MSNBC's The Daily Rundown host Chuck Todd called out a "desperate" White House that tried to make 2014 a year of action, saying "there hasn't been much" during a segment on the "Six-month stalemate" in Washington.
"White house advisers desperate to turn weakness into a strength and to make Congress look like the impediment tried to declare 2014 as a year of action," Todd said. "But let's be realistic. There hasn't been much. The president was careful to set the bar about as low as he possibly could do it. In his State of the Union address there was no mention of big things, like entitlement reform, no lofty plans for deficit reduction, tax reform, no big challenge of his own party or challenge to the other party."
Todd then played a clip of what many called a "small-ball" speech by Obama at the 2014 State of the Union, where the president discussed preschool, unemployment insurance and raising the minimum wage, among other "scaled-down ambitions," as Todd put it.
"The president has largely failed to meet even those modest goals, whether it was raising the minimum wage, signing new trade agreements, getting an immigration reform deal done," he said. "While there hasn't been much achievement on the president's planned goals, there have also been a series of unplanned setbacks, especially abroad, from an escalating civil war in Syria, to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, a new wave of sectarian violence in Iraq, all eroding confidence in the president's leadership on foreign policy."
Todd also pointed out the VA scandal and fallout from the Edward Snowden's leaks as further domestic problems for Obama.