The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Ryan Walker Breaks Down Biden's State of the Union Address

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address to Congress and the American people Tuesday night. The president addressed everything from the economy, to medicare, gun control, fentanyl, and big tech during his speech, which lasted just over an hour. Ryan Walker, vice president of government relations for Heritage Action for America, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to beak down Biden's speech and to add important needed context to some of the claims the president made.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're building an economy where no one's left behind. Jobs are coming back. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, February 8th. I'm Virginia Allen. And that was President Joe Biden delivering his second state of the union address. Biden discussed everything from the economy to Medicare, gun control, fentanyl, and big tech during his hour and 15-minute speech on Tuesday night. So what did Biden get right? And what did he get wrong? Vice President of Government Relations for Heritage Action for America, Ryan Walker, joins me on the show today to break down Biden's speech and add some needed context to some of the claims the president made. Stay tuned for our conversation after this.

Looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues from America's outpost here in Washington, sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. You'll get top conservative research, a rundown of important events happening. happening here at Heritage that you can watch online and hot takes from our experts. Sign up at heritage.org slash agenda or at the link in the show notes. Ryan Walker is the Vice President of Government Relations for Heritage Action for America, and he joins us now to break down some of the key moments from President Biden's State of the Union address.

Ryan, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. So I'd love to start just by talking about your overall impression of the speech. You watched it on Tuesday night. What did you walk away with? Yeah, I think overall the message that I took away or the thing that I took away was what President Biden did not talk about. I think there were many omissions that he glossed over, topics of debate that he sort of truncated and made shortcuts around to try to get to his position and where Democrats are. a number of these issues without discussing or acknowledging legitimate Republican opposition

to some of these policies or simply consideration and debate. Well, I was fascinating because he started his speech talking about bipartisanship and how Democrats and Republicans are working together. And we have a situation, though, right now with the debt ceiling specifically where Biden has said he actually won't negotiate with Republicans over. over the debt ceiling. So what did you think about the fact that he started his speech with talking about the importance of being bipartisan and working across the aisle? Yeah. You know, I think that there's a lot of positive signs that came out of his discussion

around the debt ceiling. I think it's a positive sign that he wants to sit down with Republicans and he's willing to have this conversation. He acknowledged that tonight that he wants to have a debate around spending and the debt and deficit in this country, which are items that the Republican conference in the House especially, and 24 strong Senate Republicans have identified as being a core issue for voters across the country. And so that was a positive sign. I will say, though, it was disappointing to hear him lambast Republicans for something that they aren't talking about and, in fact, have rejected openly and in the public, many times prior to this state of the union. And that's going after Social Security and Medicare.

He said that we want to cut them. And that's simply not the case. Well, and that was one of the moments, wasn't it, when we actually heard booze from the audience, which happened multiple times during the speech. That's right. It sounded more like the British House of Commons, honestly, than the United States Congress. But that's a good thing, right? They pushed back on the president at a moment when he gave them the opportunity and was speaking about their positions in a wrong way. Well, it was fascinating. One of the other things that Biden said that could be viewed as not overly positive was that Biden identified tax increases as being a positive way to reduce debt, right? Right. But the things that he talks about in tax increases are not all that they seem. He talked about a bill. billionaire tax and things of this nature, which in the grand scheme of things does not equate to that

much tax revenue for the government. But he also talked about things like increasing the tax penalties on stock buybacks for corporations, which increases the shareholder positions and lends to the health and functioning of our stock markets and this capitalist system that we live in. So yes, he mentioned those things, but a lot of the policies that he noted were and can be destructive to the economy. You and I were talking a little bit earlier, and one of the things that Biden addressed, he addressed many, many issues during his second state of the union address, but one of them was talking about crime.

But you said that you were interested that in that conversation around crime, that the president actually left out some important information that you would have thought he would have acknowledged, right? I thought so. So the House of Representatives passed a resolution of disapproval this week or will in the coming days, disapproving of changes to DC Criminal Code, which reduce sentencing requirements for violent crimes, including murder and rape. The president came out and said that D.C. should have autonomy in these decisions. And what I think is really important about this particular debate and this particular aspect. It may not be all about D.C., but this is the messaging and talking points that the left have wound themselves into as they have

spent the last three or four years talking about defunding police departments and turning them into more of a social services department rather than a law enforcement agency. And so I think that they are so far down this pathway, it's often hard for them to see the light of day in how you you actually solve the problem. And in that same vein, Biden also brought up gun control. He did. And I thought that was interesting. Again, he brought up a banning of assault weapons.

But to get into that topic as his salvo into it, he talked about a case using a semi-automatic handgun. So, and that speaks to a number of issues in the gun control debate that are often glossed over and simplified in front of the American public, but have significant impact on the statutory and legal language used to implement these things. So how do you define an assault weapon? Is it every handgun and long rifle in the country? We don't know. According to President Biden, he'd like to ban all of them.

So, you know, I think there are a lot of questions that were simplified and glossed over in entire speech, but very specifically in this instance. Well, I know one of the things that I was waiting to hear the president talk about, and I think that a lot of Americans were looking for was his discussion of the southern border and how he was going to address the fact that we have a record number of illegal migrants who are crossing our border right now. We have record number of amount of fentanyl that is flowing across the southern border. Fentanyl is now one of the number one killers of adults in America. and we wanted to see, okay, is the president going to address this? Well, and in many ways, he did speak to immigration, but not necessarily to border security. That's right.

He glossed over it on multiple occasions. He was given the opportunity. In fact, he brought it up, as you mentioned. He could have talked about securing a border, implementing and enforcing asylum laws, ending catch and release, implementing Remain in Mexico, or enforcing those programs and initiatives that were started under the Trump administration to actually secure the border. But he didn't mention those. Things that he mentioned were changes to immigration law related to agricultural workers.

And while that may be an important debate to have in the Congress, we can't get there unless there is a secure border where Americans are confident that their communities and their neighbors are safe in their daily activities. What we've seen is 90% of fentanyl comes across the southern border. It comes across from movements of cartels, which have operational control of large sections of the border. And it results in all sorts of bad behavior and and illegal activity, of course, including human trafficking. So it's a scourge and a true crisis. We've never seen numbers like we're seeing now at the southern border of illegal immigrants

coming across, Godaways, you know, all of the statistics are on an exponential increase. And he didn't touch on any of those items. Wow. I want to loop back in a moment and talk a little bit more about domestic. policy and specifically what Biden had to say about the economy. But let's go international for a second and talk about what Biden had to say about where America stands on the world stage and our policies as it relates to other countries and how we're interacting on the world stage, specifically in regards to Ukraine. Biden said that we're going to be involved. We're going to be

there for as long as it takes. What do you think the president meant by that? Well, I think that's a good question and something that Republicans and some in in the policy space have been asking for a long period of time. How long is this commitment? What does it mean to be there for as long as it takes? What does it mean when he says as long as it takes? What is the goal? What does the operational success target look like in a campaign like this? What does it mean for the liability of U.S. taxpayers in sending arms and munitions and economic support to Ukraine over a long, long period of time. I think there are also questions of what this means for power relationships on the global stage and how this could quickly turn into a global conflict. Things of that

nature were overlooked. And I think that they are their honest debates that should be had. There should be examinations into where this funding has gone that has been already sent to Ukraine over $100 billion. There needs to be backward facing, rear-facing reviews of where that money has gone and looking, especially on the economic front, what programs and agencies and government operations have been funded and where that money has gone. Those are all conversations that are honest and worthy of debate and something that the president simply glossed over. Well, of course, in the news a lot this week has been what's going on with China and the fact that China just threw a balloon, flew a balloon over our country. And Biden talked about the importance of being really tough on China. Is the president being tough on China?

Well, you know, I think that's up for debate now, right? The balloon that was in question that we all saw in the news for the better part of four or five days. into the United States territory over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. It flew over the Alaska, the territory, the state of Alaska, flew through Canadian airspace and into the United States. Not only did it enter into United States airspace, it flew over some of the most sensitive military installations that we have in this country, places where we house and command our intercontinental ballistic missile systems. research labs in Tennessee, the Oak Ridge research lab, which is vitally important to our nuclear weapons research, and a whole host of military installations that are, again, vital to our

national security and inevitably our defense against aggression from adversaries like the CCP. And so I think there are questions on why did Biden and the administration not act sooner? if they knew that it entered our airspace and our territory over the Aleutian Islands, why did they not take action then when it was clearly not a danger to American citizens? And what comes after the fact? How does Biden respond in a substantive way to Chinese aggression and spying over the American continent? So far, that's resulted in the shootdown of a balloon over the Atlantic after it traversed the entire continent. And I think the American people believe that that's a major problem. So we have questions there. I think there are also questions on, you know, Biden got into this debate on big tech and

holding them accountable, which to a large degree I appreciate. But he didn't mention holding strong on things like TikTok. His administration has no position on banning TikTok for federal employees or otherwise. So I think this is a major question. on the administration and President Biden on what he means when he says he's going to be tough on China. If he says that, let's see something. Let's see some action. Yeah. You know, I think this speech, of course, for Americans, we're watching to see what the president has to say. But in many ways, world leaders are watching. What do you think the message was or maybe the perception would be from leaders, whether it be in

in China or Ukraine or nations across the world. How do you think they viewed the president after watching his speech tonight? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think that the Chinese and the CCP probably already had their assumptions on the administration and their action or lack of action on their incursions into United States airspace and their testing of our military capabilities. And so they already, I think, this week developed a pretty good idea of where they view the administration on taking action and their willingness to confront them.

Now, on Ukraine, I think that's probably a different question. If you're an elected leader in Ukraine, you're probably appreciative of what the administration is saying. But again, I'll go back to the debate, an honest debate that is required around, especially Ukraine, and our role in the world as a whole, is that we need to have answers to these questions for taxpayers especially. And I think that's probably what they were paying attention to most tonight is that Biden was speaking on two tracks. He was speaking to the taxpayer on some points and to the global stage on the other. And I think they were looking for a direct address to them. Ryan, let's take these last few minutes and talk a little bit about what Biden had to say on the economy, something that is definitely on all of our minds.

Every time we go to the grocery store, Biden touted his economic successes. He said that we're near record low unemployment rates. He said inflation's coming down. Gas prices are down. What did Biden get right? And what did he get wrong when he talked about? economy. Yeah, that's a good question. So gas prices are still 40% higher than when President Biden came into the presidency, came into the office. So his, yes, maybe they have reduced somewhat,

but they are still near historic highs and are still a burden on the American people. And there's still a lot to be done in that space. And a lot of which the administration is refusing to do, allowing gas and oil refineries to get approvals, to allow for exploration missions from our producers and use of public lands to go after what is in the United States territory. And so I think there are questions there. You know, I think that on the economy, he talks about inflation. We've had 40-year historic highs of inflation. So coming down a couple tenths of a percentage point from where it was, I don't know that that's something I would go and tell to the American people.

They're certainly feeling that still. I feel that. We feel that. We're all feeling that. I have to fill up by gas tank. I have to buy eggs like the rest of us. So these are all, and, you know, I make a joke there, but these are all serious issues. And stretching the American dollar and paycheck more and more.

more and more increasing demands on on every dollar that a family can earn uh it is it's it's it's a regressive situation it burdens those that are that are you know most economically disadvantaged the most it's it's a horrible problem and and the president you know is is again touting a reduction in a couple tenths of a percentage point in inflation when when it's still a massive problem and and And this all is a result of this administration pushing for trillions of dollars in government spending over the past two years. North of $8 trillion, $9 trillion, we have spent on COVID aid, on increased discretionary spending, on DEI projects, on tax credits for EV vehicles, on, you name it. There has been a doling out of taxpayer dollars to other interests in this country. over the past two years. And it's directly resulted in the inflation and economic problems that we're

seeing today. And I don't think that the American people would agree with President Biden that the economy is good. I think we've seen that in polling recently. In fact, before the state of the union, folks were asked whether they thought the country was going in a good direction or not and it was below 40 percent. It was in the 30s, low 30s. So this idea that the economy is great, unemployment's low, it's low and everybody's got a job and everyone's happy is just a myth. They may have a job, but they cannot buy eggs at the grocery store. And that's a problem. Ryan Walker, Vice President for Government Relations and Heritage Action for America. Ryan, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate your analysis of the State of the Union.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. And that'll do it for today's episode. If you want more of the Daily Signal coverage of the State of the Union, you can check out our website, daily signal.com, for a number of fact checks of the speech from last night. And if you have not had the chance already, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed, where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure to take just a moment to subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you like to listen. We love hearing your feedback and seeing those five-star ratings and reviews. Thanks again for joining us today. We hope that you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and we'll see you right back here.

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