The Daily Signal - What You Missed From Biden's State of the Union Address

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

President Joe Biden discussed some of the biggest issues on the minds of Americans, from border security to abortion and the economy, in his State of the Union address Thursday night.  But what issues did Biden ignore that he should have talked about? Were there any unifying moments? And how did members of Congress in the audience respond to the president in his fourth such address?  Cody Sargent, communications director for Heritage Action for America, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to talk about the biggest moments of the night. (Heritage Action for America is the grassroots arm of The The Heritage Foundation, which is the parent organization of The Daily Signal.) Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, March 8th. I'm Virginia Allen. Last night, President Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union address. The speech was just over an hour long, and the president talked about the big issues from the border to the economy. But what were the most memorable moments from the night? And what were maybe some of the issues that the president didn't talk about that he should have? Communications Director for Heritage Action for America, Cody Sargent, joins us here in studio to discuss with live reaction. Cody, wait a late night. It is. But thank you for being here to talk about State of the Union. Thank you for having me, Virginia.

I'm happy to do it. Let me get your first reaction from the speech. What was overall takeaway if you had to kind of wrap it all in a package? How would you describe it? Honestly, I think my top line takeaway would be that it was a good. exactly what we expected. This morning, Heritage Action Executive Vice President Ryan Walker had a new op-ed out proclaiming that tonight would be a state of delusion and that this speech would expose the gap between Biden's vision of this country and the reality that everyday Americans

face. And I think that is pretty much exactly what we saw. It saw that how he views his job performance and how he sees our country is just vastly different from how Americans are seeing it. And the rankings that they're giving him, his plummeting poll numbers are so far removed from the score he gave himself tonight. I will say, though, one thing that I did think was a little interesting was just how much he deflected any blame for any of the failures of his administration and refused to take responsibility. Coming from the president who repeatedly said that if he were in office, that the buck would stop with him, I thought tonight he passed the buck. so many times that I lost track of it. He refused to take responsibility for any of the failures

of this administration. So I think largely it was pretty much what we expected, but I did think it was surprising and a little unsettling just how much he seemed to not care to take responsibility for the things that he's done wrong or promise to change anything that he's done so far. Okay. Well, then let's talk about some of these specific examples, because I know one of the things that you're thinking of when you're talking about this is the border and the president's comments on the border. And this was an issue that we knew he had to talk about. This is the number one issue for the American people. And as you're looking towards November elections, this was a no-brainer. This was going to come up. He had to talk about it. And what the president did was he

talked about a Senate bill that failed in November. But it was a border bill that was originally really touted as being bipartisan. And then once that text of the bill was actually revealed, Republicans, almost all Republicans said this is not bipartisan. There's hardly anything in here that we can back and support. So the president brings up this bill during his state of the union address. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say. In November, my team began serious negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators.

The result was a bipartisan bill with a teximate. toughest set of border security forms we've ever seen. Oh, you don't think so. Okay, so lots of reaction that we heard there from the members of Congress that were in attendance. But Biden said that this was the toughest set of border security forms we've ever seen. Cody, what was in this bill? Well, unfortunately for President Biden, that is just not true.

I did think that one of the more interesting parts of tonight were the Democratic in unison chanting fix it, fix it in terms of the border, saying that we need to fix a border that for years now they've claimed was not broken. So I think it's amazing that they've made this dramatic about face on the border in a matter of a few weeks. But this bill would not have fixed the border crisis. It actually would have made the border crisis worse, according to a lot of border experts. It would have done things like codify a level of illegal immigrants that would be allowed

across the border every day before they would be turned away. It would be up to 5,000 a day, which is 1.8 million a year. What a ridiculous notion that the toughest border security in history, as they call it, would actually put into law that almost 2 million people should be allowed to come into the country illegally every year. And it would have continued to fund the Biden agencies that are facilitating the invasion at our borders. If this president was serious about securing the border, he would have done it by now. I mean, it's so ridiculous and honestly laughable for someone who's been in office for three years to now turn around and say that the crisis entirely of his own making is Republicans' fault. He has the exact same laws that President

Trump had on the books when President Trump was in office who had record and historic low crossings at the border. President Biden, since day one of his administration, has systematically and intentionally deconstructed any semblance of border security, took 94 executive actions in his first 100 days in office to break down the border security measures that President Trump has put into place. And now that he's suffering and his poll numbers are suffering, he is lying to Americans about this bill and about his position on the border. And I think, Cody, it's also worth mentioning HR2, which is the border security bill that passed in the House in May of 2023. The Senate has not taking up that bill. I mean, you just look on paper and that bill is much, much stronger

than the Senate bill. It does a lot of the opposite things. This bill would allow for catch and release. That bill ended catch and release. It is just fascinating to see that dichotomy. And I know folks at the Heritage Foundation have done some great charts side by side of those bills and the comparison between them. But the president went on in what was somewhat of a surprising moment, I think, for a lot of people watching. And he talked about Lake and Riley. She is, of course, the Georgia nursing student who was murdered in late February. And the suspect in her murder is an illegal alien from Venezuela. Let's take a listen to what Biden said about Lake and Riley. Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.

That's right. But how many of thousands of people being killed by legal? To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you having lost children myself. So you can hear yelling in that clip. I believe some of that yelling was coming from Representative Marjorie Teller Green, who was wearing a shirt that said say her name in reference to Lincoln Riley. Cody, were you surprised that Biden did bring up Lake and Riley? Well, I would say he was forced to bring it up by members of Congress.

There were many Republicans in the chamber wearing, say, her name shirts. As you mentioned, are buttons with her name on it. Her parents were invited to attend and chose not to in their time of grieving, and we understand that. So I think he was forced to bring it up by the Republicans in the chamber. And I honestly think that was one of the worst part. of his shameless gaslighting on the border of the night, because when he was forced to say her name, Lake and Riley,

he then got it wrong. It was really just a perfect summation of the Biden presidency, confusion and incompetence. Either he could not remember her name, or he was unable to say it in the moment, and both of those things are just unacceptable for the American president. Let's shift here a little bit here and talk about the economy. about the economy. Also another major issue right now on polls, it's the number two issue on the minds of Americans.

And we knew that this was something that the president was going to address, that he was probably going to talk about binomics. Biden made the claim that our economy is the envy of the world. Let's take a listen. Now our economy is literally the envy of the world. 15 million new jobs in just three years. A record. A record. unemployment at 50-year load, record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses, and each one is a literal act of hope. Cody, how's our economy doing? Is it the envy of the world, like the president says? Well, Virginia, I don't know what the world is envious of, but they have nothing to envy about our economy.

And Americans, our listeners, I think they know that every time they go to the gas pump or the grocery store or to any other store to buy anything these days. I mean, here's the truth. The president's economic agenda has led to nothing but strife and struggle for average families across the country. No matter how many time he lies about it, real wages are down in our country. It costs you thousands and thousands of dollars more a year just to live because prices are up. Credit card debt in our country is at a record high. Savings accounts are at a record low, and 60% of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. So I would like for him to tell 60% of Americans who are struggling to afford necessities that their life is the envy of the world.

And voters, I think, will judge him on that in November. Finally, I want to touch on abortion. This is a major issue for all Americans. There's such strong feelings and emotion on this issue. Democrats have had a lot of victories on abortion over the past year on various state. ballot races. But during President Biden's speech on Thursday night, he took that conversation an interesting direction, and he actually spoke directly to the Supreme Court justices that were sitting in the audience, and he spoke to them regarding their ruling on Roby Wade.

And with all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral power, excuse me, electoral or political power, you're about to realize just how much you get variety of. So you're hearing people clap. The justices were not clapping. They remain seated and didn't look too happy about these comments. Cody, what did you make of these comments directed specifically towards the justices? Well, we knew that the president would bring up Roe v. Wade and abortion because if you look at polling, it's pretty much the only issue in which voters trust him more than Republicans. He loses massively on every other issue, and his polls are just sinking lower and lower on everything from crime, the economy, the border, et cetera. The only thing that

he beats President Trump on by a couple points is abortion, so we knew he would bring it up, but I thought that that was a stunning and bizarre and frankly dangerous moment for him to point and look directly at the Supreme Court justices and essentially threaten them. The Supreme Court does not respond to elections or public pressure. That is the point of our independent judiciary. They rise above politics. So the president to threaten them to their faces within seconds of bemoaning threats to democracy that he blames Republicans for was just an unbelievable and stunning moment that, frankly,

I thought, was kind of sad for our country. And I think it just shows the desperate state that his campaign and his presidency is in. Cody, were there any other big moments that really stood out to you during this about hour and 10-ish minute speech? Well, I think that the speech in itself was just such a big moment for Americans because we have this one night a year to hear directly from the president for him to tell us how he sees the state of our country. And as I started at the beginning, it just showed such a divide between what the president

thinks and the reality. But at the end of the day, Americans know the truth because they feel that truth every day. and there was nothing to me that Biden could have said tonight that would change that. You know, the state of our union under Joe Biden is weak, woke, and broke, to put it bluntly. And if you dare to speak out against him, he then weaponizes our government and the state to go after you. Whereas conservatives envision a country that's strong, proud, secure, and prosperous for all people. And that's the choice we're facing this year when we go to the ballot box. In the history of State of the Union speeches, how memorable was Biden speech Thursday night?

Well, that's a very loaded question. I guess we'll have to say that history will judge that. I mean, obviously the president is not a very gifted orator. I think that state of the unions are getting more and more memorable as they become less and less reverent. You know, you're having these kind of breakout moments of members yelling and wearing buttons. Some member of Congress tonight noted to her. that it's starting to look more like the House of Commons over in London and how they do politics. And it is. That's the state of American politics, whether you like it or not. So I think we're going

to continue to have more of these memorable moments. But to me, as I said at the top, tonight was just more of the same gaslighting that we've come to expect from this president. Because when you have no real successes to tout, the only thing you can do is deceive and deflect. Cody Sargent, Communications Director for Heritage Action for America. Cody, thanks for time today. Thanks, Virginia. Well, with that, that is going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. Also, make sure that you check out the daily signal website, daily signal.com, so that you can find the full fact check of President Biden's speech from Thursday night. And hey, if you have any time over your weekend, give the Daily

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