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From the president starting his speech. they call at this time second term curse for presidents. problem started with katrina. it ended into catastrophic crisis. ronald reagan s second term was mired in the iran contra scandal. president nixon was run out of town following watergate, second terms are tough as a rule in the modern era. that said, at least thus far, republican has managed not only to avoid the second term curse. he s also notched up in the second term a bunch of the things he wants to be remembered for. this past year alone, he reached that controversial landmark nuclear agreement with iran. he restarted the relationship with cuba. he helped negotiate a truly historic global climate change agreement with literally the whole world. even though that shows he ....
Getting done what he wants done, so far, he is beating the second term curse. that doesn t necessarily mean president obama has reaping any domestic political rewards for that list of accomplishments. nights like this are when presidents try to change dynamics for that, trying to make the country as happy about the list like that as they understandably are about it at the white house, itself. joining us now is nbc news historian. thank you for being with us on this big night. me too. you were saying a secular holiday. probably for us it s like woodstock. less mud. a little less mud. we hope. pretty much just as much drug-induced pleasure. that remains to be seen. is there anything different about final state of the union addresses? looking back at other presidents, is the final state of the union any different than other final state of the union addresses? sure. this is probably the close to ....
Yet. not at all. some of this we can just point to structural issues. the second-term curse. he s six years in. americans are kind of bored of him. he hates washington. but then he s also caused a lot of this mess himself with the healthcare.gov and the v.a. scandal. that s what americans are paying attention to. the number one story they are focusing on more than the world cup or anything. so he can t catch a break here at all. the white house is happy about the numbers but it s not enough to turn things around for them, i don t think. alex, do you think the level of frustration sent him over the edge a little bit? i want to play a clip of him taking a swipe at wall street yesterday. more and more, the money generated on wall street is based on arbitrage trading bets as opposed to investing in companies that actually make something and hire people. we have to continue to see how ....
Shutdown. and the granddaddy of all agenda busters. that s on me. reporter: the incompetent rollout of the affordable care act, which hurt the president a lot. there was a time when i was a young invincible. after five years in this office, people don t call me that anymore. reporter: politically, 2013 was the cruelest year for the president. he s got the poll numbers to prove it. and an agenda that mostly didn t happen. i will faithfully execute reporter: presidential second terms are so often downhill trips, there s a name for it. second-term curse. to shake it off, this president is in dire need of a better economy and a clean run for his health care law to bolster his poll numbers. and then he needs a change-up. in politics, that means either double down on your efforts or pivot. sounds like the president will choose both. work with congress to get what he can, go around them with executive power to get what he wants. he is going to look in every way he can with his ....