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- President Biden jabbing all of the Republicans who voted against the American Infrastructure Law then later took credit for it at home
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President Biden’s State of the Union address last night was surprisingly strong and spirited, but featured a few notable missteps.
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After showing up late to his own event because he couldn’t stop chatting with every single person he passed (relatable) President Joseph Robinette Biden (kind of shockingly) came out swinging in his State of the Union address. He was energetic, shouty Joe again, ad-libbing and heckling back at his hecklers (unhinged members of the House GOP) and cracking a bunch of jokes. The bar for his performance last night was relatively low, but he certainly exceeded expectations. Even Republican strategist Sarah Longwell said he was “on his game.” She continued: “He somehow managed to have it be incredibly political, he managed to be going right at Republicans, but was also joking with them, smiling with them,” which Longwell said created a nice “balance” to the speech.
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Biden, it seems, blasted a bunch of Red Bulls and went on the offensive, highlighting his administration’s policy achievements and dragging disgraced former president Donald Trump—whom he repeatedly referred to only as “my predecessor”—for his disastrous pandemic response, his chummy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthy he signed into law in 2017, among many other things. During the portion of the speech about abortion and the disastrous healthcare landscape the Dobbs decisions has wrought, he yelled at the Supreme Court while they were sitting right in front of him, which was pretty cool. Biden framed reproductive rights as not a women’s issue but a freedom issue, which was smart! He also made great points about his role in economic recovery, and the importance of organized labor, giving a personal shoutout to United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who was in attendance.
- A few days ago, GOP Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (who spent most of the speech looking like the prissiest little elf in the treehouse) had a meeting with his Republican caucus about “decorum” so as to avert a repeat performance of last year’s MAGA heckling spree. It, uh, didn’t really work. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) came to the address wearing head-to-toe MAGA gear, including the notorious red hat (no hats allowed in the chamber!), and regularly heckled the president throughout his speech. When Biden began discussing immigration, Greene began yelling “Laken Riley!”—a reference to the 22-year-old woman killed while jogging at the University of Georgia last month. An undocumented immigrant has been charged with her murder. Biden then ad-libbed a response, calling Riley “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,” (yikes) and redirected back to criticizing Republicans for stymying the bipartisan border security bill. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) wrote on X: “There was a lot of good in President Biden’s speech tonight, but his rhetoric about immigrants was incendiary and wrong.”
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In a speech with many pleasantly-surprising highs, the other notable low came when the president, about two-thirds of the way through the hour, finally addressed the elephant in the room: Israel and Gaza.
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Once the president got to the Israel-Gaza portion of his speech, he appeared less fluid and more prone to stumbling. After reaffirming his support for Israel and recounting the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, Biden’s diction was also less direct than in other portions of the address, using more passive voice, like when he said: “There’s also a fundamental responsibility, though, to protect innocent civilians in Gaza.” Then there was the non-specific: “Thirty-thousand Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas”—which felt a bit like saying: “Mistakes were made.”
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I asked President Obama’s former Deputy National Security Advisor and co-host of Pod Save the World Ben Rhodes for his thoughts on the Israel-Gaza portion of Biden’s speech. Here’s what he had to say:
“In an otherwise successful SOTU, the section on Gaza felt like a disappointment. First, it was striking that Biden led with Ukraine and put Gaza near the end—it was an indication that the White House has come to realize this issue is a political liability. Second, the language felt discordant from the reality on the ground. We heard Biden talk about Israel’s ‘added burden’ to avoid killing innocent Palestinians because Hamas is among civilians, and that ‘Israel must allow more aid into Gaza.’ But the reality is that the Israeli government has dropped hundreds of (U.S.-supplied) two-thousand-pound bombs on densely-populated areas and restricted the flow of aid to the point that there is a risk of catastrophic famine.
“It has been clear for months that the Israeli government is not listening to these requests from Biden, yet there has been no substantive leverage pursued, for instance through conditioning assistance or supporting a cease-fire at the United Nations. The announcement of a new pier to deliver aid to Gaza in a few weeks was an outgrowth of that reality: the U.S. is still pursuing a policy of unconditional support for the Israeli government’s military operation while trying to mitigate the substantive and political consequences of a policy that isn’t working.”
Despite a few lingering disappointments, most reactions to the president’s State of the Union fell along party lines, and pundits across the political spectrum seemed to agree that Biden did well, or certainly better-than-expected. Our own Tommy Vietor told the What A Day podcast: “What I was expecting him to try to do was do a heavy run-down of all the things he’s accomplished, and then lay out a second term agenda. What he ended up doing was something I didn’t expect, which was go right after Republicans right from the top.” He continued: “I think one of Biden’s problems lately is that…he’s lost some support from Democrats. And I think it will probably help him that those Democrats saw him fighting tonight. They want to see him look like a fighter.”
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Why is Trump having his best polling ever? In the latest subscriber-exclusive episode of Pollercoaster, Dan Pfieffer talks to Jennifer Palmieri, former top aide to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, about *THOSE* new polls that show Trump in the lead over Biden. To better understand if and how much you should panic, join Friends of the Pod for access: crooked.com/friends.
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Here’s something deeply unsexy that we probably don’t think about enough: America’s electricity power grid. Data centers, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and clean technology factories around the country are all electricity vacuums, so demand for industrial power is surging to record highs. Northern Virginia apparently needs the equivalent of multiple large nuclear power plants to serve all of the new data centers planned for the region. Texas—where electricity shortages are commonplace in the high heat of the summer—faces the same issue. AI is a major factor in the skyrocketing demand for electricity, leading tech firms like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft to look for new data centers. The nation’s aging power grid is showing signs of strain, so utilities and regulators are scrambling for credible plans to expand it. Millions of electric cars and energy-efficient household appliances will require electricity to meet state and federal climate goals. Manufacturers of clean technology like solar panels and electric car batteries will require massive amounts of power. Utility projections for the amount of power they will need over the next five years have doubled, and are expected to keep growing according to new findings by the research firm Grid Strategies. These will be necessary transitions as we divest from fossil fuels. But America also needs to innovate on where this electricity will come from.
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The Senate passed a $460 billion bill to avert a partial government shutdown on Friday, sending it to President Biden for signature.
Donald Trump tightened his grip over the Republican Party on Friday, when his hand-picked candidate, Michael Whatley, and his literal daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, took over as chair and co-chair, respectively, of the Republican National Committee, replacing Ronna McDaniel.
The United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates announced they would join the United States in helping to establish a coastal corridor to Gaza, as Israel continues to limit the supplies allowed in by land according to international humanitarian aid agencies.
At least five people were killed by airdropped aid that fell on them in Gaza after parachutes on the packages failed to deploy.
The ex-president of Honduras Orlando Hernández was found guilty of working with drug traffickers including El Chapo on Friday.
American lawmakers are coordinating their most-serious attempt to effectively ban TikTok in the United States, or separate the social media/video app from its Chinese owner. The app quickly rolled out notifications urging its 170 million American users to call their representatives and complain about the bill, which it allowed them to do with just a few clicks. The calls quickly overwhelmed congressional phone lines. Scary stuff!
The American Embassy in Moscow said on Friday it was monitoring reports of “imminent” plans by extremists to target large gatherings in the Russian capital.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has ruled out a third-party presidential bid, probably after coming to the accurate conclusion that nobody likes her.
Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-AL) gave the GOP Response to the State of the Union address last night and it was so deranged that even the MAGA faithful refused to defend it.
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It’s International Women’s Day! As always, thanks for sparing a whole 24 hours of your time for us and make sure to Venmo every woman you know.
Speaking of Paying Women, Trump posted a $92 million bond in New York to cover the money he owes writer E. Jean Carroll for defamation while he appeals the jury’s verdict.
President Biden is taking his State of the Union act on the road, selling it in-person with campaign stops across America and launching $30 million in new ad buys.
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