To work this morning. At a special convened gathering in the white house, he addressed the potentially devastating effects of the socalled sequester cuts, which in the words of the president would take a meat cleaver to military and domestic spending. So these cuts are not smart, they are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of americans to the unemployment roles. This is not an abstraction. People will lose their jobs. President used todays appearance with a group of First Responders to explain what these cuts would mean to the life of an average american family. Cuts to airport security. Thousands of teachers laid off. Hundreds of thousands denied primary and preventative medical care. And if these cuts do go into effect, the president made sure that everyone would know it was republicans fanaticism over taxes that will be to blame. And so far at least what they have expressed is a preference where theyd rather have these cuts go into effect than close a single tax loophole for the wealthiest americans. Not one. And it didnt take long for the gop response. In fact, it didnt take any time at all. Senator Mitch Mcconnells reaction arrived in my inbox before the president finished speaking. Todays event at the white house proves once again that more than three months after the november election, president obama still prefers Campaign Events to common sense, bipartisan action. That was Mitch Mcconnell the psychic senator. In a paper statement, of course, as congress is currently in recess. Speaker john boehner, never one to balk at a touch of plagiarism offered the same criticism but he tried to lay the blame on the president by calling these his sequester cuts. Funny that because i seem to remember the speaker striking a different tone on the budget deal that produced the sequester. What was it he said again . You look this final agreement we came to with the white house, i got 98 of what i wanted. Im pretty happy. That was it. Lets get right to our panel. David corn is Washington Bureau chief for mother jones magazine, and karen finney is former Dnc Communications director. Both are msnbc political analysts and im delighted to say karen has joined us here in new york. If i can start with you, david, james clapper, the director of national intelligence, told reuters that just the cuts scheduled for our Intelligence Services would be, in his words, the budgetary equivalent of emergency amputations. Can you explain to our viewers, david, why republicans are so happily trumpeting the idea that we should take these cuts on the chin when they could provoke a National Security crisis . Well, id like to come up with a anatomy analogy when we go from emergency amputees to chins but nothing comes to mind. I think playing boehners remark over again, he got 98 of what he wanted it. This is it. 174 republicans voted for that. In washington history tends to start about five minutes earlier when youre talking, and you got to go back to what happened that led to that press conference that john boehner said that. It was the republicans saying were not going to routinely raise the debt ceiling the way we have in the past. Were going to force you to accept budget cuts and they cut a deal with the president and the president didnt like it but he felt forced to do so with these sequestered cuts if they couldnt come up with other forms of cuts by that commission that no one even remembers anymore. And so this is where we are. This is what the republicans agreed to lock themselves into, and all along from the very beginning the president said ill be happy to get rid of these sequestered cuts if you give a little on tax revenues. If you do something with loopholes or raise more of the rates on the well to do, and they just keep saying no, no, no, no, no. So theyre stuck with the deal they made, and Mitch Mcconnell was at this, too. So they can try to pin this on the president , but really i think theyre going to fail to do that and well see where the public goes when the planes stop flying. I think david makes an important point. We need to remember this idea was, okay, we are going to jump over the cliff, if you will, together and create this sequester. Its going to be so much pain for both sides its going to mean were going to come back to the table and were going to do our jobs, and guess what . Even when we have to threaten ourselves, they cant seem to come back to the table and do their jobs. What about this idea, karen, that Speaker Boehner is suggesting its all the president s idea. And now thats what theyre trying to do. They believe that essentially americans are so frustrated with washington that if they just blame it on the president , that what americans will see its just not working, and they think that the president will lose some, you know, some of the standing in the polls. What i think they dont understand, a couple things, number one, hes got more room to go than they do. Theyre in Single Digits at this point. I think americans very much understand. They forget all the polling that Shows Americans understand who it is who is not cooperating. Its the republicans. And, frankly, it was very smart of the president to do this event because yet again, here we have him as were approaching this deadline saying come on, guys, lets do Something Else, im ready to talk. So again i think that amplifies for the American People who is really trying to work on a solution. Yeah. David . If you look at Bowles Simpson as the mushy middle ground between both sides and they put out a revised version of their plan this morning, its still a lot closer to what the president has been willing to do than what the republicans have been willing to do. It entails entitlement cuts, some of which hes been opposed to, some of which he says he would consider, but it talks about raising revenues by closing loopholes. The republicans have said all along, no revenues, i dont care how do you it. So he is still closer to the theoretical middle whether we like that middle or not than the republicans are, and i think that gives him more standing to win this silly blame game that were left with rather than really doing the work of washington. Karen, listen for a moment to what mcconnell said. He said these cuts are an unnecessary choice by the president. Here is what congressman steve stockman, who, of course, brought the great ted nugent to the state of the union. He tweeted this, under sequester Obama Administration picks what gets cut. Now, again, thats totally untrue. Its absolutely incorrect, untrue, no way. Making that up out of whole cloth. Right. Absolutely. But as we know, the gop has not really been one to care too much about the facts. Theyve been playing fast and loose. This is not president obamas sequester. Again, this is a deal that both sides said they were going to link themselves together on to try to force an agreement. And, again, now theyre trying to say its about the president , and the other criticism that, oh, hed rather be out campaigning, you know, obviously they know that the more the president talks past them and directly to the American People, the more heat is on them to actually get back to the table and stop protecting big oil and the gas companies, which is one of the big loopholes that the president is looking at. Instead of taking that from medicare and medicaid and the people who need it the most, right . Which theyre saying they just refuse outright to do. Okay. And theyd rather be on recess. Of course. They love being on holiday. And we dont give the president credit for the 2. 4 trillion hes already done. President played golf this weekend but then he came back to work. He did come back to work. David and karen, and david first, how does this situation resolve itself . I mean, do we literally hit march the 1st, suffer all kinds of problems in terms of teacher layoffs, security staff on furlough, i dont know, airtraffic control falls apart. What happens . Yeah, thats about right. I think you got it. Very apocalyptic march 1st. It wont be the mayan apocalypse but may feel like it. But, remember, this is not the end of it. We then have the continuing resolution about funding the government for the rest of the year. We do. We have the debt ceiling again. We do. I think the president is out there saying im trying to put these guys in the corner because these other fights are coming up which will have to be resolved just as well otherwise we have further government shutdowns and perhaps financial crisis and a meltdown. So this is all about setting up those other fights. Id be shocked if they could come up with any sort of compromise or deal in the next week particularly when the House Republicans are not here. Of course. And, karen, the president said this is pain imposed by partisan recklessness. Absolutely. This was some of the harshest rhetoric the president has ever offered republicans, isnt it 1234. It is. I think youre going to continue to hear that harsh rhetoric as we approach this deadline to make it very clear whose fault it is because this is a manufactured crisis. You have heard him say that a number of times. Youre going to continue to hear that. I think they really want to make sure people know this can be avoided absolutely. And i think david is exactly right. Unfortunately there are all these calculations going on about weve got march 28th and we can hedge it for a couple weeks, but if youre sitting out in lima, ohio, or cleveland thats not what you care about. You want your government to do its job. That would be nice, wouldnt it . Wouldnt it . Karen finney and david corn. Thank you. David, before we go i want to say warmest congratulations to you. David corn is one of the recipients of this years george polk awards in journalism, one of the highest honors in our profession. David won for uncovering the new infamous mitt romney 47 tape. He will very soon be knighted by the British Government but for the moment he receives the george polk award. Congrats, david. Thank you, martin. No sirs yet. Coming up, troubling new details about the Mental Health of adam lanza and the glimmer of hope for actual gun reform. Stay with us. Tax refund time is here. 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The New York Times reports that while some pro gun senators remain too frightened of the nra to support a ban on assault weapons, there are a few who may be willing to back restrictions on high capacity ammunition clips. This would apply to the 15 and 30round magazines that we use during the massacre of children at sandy hook elementary school. Adam lanza is the subject of a front line documentary on pbs tonight. According to reporters, Police Investigators found thousands of dollars worth of graphically violent video games in the lanza household. I think he did what he knew how to do. Graphically violent video games dont make you turn into violence if thats not your predisposition. But this kid had a lot going on. Lets bring in msnbc contributor ari melber, correspondent for the nation and msnbc contributor Goldie Taylor, managing editor of the Goldie Taylor project. Good afternoon to both of you. Ari, were learning more from these reports of a darkly obsessive behavior, possibly inspired by other mass shooters on the part of adam hahn lanza, including the suggestion that Anders Breivik may had have some influence. How do we focus on improving the provision of Mental Health services at the same time as addressing things like high capacity magazines . Because it seems to me as though the Mental Health component has kind of been lost in the discussion more recently. I think it has been somewhat lost and it goes all the way back to the reagan era when you had serious cuts to the bone on a lot of domestic medical spending and people who were once deemed not fit for being out on the streets were released. This is when psychiatric institutions were basically closed and many of these individuals were just literally left to walk the streets. Exactly. Now mr. Lanzas case doesnt steam directly from that period but as a policy matter thats where were coming out of, those serious cuts, and today were talking about other cuts to domestic spending, veterans health, medical spending. I think the first thing you have to do is link it in a very serious substantive way to the fact that the government is going to have to spend money whether you look at the right and they want to talk about police in schools or what the left has been talking more about, which is both comprehensive gun regulation and medical spending, but no matter where you end up, its not going to be by cutting government to the bone. Right. Goldie, moments before this broadcast Vice President biden kicked off a town hall meeting on facebook and he mentioned the Mental Health issue. Take a listen, goldie. Mental health aspect of this issue, parents who have children and or people who need help and they know they need some help are often unable to get it because its either not affordable or not available to them, and there is a probability that some of the godawful things weve seen could be avoided. Jo goldie, dont you think that Mental Health is actually as critical to the fixing of gun violence as anything that we might do with regard to assault weapon bans or, indeed, controlling or reducing the number in a magazine clip . You know, i have always said that, yes, it is about the pervasive nature of the weapon you, but its also the condition of the human mind who has it in hand. So, yes, Mental Health is a very important component. In lanzas case his mother had a plethora of resources to help him. I understand while he was in high school he had a full complement of counsellors and other people walking him through his high school years. So he was one of those people who did receive care, but what he did not receive was some responsibility at home such as keeping a gun out of his hands and him out of that kind of harms way. I think thats where the breakdown is here. But absolutely weve got to close the loophole in terms of reporting. People who are adjudicated to be mentally ill, that should be reported to the states and then those states should be able to check that in the instant background check and not allow weapons to be sold. So that loophole absolutely has to be closed. Ari, youre a lawyer, and some lawmakers are still considering the president s proposals. Theres the possibility of breaking the proposals up in some way into smaller chunks. Now, i see them as separate, says senator angus king. Hes the independent of maine. Its the difference between appearance and functionality. High capacity magazines have contributed to a lot of these tragedies. Do you think it would be a better idea to say have a single bill that addressed high capacity magazines and then to do Something Else in relation to other matters of Gun Legislation . Its a tough question. I think generally what we see is you can get more done when you break things up, especially in this obstructionist environment. It is hard to move big legislation. Its hard to move a budget. Yes. Its hard to move anything. So i can understand the appeal to that. But i do go back to what the president said in the moving moments in the state of the union which is that the people hurt by these tragedies deserve a vote, and so whether it is one package or a bunch of individual statutory fixes, there should be an up or down vote in both houses of congress on every issue. In the house we have the problem of leading from behind. A speaker of the house, an important job, in line for the presidency, but we have john boehner announcing that he doesnt think his job is to do anything or lead on anything or pass anything until the senate i guess thats news to republicans who want a strong leader, it seems weak to me on this issue and others. And then in the senate, the highest obstruction rate, closure votes on the filibuster, of any presidency in american history. So i hope the president gets back out on the stump, out on the road youre pushing for the whole lot. Its clear i