Tangle - President Biden's State of the Union.

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Biden's State of the Union. On Thursday night, President Biden delivered a combative, campaign-oriented State of the Union, contrasting himself with former President Donald Trump while also welcoming exchanges with Republicans who shouted out from the audience. The president spoke for 68 minutes and mentioned his "predecessor" 13 times. You can read a transcript of the speech here or watch it here. You can read today's podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story here and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.You can also check out our latest YouTube video where we tried to build the most electable president ever here and our interview with Bill O’Reilly here.Today’s clickables: NYC event news (0:50), Quick hits (4:25), Today’s story (5:56), Left’s take (10:49), Right’s take (14:35), Isaac’s take (18:16), Listener question (23:03), Under the Radar (25:49), Numbers (26:30), Have a nice day (27:43)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Good news and bad news, everyone: Our New York City event sold out over the weekend! That's good news for us and for everyone who bought their tickets early, and bad news for everyone else who wanted to go. But we talked to the venue and were able to release some more tickets to make sure we got as many members of the Tangle community in the door as possible. So, more good news: There are a couple dozen more seats available. They're going to go fast, so get your tickets now!While we're on the topic, I'm thrilled to announce two of our guests for the event. We'll be joined on stage by Katrina vanden Heuvel, the longtime editorial director at the progressive magazine The Nation, and Josh Hammer, the biting conservative columnist who is now a senior editor-at-large at Newsweek.Buy your tickets hereWhat do you think of President Biden’s State of the Union address? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly.

Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul,

and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address, his third State of the Union Address, could be his final one if he does not win re-election in 2024. We're going to talk about what he said, his approach, how the night went for him. As always, we'll share some views from the left and the right. Before we jump in, though, I have some very exciting news. Good news and bad news, I guess we could say. Our New York City event sold out over the weekend. So first of all, thank you to everyone, my New York family, fans, friends, all the folks who turned out and bought tickets. It is awesome.

It's the first time we've ever sold out anything. We did not sell out the Philly show. We came very close and the room was packed and it was awesome, but we did not sell it out. So this is really cool. I'm super appreciative of everyone who bought tickets so far. I also got some text messages from friends and readers who were like, hey, I didn't get my ticket

and now it's sold out and I wanna come. So we hit up the venue and we basically said, hey, we sold out. There's still more demand. What can we do? They found a way to release some more tickets by, I honestly don't even totally get it. I guess reorganizing the room a little bit and also releasing some tickets that were VIP into general admission because we did not sell out the VIP tickets yet. So anyway, long story short, there are now a couple dozen more tickets on sale at the citywinery.com website. There's a link to it in today's episode description and in our newsletter. It's all over social. It's on our website, readtangle.com forward slash live. So go get your tickets now. If you have not yet,

if you are in New York and you want to come to the show, please go get your tickets now. If you have not yet, if you are in New York and you want to come to the show, please go buy your tickets. They are going to be gone for real very soon, I hope. And relatedly, I also can now announce two of our guests who are coming to the event. We're going to be joined on stage by Katrina Vanden Heuvel, who's the longtime editorial director at the progressive magazine, The Nation. She'll be providing a kind of lefty voice as we discuss the 2024 election and its implications. Katrina is a titan in the media industry. She is very well-known, very big, very, very interesting commentator with some kind of unorthodox views for progressives, which I think is going to be fascinating to have on stage.

I'm so excited she's coming. And then we have Josh Hammer, who you've actually heard on this podcast before. So you know that we are appreciative of his work. We've brought him on to interview him about some of the stuff he writes. His opinion pieces have been cited regularly in Tangle. He is a biting conservative columnist. He is now the senior editor at large at Newsweek. He is, in my opinion, one of the best people I've seen at defending conservative causes, conservative views, conservative policies. I don't even know

where he's going to land in this election. I mean, I'm almost certain he's someone who's going to support President Donald Trump, but he's so critical of so many things that people on the left and the right are doing that I'm just interested to have him on stage and hear his view. So it's going to be electric. I think we are hoping to bring in a third guest very shortly, which I'm really excited about. So there'll be some more news in this space, but it's happening. We're coming to New York. It's a dream come true for me. Our tickets are sold out. Now we're releasing some more. You have a small little window to get those tickets. Please go get them if you haven't yet. And thank you to everyone who's already jumped

in and supported us. All right, with all the event stuff out of the way, we're going to jump in, starting off with some quick hits. First up, Sweden officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, becoming the 32nd member and ending more than two centuries of military non-alignment. Number two, a House panel unanimously advanced a bill that would keep TikTok out of app stores unless ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, sells it. Number three, several fertility clinics in Alabama say they're going to resume operations of in vitro fertilization treatments after Governor Kay Ivey, the Republican, signed a bill to protect providers.

Number four, the United States military evacuated non-essential embassy personnel from Haiti amid ongoing gang violence. Number five, the centrist group No Labels voted to move forward with a 2024 third-party ticket, though it hasn't yet announced its candidates. And there it is, President Biden delivering a feisty and animated State of the Union address tonight. Probably one of the most political addresses I have ever heard before a joint chamber at this time drawing a sharp contrast with Republicans. And while he did not mention Donald Trump's name, he referred to his predecessor more than a dozen times, taunting Republicans at times. On Thursday night, President Biden delivered a combative, campaign-oriented State of the Union, contrasting himself with former President Donald Trump,

while also welcoming exchanges with Republicans who shouted out from the audience. The president spoke for 68 minutes and mentioned his quote-unquote predecessor 13 times. There is a transcript of the speech and a link to it in today's episode description. Biden began his address by focusing on funding for Ukraine, January 6th, abortion, and the state of the economy, issues that have already become pillars of his 2024 campaign. On the economy, he called out an unfair tax code and accused Republicans of handing wealthy billionaires and corporations $2 trillion in tax breaks under Donald Trump. He promised to raise corporate tax rates, combat shrinkflation, the

idea that corporations are giving less to consumers for the same price, and continue to fight junk banking fees. On abortion, Biden accused Trump of celebrating the fall of Roe v. Wade and urged voters to look at the chaos that has ensued since the Supreme Court decision. He added that some Republicans in Congress were going to push for a national abortion ban. Biden also ran headfirst toward the issue of his age, which has become a major concern among voters. He noted that he was born during World War II and emphasized that his experience growing up in the 1960s taught him to embrace freedom and democracy. I know I may not look like it, Biden said, but I've been around for a while. And when you get to my age, certain things become clearer than ever before.

In one of the most dramatic moments of the night, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican from Georgia donning a Make America Great Again hat, yelled from the audience for Biden to say her name. A reference to Lakin Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who law enforcement say was killed by a Venezuelan migrant who was in the United States illegally. Biden then held up a white button Green had given him as he entered the dais. Biden mispronounced Riley's first name as Lincoln but called her an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. He then expressed his condolences to her family. The use of the word illegal drew criticism from some

Democrats, and Biden later apologized for using the term and said he should have said undocumented. Before his speech, the White House said the U.S. military would install a temporary pier off the Gaza coast for cargo ships to deliver food and emergency supplies. During the speech, Biden referenced that announcement, saying, quote, This temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day. But Israel must also do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure that humanitarian workers aren't caught in the crossfire. After the speech, Biden stayed on the House floor,

speaking with lawmakers for more than 30 minutes. At one point, he was caught on a hot mic, telling Senator Michael Bennett, the Democrat from Colorado, that he had just spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I told him, Bibi, don't repeat this, but I said, you and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus moment. An aide quickly came over and alerted him he was on a hot mic. At one point, a gold star father whose son was killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 began heckling Biden. He was removed from the audience and

arrested, which has drawn criticism from Republican lawmakers. On Truth Social, former President Donald Trump called it maybe the angriest, least compassionate, and worst State of the Union speech ever made. It was an embarrassment to our country. Immediately after the address, Alabama Senator Katie Britt, the Republican, delivered a Republican response to the State of the Union address. Right now, our commander-in-chief is not in command, she said. The free world deserves better than a dithering and diminished leader. America deserves leaders who recognize that secure borders, stable prices, safe streets, and a strong defense are the cornerstones of a great nation. Britt's response was widely panned on the left as overly dramatic and inauthentic,

and even drew criticism from many conservative pundits who thought it didn't meet the moment. She also conceded that a graphic story she told about a migrant being sex-trafficked happened in Mexico during George W. Bush's presidency, not in the U.S. during President Biden's, as her speech implied. Several flash polls of viewers of the State of the Union came back positive for Biden, including a CNN-SSRS poll that found 62% believe his policies will move the U.S. in the right direction. Following the speech, Biden's campaign, already flush with cash, had its two biggest fundraising hours of the cycle since last April. The president also received several prominent fact checks, including one for misstating where the U.S. stands globally on inflation. Today, we're going to cover some

responses to the State of the Union address from the left and the right, and then my take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Long before Fox News hosts were caught for saying one thing in private and another on air, two leading conservatives left the network in protest of the network's tolerance of election denialism. Such claims were incompatible with their efforts to build a media company dedicated to the truth. Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes had launched the Dispatch in 2019 to build an enduring presence in the center-right for sane conservatism. No insulting clickbait, no false outrage, no annoying autoplay videos, just reliable journalism that prioritizes context, depth, and understanding. Today, a growing community of more than 400,000 rely on The Dispatch to help make sense of a political world gone crazy. Get news and analysis

that is more than a scripted reality show. Tangle readers claim your exclusive 90-day all-access free trial today by visiting thedispatch.com slash tangle. That's thedispatch.com slash tangle. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left praises Biden for arousing speech at a much-needed time. Some say the address was lacking in substance on key issues like the economy and the war in Gaza. Others suggest Biden should scale back his partisan messaging going forward. In the New York Times, Ezra Klein wrote, fine, call it a comeback. If the Joe Biden who showed up to deliver the State of the Union address last week

is the Joe Biden who shows up for the rest of the campaign, you're not going to have any more of those weak-kneed pundits suggesting he's not up for running for re-election. Here's hoping he does, Klein said. Biden's refrain of the American comeback is a sharp one. It does two things simultaneously. It reminds voters that there's something America is coming back from, namely the dislocations of the pandemic and the wild, erratic management style that Trump brought to it, and it lets Biden point to progress without declaring victory. Biden is practiced at talking about the threat that Trump poses to democracy. It's clearly what motivates him in this campaign. But he, not Trump, is the incumbent, and Biden has lacked a simple frame to tell the story of his presidency, one that balances what he's achieved with what Americans still consider

undone, and that reminds voters of what he inherited while still laying out a vision for where he's going. In Jacobin, Branko Marchetic said Biden's State of the Union showcased the president in denial. Biden's address made official what we've heard now from countless pieces of reporting. Despite every warning sign about his handling of both the economy and Israel's genocide in Gaza, President Joe Biden will continue stubbornly doubling down on his approaches to both, despite the majority of both official and public opinion rejecting his handling of the two issues, Marchetic wrote. A closer read of the speech suggests that, rhetoric aside, the president is continuing to resist pressure, both from the streets and from within

his own governing coalition, to change course on his handling of the Israeli war and to run on an ambitious progressive platform akin to the one he won the 2020 election. Aside from pandering to the far right, Biden made no major embarrassing trip up, was far more energized than his average public appearance, and included just enough populist notes to strike a nerve with the public, Marchetic said. More worrying for anyone concerned with preventing a Trump win in November is what the content of the speech signals, that the president is sticking to the course he's charted thus far that has made him the most unpopular president in modern history. In Bloomberg, Matthew Iglesias called on Biden to focus more on the concerns of swing voters. As a piece of political theater, President Joe Biden's State of the Union address

was an energetic success. He effectively answered questions about his age, delivering a forceful speech that included several back-and-forths with interrupting Republicans, Iglesias wrote. As a matter of substance, however, the question is whether Biden can turn back political time and win an age-old economic policy argument. To do that, he is going to have to risk offending members of his own party and engage in what Republicans have traditionally criticized as class warfare. Biden did not offer any ideas to address the cost of living that you wouldn't expect to see a progressive endorse. There was no bipartisan fiscal commission, no call for belt tightening on the part of the federal government, no plan to relax regulation in any area. The president didn't even tout the record levels of oil and gas production unfolding

on his watch, Iglesias said. Partisanship has its place, and that now apparently includes the State of the Union address. My point is only to ask whether the best way to win over persuadable voters is with a pure left populist economic message rather than an appeal to the moderate middle. All right, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right criticizes the partisan tone of the addressist saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right criticizes the partisan tone of the address, calling it tantamount to a campaign speech. Some note that the GOP's messaging about Biden's age and mental acuity may have backfired on them. Others say Biden destroyed any credibility he had on being a bipartisan leader. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens.

Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada,

which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the speech Biden's partisan state of disunion. President Biden's address on Thursday was memorable for all the wrong reasons. His address was one long, divisive pep rally for Democrats, goading Republicans throughout the speech, and targeting multiple and various villains for partisan attacks. It really was extraordinary, the board wrote. Most such speeches make at least an attempt at reaching across the aisle, if only as a gesture. This one had none. Given the foreign threats to democracy, Mr. Biden could have made a bipartisan pitch to increase defense spending. Even Jimmy Carter made that pivot in the final year of his presidency when the Soviets were on the march. But Mr. Biden wants to spend and spend on everything else instead. This could turn out to be a historic miscalculation as the threats from Iran,

Russia, and China mount, the board added. There's much in the speech to critique on policy and to correct on the potted history of his presidency, but policy wasn't his point on Thursday. This was a campaign rally disguised as a State of the Union. In the Daily Beast, Matt Lewis wrote that Biden's State of the Union easily cleared the very low bar set for him by the GOP. I can't recall a State of the Union speech that was more overtly political or combative than the one Joe Biden delivered on Thursday night. This is not a criticism. This was far more entertaining and relevant than a typical State of the Union address, Lewis said. Biden does not have the ability to make viewers believe he feels their

pain, but he does have the potential to channel a sort of populist Scranton Joe image. He tapped into these kitchen table issues by attacking corporations, price gouging, junk fees, and shrinkflation. For Biden, an important caveat, he seemed sharp. He was a bit shouty, which is much better than the whispering Joe alternative, but he was passionate and energetic. Again, there is a low bar for Biden, but he was able to hurdle it, Lewis said. Whether it was the cheering crowd, the caffeine, or the adrenaline, or something stronger, Biden showed flashes of his younger self while under the national spotlight. In The Spectator, Ben Dominick said the speech was the worst State of the Union in history. We all know what the best version of Joe Biden sounds like,

a throwback to images of old Irish bipartisan politicking, itself an act of role play for a senator who has more often than not been an angry partisan and constant fabulous both away from the cameras and in front of them. But at least there's something respectable about that caricature, Dominic said. There was no such respectability to be found in Joe Biden's State of the Union speech last night. It is without question the most divisive, vindictive, and downright vile expression of American partisanship ever given from that honored stage. It marks a legacy-defining moment eradicating forever the idea of Biden as the dealmaker, defender of norms, and champion of some vague idea of bipartisan unity. This was

Biden unhinged, spewing invective at half the country. He lied about them, he called them racists and bigots. And he used the most prominent speech he will give this year to promise even more division and vengeance against his foes, Dominic said. Biden's media friends will seek to spin this as feisty, passionate, or energetic, but that's not what the nation saw or will remember from this speech. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So on February 29th, right after the Michigan primary results, I wrote that it had been a very bad 24 hours for President Joe Biden. The purported ceasefire he touted had not come to fruition, the Supreme Court had scheduled Trump's immunity challenge too late in the season for it

to be meaningful, a new poll had come out showing him losing to Trump in all seven swing states, and Mitch McConnell had announced he was stepping down and questions about his fitness were hitting a fever pitch. Well, the 24 hours following the State of the Union were just the opposite. After his speech, four new polls came out from Emerson, Kaiser, Morning Consult, and TIPP. All four showed Biden leading Trump by one to three percentage points, and each showed major three to seven point swings since the last time they had released the poll. This is what many Democratic strategists have hoped for, that when it became clear the race was between Biden and Trump, Biden would take the lead. Then, Kyrsten Sinema retired, giving Democrats a very good chance of retaining their Arizona

Senate seat, where Democrat Ruben Gallego is up on Republican Carrie Lake by as much as 10 points in some polls. Biden also got a campaign gift with the victory of Mark Robinson as the GOP nominee in North Carolina's gubernatorial primary race, who he can now rally support against in the presidential race. And then the president had a strong showing at the State of the Union. I know many conservatives are going to disagree, the same way Trump could give the best speech in American history and a lot of Democrats would hate it. But my job is to try to put my emotions and political biases aside and look at things with a fair lens. And I think, by most measures, it was a very good night for Biden. He looked energetic. He had some routine slip-ups and gaffes, but compared to what we've seen over the last few months, he sounded strong and

forceful. He chopped it up in real time with Republicans and did not have any major night defining blunders. He hammered the issues where he'll be strong in a general election, like abortion, Ukraine, and January 6th. He goaded Republican hecklers into booing an immigration bill endorsed by the Border Patrol and got them to effectively promise they wouldn't give tax breaks to the rich or cut Social Security. He went after Trump repeatedly, which is what many in the Democratic base want to see. The worst thing most Republicans are saying about the speech is that it was divisive and full of invective, which is true. It's also true that chip has sailed. Biden is operating in the most divisive political climate in history, and as much as I hate it,

and I do, I don't think the fact he was divisive in this speech is either all on him or going to hurt him politically. In sum, he looked the part. He looked like a president. That left some Republicans accusing him of using performance-enhancing drugs. Meanwhile, liberals like Ezra Klein, who had been calling on him to drop his re-election bid, were suddenly backtracking. That only happens if Biden gives a strong speech. And that's to say nothing of the fact that he had his best campaign fundraising night of the cycle. Given that Democrats already had a strong cash advantage, they used that money to immediately blanket swing states with tens of millions of dollars of TV ads. A sellable and vigorous candidate Biden

will only further play into the biggest advantages Democrats have in 2024, their superior campaign infrastructure being one of them. The moment is also a reminder of the great flaw of the current GOP strategy. The more they talk about how Biden is brain-dead, riddled with dementia, or way too old to do this, the lower the expectations get. If former President Barack Obama had delivered this same speech with all the mutterings and off the cuff remarks, the response would have been far less positive. But voters tune in and see an energetic Biden having a relatively normal night, and relative to expectations, it looks to them like he hit a home run. This same thing happened ahead of the 2020 debates, and it's clear Republican

critics have not yet learned the lesson. It becomes clear every day that Biden's biggest hurdle to re-election in 2024 is going to be the question about his age, mental fitness, and capacity to serve. Policy debates like immigration and the economy will, of course, matter a great deal. But more than anything else, polling shows he needs to win over voters on the question of his fitness. On Thursday night, he ran right at that problem by speaking directly about his age and delivering a speech that will convince some people who are on the fence he can still do the job. It was a step in the right direction. And for a president with his approval ratings facing the issues he's facing, that is as much as Biden can hope for.

That is as much as Biden can hope for. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from an anonymous reader in Farmington, Connecticut, who said, A legitimate question. This one's from an anonymous reader in Farmington, Connecticut, who said, A legitimate question. What is the rationale for having a quote-unquote suicide prevention blurb at the end of the Aaron Bushnell question response? This seems to be a now common practice, but what's the intent? Should a person infer from the need to do this that hearing a story about X makes a person more likely to do X? If that's the logic, should stories about high-speed chases include

blurbs about not driving too fast as a silly example? I'm truly trying to understand the mentality for this practice. Thank you. Okay, so fair question, I guess. Sharing a disclaimer about how to access Suicide Prevention Hotline whenever we write about suicide is just a journalistic guideline that I follow. That said, it's worth noting there are a few journalistic guidelines that I don't follow with Tangle. I and my editors like to look critically at guidelines and ask why they are the way they are, and then decide if we agree with them. For instance, language nerds may notice that we make a couple of non-standard punctuation decisions. We always capitalize clauses that follow a colon to indicate

a new thought. We never hyphenate well-known since well is an adverb that modifies an adjective. And we use the serial or Oxford comma for all lists, unless those lists are followed by a comma. Our managing editor even has a screed about why he has us write daylight savings time instead of technically correct daylight saving time. So suffice it to say we are intentional with our choices. Last year, we published a special edition explaining some of our more controversial editorial decisions, like why we don't capitalize the B in black when referring to race, and how to identify a transgender person. One of those guidelines was not to name mass shooters. We follow that guideline to avoid the well-known contagion effect, which is when people who are even slightly considering violent

actions see the notoriety that comes with acting on violent impulses and are then motivated to do the same. There's a similar contagion effect among people who may be suicidal. To actively discourage copycats, there's a journalistic guideline to follow stories about suicide with a disclaimer. That reason makes enough sense to us that it's a guideline we follow. The website reporting on suicide suggests many such journalistic rules and has a surfeit of evidence to support them. In particular, I find their evidence supporting disclaimers very convincing. That's why you'll see us end stories about suicide with a note saying that if you're feeling suicidal, you should call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988,

or go to speakingofsuicide.com forward slash resources for a list of additional resources. All right, that is it for Your Questions Answered, which brings us to our Under the Radar section. The United States might be running out of power. Vast swaths of the U.S. are facing power shortages as electricity-hungry data centers and clean technology factories continue to pop up across the country. Utilities and regulators are trying to find ways to expand the nation's power grid, but no clear solution is on the horizon. One major factor is the rapid adoption and innovation of artificial intelligence, which is driving construction of massive computing infrastructure.

The Washington Post has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of people who watch President Biden's State of the Union address live is 32.2 million. That's according to the ratings agency Nielsen. The number of people who watched Biden's State of the Union address live last year was just 27.3 million. The percentage of Americans who watched Biden's State of the Union address who said Biden performed better than expected was 29%, according to a new ABC News Ipsos poll. The percentage of Americans who watched Biden's State of the Union address who said they had a positive reaction to the speech was 65%, according to a CNN SSRS poll. The percentage of Americans who watched Biden's State of the Union

address last year who said they had a positive reaction to the speech, was 72%. The percentage of Americans who watched the State of the Union who said the policies Biden proposed will move the U.S. in the right direction was 62%. The percentage of Americans who said Biden's proposed policies would move the country in the right direction in the week prior to the State of the Union was 45%. Finally, the percentage of 18 to 29-year-old Americans who said they didn't see, hear, or read about this year's State of the Union Address was 49%. That's shockingly high. All right, that is it for today's numbers section, which brings us to our Have a Nice Day section. A collaborative study between engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a

publicly-owned engineering firm in Greece identified several key factors in roadways that lead to crashes, including incomplete signage, changes in speed limits that are too abrupt, cracks that stretch across the road, and webbed cracking referred to as alligator cracking. To identify these features, the researchers used a dataset of 9,300 miles of roads across 7,000 locations in Greece. We have all these measures that we can use to predict the crash risk on our roads, and that is a big step in improving safety outcomes for everyone, said Jim Iocchi, a faculty member at UMass Transportation Center. Science Daily has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, that is it for today's podcast. Like I mentioned at the top, if you want tickets to our event in New York, time is running out. We just sold out, so we had to scrounge for some more tickets and seats to release. Go to citywinery.com or go to retangle.com

forward slash live or click on the link in today's episode description to get those tickets. We'll be right back here. Same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll see you next time. police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it

feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.