Former senior advisor to President Obama David Axelrod stated he does not believe the President will address the nation before next Tuesday on Morning Joe:
MARK HALPERIN: David, the White House has got a lot of news cycles between now and Wednesday, which seems to be a pretty important day. What do you know about what the White House is thinking in terms of when the President will speak and sort of, again, based on your knowledge and experience, what else do you think will see between now and Wednesday as the White House manages a public operation and lobbying operation.
AXELROD: Well I don't think he can speak until next Tuesday or so. I don't expect that he'll speak before that. He’s going to want Congress reassembled in town. There are certain logistical problems with speaking on Monday night. So I expect it will come some time after that. But I think they will be mobilizing or should be mobilizing high powered surrogates on this issue because the impression right now is that there is nothing but opposition to this and I heard you guys talking about this earlier and that's not true. And there are thoughtful people who have the same feelings that Joe and others have expressed around this table, who ultimately have landed on where the President has, which is that something has to be done. There has to be a response. The signal of not acting now would be disastrous for all the reasons that you guys have discussed. And so there needs to be more voices out there making that case. And so that I think will be orchestrated between now and the beginning of next week. Ultimately it seems to me that he has the biggest megaphone and he can lift this issue and explain it in a way that nobody else has the opportunity to do and he has to do that for this to be successful.