alice rivlin, its always a pleasure. Thank you very much for visiting us. Thank you. Hope springs eternal. Up next, in the politico briefing, advice from joe biden. And house intelligence c