Biden's Second State Of The Union Was His First Campaign Speech 48:44

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From liar to an awkward kiss, the top five moments from the State of the Union address. And do you know what they're talking about when it comes to the awkward kiss? What was the awkward kiss? Okay, guys. Oh, Galen, you're so excited to explain this. When Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff were introduced and applauded for at the beginning before Biden ever entered the chamber, they kissed each other on the lips in what was just like an odd...

Like, look, I mean, it made its rounds on the internet. Like, it didn't look like the way that two professional, I guess they're colleagues. People usually like greet each other. It looked too romantic for the occasion. That's the awkward kiss. Oh my gosh. I completely missed this. Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. Last night, President Biden announced that he's running for re-election in 2024. Wait, sorry, I'm bad. My bad.

Who wrote that in my script? That's not what happened last night. I'm sorry about that. Last night, President Biden delivered his second State of the Union address. It was his first big national speech since the midterms and

To be fair, you probably didn't have to squint that hard to see how it could be interpreted as the launch of a re-election campaign. He focused overwhelmingly on domestic economic issues. He sparred with Republicans live in the moment over whether cuts to Social Security and Medicare should be considered in the debate over raising the debt ceiling. And he declared that the State of the Union is strong.

Good morning, Galen. Yeah, don't remind me. Yeah, don't remind me.

You did actually kind of steal my thunder because my answer to your first question is going to be that he's running for president. So spoiler alert.

So my apologies. Also here with us is senior writer Amelia Thompson-DeVoe. Hey, Amelia. How's it going? Good morning. I'm okay. I'm not as chipper as Nathaniel, and I'm way more of a morning person, so I don't know what's going on. Nathaniel is once again just messing with me, which I love. At this point, I think, how do you create a habit? If you do something every day for a month, you've created a new habit. So Nathaniel, I think you're just like permanently stuck this way now. Yeah, yeah. I'm a morning person now. Welcome to the club.

I will believe that when I see that. I am the only of the 538 reporters. I am the only morning person. So I find it very strange and I pay attention. I think I'm a morning and night person. I'm just a person. Yeah. Galen, you're just always awake. I think that's the difference. You're just a person. Life is just so exciting. Who would want to sleep through it? No, I know. Me. Definitely me.

Holds up her cup of coffee. I mean, yes, I, of course, have chemical assistance in caffeine as well. But let's get to it. Nathaniel, what were your principal takeaways from the speech other than that he's running? Or if you want to expound on the fact that he's running by all means? Yeah, I mean, it was that he is running for president. I mean, in general, states of the union are, you know, not

all that impactful. Maybe we'll talk about that. You know, it's a laundry list of policy priorities that often don't get done. Certainly this year, it was falling on the ears of a divided Congress. So probably not a lot will get done. So instead, he kind of chose to tout some of his accomplishments. So he spent a lot of time talking about the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, and all the great things that that will do.

And I thought that was interesting in light of a ABC News Washington Post poll that came out over the weekend that showed that Americans generally don't think Biden has gotten a lot done during his presidency, which I think he's gotten a good amount done considering how what narrow majorities he had to work with. But only 36 percent of adults said that he had accomplished a great deal or a good amount during his first two years. And 62 percent said he had accomplished not very much or little or nothing during

And this seemed kind of explicitly designed at pushing back against that idea, obviously, as a prime time address. You know, he had a relatively large audience, although that audience was also overwhelmingly people who are already plugged in. But it was an opportunity for him to kind of tout those accomplishments. He tried to spin aspects of the economy, which obviously, you know, people his his approval ratings in the economy are not good.

with inflation and all those things, but he tried to spin things like the kind of record low unemployment on some of his other weaker issues like immigration. He tried to talk up the progress that he has made. So it was definitely aimed at making the case for the Biden presidency. And the kind of refrain that he kept on saying was, let's finish the job. But I think that part was largely window dressing because I think he probably knows that given the divided Congress, they're not going to finish the job

But, you know, it allowed him to say what the job was and the parts of the job that he had started.

As Nathaniel mentioned, so much of the speech was about the economy. That's not so unexpected because Biden was coming into this speech coming off of a very good jobs report that came out on Friday. The economy added about half a million jobs, and that was substantially above where analysts thought it would come in. And in general, jobs reports are something that presidents like to point to because they come out monthly. They're much more legible to people

non-economists than most other economic indicators. And it's an easy way to say, look, the economy is doing well. He also talked, as Nathaniel mentioned, about inflation coming down. You know, I think this is a tricky place for him to be because overall, Americans don't think the economy is in great shape. They are less

negative about the economy than they were six months ago when inflation and gas prices were really, really high. And it didn't seem like we were going to be getting out of this mess anytime soon. Now, there are signs of progress. But yesterday, Biden's own Fed chair, Jerome Powell, was out saying that

that because the labor market is so strong, there will probably need to be more rate hikes in the future. And while the Fed is trying to guide the economy into what is called a soft landing, where basically inflation gets under control without sending the rest of the economy into a tailspin,

Powell was clear that that might not happen. And so to the extent that Biden is trying to make a pitch that his presidency is resulting in a strong economy for Americans, he has some evidence for that now. But I think going into his 2024 bid, which I agree with Nathaniel, this was very much Biden sort of

building the case for why he should run again. And we can talk more about sort of how he did that and how aspects like his age play into that. I think he was very much trying to present himself as someone who was vigorous and ready to go out on the campaign trail. A lot of what happens in the economy is not within the president's control. And, you know, even what the Fed is doing, it's not like Biden is telling Powell what to do. So, you know,

It was an opportune moment, the sort of the stars were aligned for Biden to make this argument that the economy is getting better.

But we're in a moment of really intense uncertainty. And obviously, that's not the direction you want to go in a State of the Union speech, especially when you're about to announce that you're running for president. But it does create this sort of precarious situation where he might have just been talking about how great everything is. And in a few months, you know, some analysts think the country could be moving into a recession. Like, I don't want to say that's definitely happening. I think there is just too much uncertainty to make any strong predictions right now.

But it was a more robust case about the state of the economy than I think was perhaps warranted. And I'm not sure how much Americans will buy it. Of course, the people who were watching probably already had their views and were not going to be convinced anyway. But to the extent that it trickles down...

I don't know if Americans agree and I don't know if Biden saying it is going to make a huge difference. So I agree with these perspectives. My honestly principal takeaway, maybe 15 minutes into the speech was, wow, this

Trump and to some extent Sanders really transformed American politics. I mean, the degree to which this speech was a populist economic speech with undertones of like America first all throughout it, I think were undeniable. I mean, early on in the speech, here's a quote that, you know,

You felt like Trump could have said, for decades, the middle class was hollowed out. Too many good paying manufacturing jobs moved overseas. Factories at home closed. Once thriving cities and towns became shadows of what they used to be. And along the way, something else was lost. Pride, that sense of self-worth. He goes on to say, my economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they're invisible.

Am I wrong here to say, like, that sounds kind of Trumpy? I mean, I don't think it's wrong to say that it's populist. I do think, though, that like that has also been Joe Biden's shtick for many decades. So it may just be to your point. You know, we are in a populist moment in American politics where these kind of, you

middle class heroes kind of have emerged. There were a lot of Bidenisms in the speech. Like if you have listened to past Biden speeches, there's like, he always likes to end his speech on, we're the United States of America, there's nothing we can't do. And he has his like anecdote about a parent going to their child and saying it's gonna be okay. A lot of those lines basically appear in every Biden speech.

Which is, you know, if you pay attention, but if you haven't, you know, they can be powerful if you're just hearing them for the first time. Yeah, no, I mean, I was mostly struck by the lack of culture war issues in this speech. I was talking to, you know, some of us on Slack and I was saying, you know, one thing I really would not have predicted is that in the year after Roe versus Wade was overturned,

More than a dozen states have already banned abortion. The midterms, one of the big themes was abortion, that in a Democratic president's State of the Union address, junk fees would get discussed before abortion.

That's pretty remarkable. And I think there are a few ways to read that. I mean, one way is simply that, you know, we're talking about the kinds of speeches that Biden himself would give. Abortion has never been a strong issue for Biden. He's a Catholic. He's sort of had a kind of conflicted stance on abortion historically, you know, sort of saying that he's pro-choice, but kind of seeming to be uncomfortable with the idea of abortion. During the 2020 primary, he got pushed pretty hard on that.

and eventually had to adopt some positions that basically everyone else in the primary was taking, but didn't seem, you know, did not seem to have really put his heart into it. And now we're in a position where Democrats are moving to the left on abortion. We've seen that more Democrats are saying that abortion should be legal in all circumstances, which is, you know, not a view or a position that was super popular five years ago.

And yet Biden's not talking about it in his speech. So maybe it's because Biden didn't want to. Maybe it's because there's genuinely very little that can be done on the federal level about this issue, although that certainly doesn't stop presidents from talking about issues when they want to. So if that is the excuse, I think that's a bit of a weak excuse.

But also, you know, to your point, Galen, I think maybe there's an argument that the Democrats see themselves as winning on this issue right now. In talking to anti-abortion advocates, even after the midterms, they're continuing to push Republicans to move to the right on the issue of abortion and to implement more extreme abortion bans. And this is something that Ron DeSantis is going to have to deal with during this legislative session because there are going to be pushes from

to impose a stricter abortion ban in Florida. And so I wonder if the fact that culture war issues like abortion didn't get introduced is because that's where Democrats feel like they're on stronger footing and the economy is where Biden felt like he had to make this very strong pitch because

I think people can see that the economy is not fully recovered, not close to fully recovered. And they're skeptical about these claims that the economy is doing well. So I think that's perhaps why we didn't hear as much about abortion or other social issues. It's just maybe somewhere where the Democrats feel like they don't need to take a lot of time in prime time to convince Americans that they're right because they think Americans are already on their side. Interesting. Nathaniel, do you agree here?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I was also struck by the very little passing mention of abortion in

Well, little passing mention of abortion. Also, I mean, the parents of Tyree Nichols were there. And so to the extent that he talked about violent crime and criminal justice, it was mostly about Tyree Nichols. That was maybe the most sort of progressive he was on social issues throughout, where he sort of made this bit bolder argument about, we want our children to be safe when they come home at the end of the day. And he talked about the talk that black parents have with their kids. Right.

But other than that, I didn't hear much in terms of progressive social issues. And with abortion, it was about codifying Roe or saying that he wouldn't he would veto a national abortion ban rather than saying, like, we need to go on the offensive and make, you know, abortion more available. That was not the pitch he was making. He was kind of like return to the status quo, please. Thank you.

Yeah, I was going to say, you know, I think the section on policing and guns is kind of the exception that proves the rule, right? He spent a good amount of time on that. That was basically the only non-economic issue, really, that he spent a good amount of time on. Maybe foreign policy, if you count that as one category. That was even surprisingly not that big of a part of the speech, given the war in Ukraine and the Chinese spy balloon. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Right, right. He could, I was surprised he didn't talk more about the spy balloon. Yeah, maybe there wasn't time to add it in. But yeah, I thought the section on policing and gun reform was probably the kind of the most powerful part of the speech. But it also does kind of also reflect

a place of relative safety for Biden, right? I think there is bipartisan agreement on the fact that Tyree Nichols' killing was terrible. There's some weird cross-currents going on with police reform where sometimes conservatives are on board with it. Gun control, that is a very partisan issue, but generally it's one that favors Democrats, et cetera. Yeah, and when it comes to the argument of

to disempower Republican arguments or maybe like co-opt their strongest points, stress the things that you've done, whatever. That's another area where I'm a little confused about the lack of discussion of China, because if we see we see in polling where overwhelmingly Democrats and Republicans increasingly see China as a threat and want the United States to take

a strong stance. So the rest of the speech seemed cohesive to me in terms of what the political maneuvering was. I didn't really understand that part fully. I'm curious, though, apart from wanting to be president for eight years, why did Biden give this speech the way that he did? What was his goal here?

Well, we haven't talked about how he was engaging with Republicans. And I think that was an important part of the speech. When he was talking about Social Security and the debt ceiling, there was some quite aggressive heckling. And he went off script and he responded to the hecklers and kind of engaged with them and was, you know, sort of trying to say, like, look, I'm going to get into the trenches. I'm going to change.

change some of your minds. It did seem like he was trying to reintroduce himself to this divided Congress as Joe Biden, the man who was in Congress for 35 years and was a dealmaker and reached across the aisle and could sort of talk the language of Republicans.

It seemed like he was really having the most fun during that part of the speech, which is funny because I would imagine that being heckled by the opposing party in Congress is not that fun. But he seemed to kind of relish the back and forth. And I think that, you know, that was obviously not scripted. But I think that was a sign of one of the things he was trying to accomplish, that he was sort of reopening this idea that he is there to engage and bring people over to his side. Yeah.

And kind of laying down the barriers as well. Like here was the TikTok of that was, okay, now we're going to talk about the debt ceiling. The deficit increased by this much under President Trump. The debt ceiling was raised every time without an issue. Now let's turn it to the current argument. And he says-

I know this isn't necessarily the Republican Party's position, but there are plenty of Republicans who want to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of a plan to increase the debt ceiling, at which point there was a lot of heckling in the audience from Republicans saying,

And he sort of had this back and forth in which he was like, so you're saying that Social Security and Medicare are off the books in terms of what we're going to debate. And he said, great. OK, now we have unanimity. Like this was all off the cuff, sort of seemingly almost negotiating with Republicans in real time. And then he sort of goads them into like, yeah, let's stand up for seniors. Everyone like stand up for seniors. So that was I mean, that was a kind of unique response.

moment as far as State of the Unions go. And maybe I know, Nathaniel, you said that State of the Union addresses don't accomplish much. Did this accomplish getting Social Security and Medicare off of the debate table when it comes to raising the debt ceiling?

Well, I don't know. I mean, actually, my understanding is that they, you know, have already agreed to do that. But, yeah, I saw somebody on Twitter say that, like, you know, the State of the Union is turning into, like, the British, like, prime minister's question time. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it did feel like that. Which is a fun way to take. Yeah. PMQs are so much better. It's just so fun to watch. I would love it if we had someone shouting order, order in the U.S. Congress. It would be delightful.

And maybe healthier. Like maybe they, maybe politicians just need to yell at each other a little bit and kind of, you know, blow off a little steam. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot has been said about how the state of the union is maybe kind of pointless and has outlived its, its usefulness. So, so that's an interesting, interesting direction to take it. But no, Galen, I thought that, yeah,

I agree that, you know, I thought that exchange was interesting. It almost like felt like planned, like Biden had set a little trap for Republicans. So, you know, that was kind of interesting. But then to Amelia's earlier point, I do think, you know, I kind of interpreted it a different way and not necessarily as him like being old, you know, wheeling and dealing Joe Biden, but kind of

trying to pick a fight, right, and show that he still has, you know, fire in the tank or whatever the metaphor is. I think that Biden does have a, you know, this feisty side and he was able to show it off. And I think that has a number of benefits insofar as we know that, you know, American voters like someone who fights for them.

Um, we obviously it, it may offset, um, some concerns about his age. And so I thought it wasn't him trying to convince them. I think it was him trying to, to draw a contrast with them. And, you know, he, he had that part where he was like, no, like, you know, it's in your plan. Like I call my office and I'll send it to you. Um, like he seemed ready to kind of, um, defend his position, um, which I think was politically effective.

I saw that like definitely I saw him trying to present himself as someone who was still all there, all politician, ready to run for president again, even though he's an octogenarian at this point. And Americans are clearly concerned about that. But, you know, I think you can also he was also drawing a contrast with the Republicans in terms of his

willingness to say, you know, like, let's make a deal. Let's come together. And I think trying to draw that that line between him who is saying, you know, let's actually get things done and the Republicans who are just heckling him.

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So, you know, maybe it's on the economy or maybe it's on immigration or whatever. But I think it's similar in that you want to disempower your opposition's strongest points against you. So, you know, maybe it's on the economy or maybe it's on immigration or whatever. But I think it's similar in that you want to disempower your opposition's strongest points against you.

But the way that you do that now is very different. So when Clinton and Obama were in office, the way that they disempowered Republicans' arguments were by saying, like, you're right. We've got to cut the debt. We've got to cut the deficit. We've got to reduce taxes, things like that. That was not at all the speech that Biden gave last night. The speech that Biden gave last night was still a sort of, like, populist, progressive vision for the economy where, like, we've got to increase taxes on wealthy people, increase taxes on billion-dollar corporations. So...

Here I'll actually quote Politico and then I'm curious...

For your point, the last two Democratic presidents to speak before Congress at the halfway point of their first terms had been thoroughly rejected by voters. Bill Clinton lost both houses of Congress in 1994 and interpreted the defeat as a rejection of the welfare state. He called for the government to be smaller, less costly, and smarter, and he co-opted the language of the Gingrich Revolution and rebranded Clintonism as responsive to the anti-government whirlwind that had been unleashed in November. He proposed lobbying reform, more deficit reduction, tax cuts, welfare reform, and deporting illegal aliens.

Barack Obama came before Congress in January 2011 in a very similar frame of mind. Democrats still controlled the Senate, but they had lost 63 seats in the House. He said, "...we have to confront the fact that our government spends more than it takes in. That is not sustainable. Obama went on to propose radical reductions in spending, especially by today's standards, floating a five-year freeze in discretionary spending and boasting that nothing was off the table, including the Pentagon, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security."

What a difference. Yeah. It was a different time. Well, it was also different midterms, right? Yeah. I mean, I think that's a lot of it. I don't think he would have given the same speech if the Democrats had gotten really shellacked in November. I think that's true. I think, though, that in a post-Trump world, there's less of an appetite for economic austerity on the right than there once was.

It's just, I mean, Trump said, like, don't touch Medicare and Social Security. Trump did that. Right. Well, and I mean, to be fair there, Trump was saying the, you know, the quiet part for Republicans out loud. Like, there are some Republicans who genuinely do want to cut Medicare and Social Security, but that has never been something that voters would be on board with. So, yeah.

You know, yes, it's very significant that Trump was willing to come out and say that repeatedly and draw that line on the sand. But I think when Republicans talk about cutting Medicare and Social Security, a lot of that is bluster. I mean, it would be so wildly unpopular. You know, maybe it's ideologically consistent bluster, but it's just not something that I think would be politically viable for them. And they know that. We'll just look at what happened with George W. Bush. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So now this is where the polling comes in. And I'm curious for your takes on this. Politico continues to say this is somewhat counterintuitive because by some measures, Biden is weaker politically than Clinton and Obama were.

were. Clinton had a 50% approval rating during that pivotal 1995 State of the Union. Obama's was 47%. Biden is at 42%. The pre-speech coverage on the cable networks was heavy on his dismal polling, including evidence that most Democrats are unexcited for him to run for re-election. I should say, according to our average of Biden's approval, he's at 43, not 42, to be precise. You know,

So overall, we talked a little bit about areas where he's less popular, maybe a little more popular. What does Biden's standing look like as he embarks on this seemingly reelection campaign?

I mean, yeah, he he is unpopular. He remains one of the most unpopular presidents at this point in his term, although he is he was only a little bit behind where where people like Obama and even Clinton were. So if you kind of look at, you know, especially some of these past presidents who had approval ratings in the 70s and somehow that used to be the norm, you

You know, Biden is, you know, fits more into a more recent mold. Obviously, Donald Trump was in this kind of range of 42 percent approval, 53 percent disapproval for basically his entire presidency. That's where Biden has been for for most of his. And he lost the election.

Indeed. You know, but I mean, I think we know at this point that I think between the 2020 election and the 2022 elections, we should know that presidential approval will only get you so far and that people are.

partisan and some you know democrats say they might you know somewhat disapprove of biden and we saw that people who somewhat disapproved of biden voted uh for democrats in the midterms um we saw that you know in in 2020 trump being unpopular you know some republicans held their nose and voted for him this is just a very closely divided country and i think that

presidential elections, certainly the next one, I guess I shouldn't get too cocky and project out into the future, but the next presidential election will also be very close. So, yeah, you know, I don't think, you know, he's obviously he would rather have an approval rating above 50% or, you know, dare to dream in the 60s and 70s like, you know, Eisenhower. But given current political realities, he kind of is where he is.

Well, and the polls about Democrats not wanting Biden to run, I think, are important because that is an unusual situation for a president to be in looking toward reelection in his first term. On the other hand, it's not like there is an obvious successor to run Biden.

instead of him. And I think Democrats are aware of that. And what Biden is probably hoping and assuming, and I think he's right about this, is that, you know, he's a known quantity. His favorability ratings among Democrats are good. And that once he starts running and sort of like the party leadership coalesces around him and Trump is running, we see who else runs in the Republican primary, the Democrats will say like, okay, you know, this guy got elected before we like him.

There's no one else that is running and we're really excited about. So this seems good. Let's do it. You know, so it's maybe not that Democrats are incredibly passionate about a second Joe Biden term. And I think especially the idea of another Biden-Trump rematch is really exhausting to Americans generally. And that is probably some of what the polls are picking up.

But when the rubber hits the road, I don't think Biden is going to have too much trouble convincing Democrats to vote for him.

Right, exactly. And just to put some numbers on that, Amelia, a recent AP-NORC poll showed that just 37% of Democrats want Biden to run again. And you, Amelia, have written for the site about how that is unusual historically. Usually one's own party, a president's own party, want them to run again. But yeah, I think it's a really interesting demonstration of how kind of cohesive the Democratic Party kind of like elite is. Yeah.

In that, you know, we saw during 2022, for example, Carolyn Maloney, a congresswoman who is running for reelection in New York, said in a debate like, oh, maybe Biden shouldn't run again. And it became like this huge scandal in the Democratic primary. And so kind of despite those numbers, Democrats are really Democratic elites are really in lockstep behind Biden. And so, yeah, we don't expect a primary challenge. Yeah.

She did. Yeah, she did. I know because that's my congressional district. I also know because that's my job. Okay. We're going to play a little game here. A good worker and a good citizen, Galen. Wow. We're going to play a little game here. I am going to read through a collection of headlines that I've taken from different newspapers and news sources this morning and

And I want, okay, do you want to take the opportunity to rate each one, one through five? Or do you just want to pick one at the end that you think best in or like one or two at the end that best encapsulates the speech?

Let's do the second one. I don't like rating things before I've heard all of them. Okay. All right. Because like what if. I was going to say we should rate them because I'm going to forget the first ones. How do you deal with the fact that like when you're rating the first one, you like it might, you might think it's a three, but then it ends up being a one or a five relative to the others. All of them can be ones. I feel like this exposes a fundamental difference between us. I'm an absolutist and you're a relativist.

Wow. We're going to do, we're going to make this really easy. We're going to be binary. Does this encapsulate the speech? Yes. We're not good at binaries either, Gabe. Thumbs up. Does this not encapsulate the speech? No thumbs down. Okay, here we go. New York Times. Biden challenges Republicans to help him finish the job on the economy. Accurate? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Wall Street Journal. Biden pushes economic gains, jousts with GOP in speech.

Yeah. Yes. That seems like the best headline for this podcast so far, actually. Washington Post. Biden mixes bipartisanship with defiance. Speech is marked by back and forth between president and Republican lawmakers. These are all kind of similar so far. Yeah, that's not like, I sort of object to the length of that headline. I was going to say the same thing. I think like, yes, it's accurate, but they cheated. CNN. Six takeaways from Biden's State of the Union.

No, okay, I'll read the subhead. I'll read the subhead. What are the takeaways? I'll read the subhead. The spectacle of Biden smiling through multiple rounds of heckling from some House Republicans was an apt illustration of his presidency.

I don't really know what that means. I don't know what that means, and I also don't think that's right. Okay. So that's what I'm talking about. Fox News. From liar to an awkward kiss, the top five moments from the State of the Union address. And do you know what they're talking about when it comes to the awkward kiss? What was...

What was the awkward kiss? Okay, guys. Oh, Galen, you're so excited to explain this. When Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff were introduced and applauded for at the beginning before Biden ever entered the chamber, they kissed each other on the lips in what was just like an odd...

Look, I mean, it made its rounds on the internet. Like, it didn't look like the way that two professional, I guess they're colleagues. People usually like greet each other. It looked too romantic for the occasion. That's the awkward kiss. Oh my gosh. I completely missed this.

I missed it too. I just don't care. Like, they're awkward people. Like, it's fine. Doug Emhoff, he's a nerdy guy. What are you going to do? The other moments in this top five moments were McCarthy shushes. So McCarthy shushed his caucus quite a bit. He did shush. I did. But also in a very, like, he was sort of, you know, like, he was very relaxed about it. He was kind of leaning back in his chair and was just like,

He had all the energy of an exasperated parent. Yeah, exactly. Whereas, you know, I think like Pelosi was much more like, don't do it, guys. Oh, no, it was like the looks, the side eye, the like, cut it out, cut it out right now, guys, during Trump's state of the union speech. I feel like that encapsulates how they manage their caucuses. Yeah, yeah. McCarthy's just like, guys. It makes me feel like it's like the way that I deal with my toddler on TV.

a weekend morning before I've had my coffee and I'm just, she's like destroying her playroom. Okay, let's move on to New York Post. Crimes against reality. Biden fibs relentlessly, tangles with GOP and raucous State of the Union and barely mentions China. The New York Post is always so saucy. Yeah. Well, he did barely mention China. He did barely mention China. I mean, I think he...

There were some aspects of the speech that were a little bit misleading. I mean, I think he kind of caricatured the Republicans' Medicare and Social Security plan a little. But I don't think it was like, was there anything that was like, there weren't any like real whoppers in there. No, it's not headline worthy. And I'm not sure he barely. No, certainly not. I don't think, to say he barely mentioned China out of everything, like he mentioned China. He barely mentioned the balloon. Like, I don't think that's fair.

And that's one one issue that The New York Post is obviously like interested in ginning up controversy about. I would say that also barely mentioned abortion. Right. Exactly. And if it was a progressive outlet, it might have. Yeah. But I think one of the things that they're referring to is Biden mentioned 12 million new jobs.

in his first two years as president, which is record-breaking. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy under Biden has only added 2.7 million overall jobs because everything else was sort of like lost during COVID.

So I think that's one point. That was misleading. That I did find annoying because you really can't, you know, you look at the jobs numbers from Biden's presidency and they look fabulous, but you have to see them in the context of that 20 million job loss

in the spring of 2020. And so, yes, you know, and also like the economy would have grown between now, you know, presumably more jobs, more and more jobs would have been added between now and between February 2020 and now. So I think for Biden to say that he is responsible for this massive job growth is pretty disingenuous. Okay, here's the last one from Breitbart. I'm sure you guys almost forgot it still existed.

This is 80. Biden, first octogenarian to deliver State of the Union. Well, it's not as bad as the headline. It's true. But yeah, obviously they're trying to, you know, a little backhanded compliment there for accomplishing him on his record breaking status. Okay, so who takes the cake here?

Oh, I don't remember. Like that Wall Street Journal headline. See, this is the problem, Amelia. You can't remember. Biden pushes economic gains joust with GOP and speech. Is that what we're going to call this podcast? Yeah, I remembered. I remembered. I remembered and I think that one was the best. Okay. The Wall Street Journal. That was fun or something. At least educational. I know we've covered a lot of ground here, but we're going to end on this.

Governor of Arkansas and former President Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union. It was, of course, much, much shorter than Biden's speech. What was her message? How did she try to respond to all of this?

Yeah, I thought that speech was interesting, actually, because so, you know, first of all, obviously, State of the Union responses have a long and checkered history of, you know, kind of squelching, promising political careers. And she didn't do that. And in fairness, actually, that really hasn't been the last several responses haven't been, I think, particularly noteworthy. I think people figured out how to make them, you know, relatively painless. But I did think it was interesting. The speech was

Was very kind of conservative red meaty and had a lot of culture war stuff, right? so she made reference to the woke mob and CRT without explaining what CRT was and it really struck me that like just the letters she didn't say critical exactly right

And so it's critical race theory for those who don't know. I assume people listening to this podcast do. And maybe people who, you know, the type of viewer who stays tuned for the Republican response to the State of the Union maybe do too, probably. But it was...

Clearly, I think not meant to appeal to that, you know, median voter, the suburban moderates that Republicans have lost. It was a base speech. And and so, you know, that was kind of an interesting choice, I think, and maybe didn't

um it set up an unfavorable contrast I think for Republicans compared to Biden when he was um trying to um he was mostly focusing on economic and populist themes and you know when you're talking about junk fees which is something that you know most people can agree on and then um Sarah Huckabee Sanders is like well you what you just heard from Biden was you know wokeism run amok um it just isn't I think a very effective um attack

But then other than that, I think, I was just going to say, if there's one thing that can bring Americans together, it's junk. It's hatred of junk. Yeah, right. I mean, that's like, just run your presidential campaign on that. I have always wondered why politicians don't spend more time talking about issues that don't fall neatly into the political divides that already exist. Like there are lots of things that you can, I mean, junk fees is a perfect example. They're basically apolitical and everyone agrees. And so the,

Well, except corporations who play a not insignificant role in shaping the political discourse, I'll just say. But, like, you would think that there would be more opportunities to do this, but perhaps not. No, totally. This is one of my, like, I wonder this, too. Like, what are other, like, stupid things? Like, just, like, stupid, like...

quality of life, like minor quality of life improvements that like, you know, the thing you spent when somebody says on Twitter is like, you know, like, you know, if somebody run on this platform, they'd get 110% of the vote. Yeah, no, I agree. Anyway,

Back to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The other interesting stuff, I thought that she – I mean, this always happens to a certain degree, but she did a good job kind of elevating herself. There were parts where it kind of felt like almost an Arkansas state of the state address. She talked about this groundbreaking educational plan that she's going to unveil. Yeah.

And I was like, OK, like, you know, I'm sure a lot of people around the nation care about this. And then the other interesting thing was at the end, she said, it's time for a new generation of Republican leadership. She said it twice. She said at the beginning, too. Little pointed. Little pointed. Someone else has been saying that. Nikki Haley, who is going to announce her run soon, probably. She notably declined to endorse Trump a couple of weeks ago when she was asked. So that was interesting.

Yeah. It was a very pessimistic speech, though, right? I mean, generally in tone. Nathaniel, I had gone to bed by this point because, again, morning person, not evening person. But from what I was reading, it really seemed like a very dark speech, which is another interesting contrast with Biden's, which was really trying to convince America that things are not as dire as everyone seems to appear or everyone seems to think. Yeah. I mean, of course, that's part of the role of opposition, I guess. But

The other things that I picked up on were, I think, to the extent that it focused on the culture wars was perhaps more of a base speech. But you could see the ways in which she was trying to make it more mass appeal. She basically characterized the choice between Republicans and Democrats as the choice between normal and crazy. That's the way she said it.

You don't you're shaking your head like you finish your thought. Disagree. And her her argument, the argument that she tried to make was like Democrats started these culture wars and it's taking it well beyond where we thought we were as a country.

And she actually spent significant time talking about the Little Rock Nine and her experience with the military, which basically cuts across all racial, demographic, geographic lines and how, you know, the uniting thing is like pride in America and service, et cetera, et cetera. But what she's saying is like what Democrats want to do is reinvigorate divides between races and genders and whatever. Like they're starting these divisions.

culture wars, these debates, and we're just trying to stand up for long-agreed-upon American ideals. And so, to me, the fact that it is

talking about the culture war and not inflation maybe makes it more of a base speech. But the argument she's trying to make, you can understand, and herself as the youngest governor in America, young mom who has just recovered from thyroid cancer, you could see how that pitch to... I don't think they went into the speech being...

whoever helps her with the speech and herself writing the speech, went into the speech saying, let's write a red meat speech. Like, I think as she saw it, she was appealing to median voters as well.

Right. But I think that's the problem, right? If that is their median voter speech, that kind of encapsulates the problem the Republican Party is in. Like when she said that thing about normal versus crazy, went to a Republican based audience, they're like, oh, yeah, the Democrats are the crazy ones. To the median voter, like we just saw in the 2022 elections, like,

The median voter thinks Republicans are more extreme than Democrats. They think the Republican side is the crazy side. So I don't think that that would, that was a great line on her behalf. So like, I think I take your point that, that, and certainly the parts about the little rock nine and the military thing, we're kind of, you're more standard, you know, state of the union response stuff is like, you know, we're so, you know, compassionate and great. But, but I think that because, because,

That it kind of made for an incongruous speech and maybe was not super well thought out in that regard because it had this stuff that was median votary paired with stuff that was basey. And maybe they were trying to have it both ways. Maybe they were trying to be median votary and just didn't don't realize that CRT doesn't land with median median voter. But I just don't think that it it worked in that regard. Hmm. Hmm.

No, I think that's a good point. Like if what you think is the median voter is not the median voter, then you got trouble. And we will see how the 2024 primary and general play out. I mean, if you think back to the first debate of the Democratic presidential primaries in 2019, I guess it was.

how different the policies were that they were talking about than what they talk about now. It was decriminalizing crossing the border. It was abolishing private health insurance, all kinds of things that you could not imagine for a minute Biden talking about today. And so parties can travel a long distance in two years.

Yeah. But like, in fairness, Biden was not endorsing any of those things during the first debate and in 2019. And he won. So, you know, I don't think it's that surprising. And I guess I'll also say that, like, maybe if Sarah Huckabee Sanders has presidential ambitions of her own one day, that speech wouldn't necessarily hurt in a Republican primary. So if you think about it through that lens, maybe it makes more sense.

It's also pretty low stakes. I mean, it's really like the things that get your State of the Union response remembered poorly are like the weird way that Marco Rubio drank water. It's not, you know, I think they hit the tone slightly wrong for reaching the median voter. Like no one is going to care about that even tomorrow. God bless. All right. We're going to leave it there for today. Thank you, Amelia and Nathaniel. Thanks, Galen. Thanks, Galen.

My name is Galen Drew. Tony Chow is in the control room and Chadwick Malin is our editorial director. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple podcast store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon.