The Daily - The State of the Union

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

President Biden used his State of the Union address last night to push for re-election and to go on the attack against Donald J. Trump, his likely adversary in November.Jim Tankersley, who covers economic policy at the White House for The Times, discusses the speech’s big moments.Guest: Jim Tankersley, who covers economic policy at the White House for The New York Times.Background reading: Biden made it clear that he saw the election as an existential struggle between democracy and extremism.Read five takeaways from the address.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Thursday night, President Biden used the final State of the Union address of his first term to make his case for a second term and to prosecute his case against Donald Trump. and to prosecute his case against Donald Trump. Today, my colleague, White House reporter Jim Tankersley, walks us through the biggest moments of the speech. It's Friday, March 8th.

So Jim, good evening and thank you for staying up with us for what I have always thought of as the Super Bowl for nerds in Washington, the State of the Union. Absolutely, although the Super Bowl starts about three hours earlier. So it's in some ways a little easier. And ends roughly around the same time. Right, roughly around the same time. And has commercials, kind of fun commercials, which we didn't get here. No, no.

So it's kind of impossible to separate this State of the Union from the moment in which it's being delivered, which is the start of a general election campaign for president that has started so much faster than I think anyone had expected. In this case, the speech comes just a day after Donald Trump's last rival drops out of the race. The Republican primary is now over, and the race for the White House is officially whittled down now to Trump versus Biden. And it's at this moment that President Biden delivers this State of the Union. So with all that in mind, what heading into this night, Jim, do we understand to be Biden's mission with this speech? I think we can overemphasize the importance of State of the Union speeches sometimes, but not this one. This is definitely one of the most important speeches Joe Biden has given as president, if not the most important thus far.

And it's important because he's not winning this race. The polls do not show him beating Donald Trump right now. And it shows massive headwinds facing his reelection campaign. Voters do not approve of the job he's doing as president. They think he is too old, and they do not buy what he is selling on his policy record right now. So Biden comes into this speech wanting to reset all of those. These are his goals. He wants to tell some new stories about policy, about the economy, about abortion, about foreign policy that make him look a lot better. He wants to draw contrasts with Trump that make Biden look more likable and more preferable to Trump than voters had been thinking coming into the speech. And maybe most importantly,

he wants to dispel or at least quiet these concerns about his age by showing himself to be sort of a vigorous Joe Biden who's up for the job. Okay, with all that in mind, walk us through the speech itself and how Biden sought to navigate all of these issues and challenges he faces. It's a really interesting start.

Joe, Joe, Joe! Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States! He kicks off with a joke. He hears all the applause and says, Good evening. If I were smart applause and says, Good evening. If I were smart, I'd go home now. And then from that moment of levity, he pivots quickly into a very serious section

when he lays out threats to democracy and freedom abroad and at home. Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. He starts with the war in Ukraine and with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he talks about him and compares him basically to Hitler on the march in Europe. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you he will not. And casts America and the Biden presidency as crucial to stopping this march. And then he tosses in what will be a real sign of what's to come, which is his first swipe at Donald Trump.

swipe at Donald Trump. Now, my predecessor, a former Republican president tells Putin, quote, do whatever the hell you want. That's a quote. He quotes him and accuses him of bowing down to Putin. I think it's outrageous. It's dangerous and it's unacceptable. is dangerous and it's unacceptable. From Russia, Biden jumps to the United States and he's continuing to build sort of this case against Trump. History is watching, just like history watched three years ago on January 6th. Now he starts talking about the January 6th riots at the Capitol. Many of you are here on that darkest of days.

We all saw with our own eyes the insurrectionists were not patriots. They'd come to stop the peaceful transfer of power, to overturn the will of the people. He calls it the greatest threat to U.S. democracy since the Civil War. This is the moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies.

And he says that Trump tried to bury the truth. You can't love your country only when you win. The subtext here is hard to miss. Biden is saying Trump is a threat to democracy in Europe and to democracy in the United States. Right, and it becomes clear around this moment that this is going to be a State of the Union that has a lot to do with Donald Trump.

Yeah, Donald Trump is like the unnamed main character in this speech. When you talk to Biden, aides, and his allies, they're all a little bit or a lot mystified at what they see as Americans sort of almost amnesia about Trump, not just sort of the chaos of the years that Trump was president, but also the effects of his policies. They think people are sort of remembering him overly nostalgically in a way that Biden clearly sets out in this speech to try to change. And the next way he does that after this riff about democracy,

is by talking about abortion and reproductive freedom. Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right. He talks about how Roe v. Wade, in Biden's view, was correctly decided, but a Supreme Court, with justices appointed by Trump, overturned it, which he knows Americans in the polling largely do not like. He's the reason it was overturned, and he brags about it. Look at the chaos that has resulted. And then he talks about that leading to further erosion of reproductive freedoms,

including the recent Alabama decision about IVF. Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom. My God, what freedom else would you take away? And there's this sort of extraordinary moment where he turns to the members of the Supreme Court who are there at the speech. It's not all of them, but it's several of them,

and tells them... 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 worried about. Basically, hey, you're underestimating women. You're underestimating what you have wrought with your decision striking down Roe. Right. And it's actually in this moment of him speaking to the justices that he becomes his most overtly kind of campaign-y. He actually says that in 2024, women will show their power. And in that moment, I certainly felt like this was going to be not just a State of the Union that was unusually focused on his rival, but that was unusually

open in the way that it was about his presidential campaign. Yes. And then Biden turns to the economy, where he really has sort of a big task, but also he thinks a big opportunity to try to change the way Americans think about Biden and Biden's record. It doesn't make news in a thousand cities and towns. The American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told. He's sort of retelling the story of the country's recovery from the pandemic recession and trying to cast himself this time not as the villain who unleashed inflation that Americans are angry about, but as the hero who has created a recovery that's the envy of the world. America's comeback is building the future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. policies building an economy from the middle out in the bottom up not the top down and he starts telling this story running through all the ways in which his policies helped the economy the racial

wealth gap is as small as it's been in 20 years wages keep going up inflation keeps coming down inflation has dropped from nine percent to three percent the lowest in the world and tending lower and i gotta tell you, Michael, I covered this stuff every day. I know this stuff really well. You do. Biden starts going so fast and sort of so animatedly that it was hard for me to keep up. And now instead of importing foreign products and exporting American jobs, we're exporting American products and creating American jobs. And it takes him a while to sort of settle down and kind of relax into the speech. But in these economic parts in particular, he's just at times just flying through. Well, you know, I don't think that was an accident.

And I think it speaks to one of the things you said about what Biden's goal was tonight, which was to be energetic. I mean, there were moments during the speech I was listening in the same pair of headphones I'm listening to you in where I had to lower the volume and kind of take my headphones off because Biden was almost yelling, and it felt like that was a deliberate effort by the president to say, I am so very present and here for this speech.

Yeah, absolutely. And the times when he really seemed to relax into it were the times when he kind of broke character almost or broke from the text and needled the Republicans in the crowd. Forty-six thousand new projects have been announced all across your communities. And by the way, I noticed some of you strongly voted against it or they're cheering on that money coming in. So this happens really early on. He's talking about investments from his infrastructure law that have gone to communities all across the country and which, as Biden loves to note, include investments that have been celebrated by some Republican members of Congress who didn't vote for the law. If any of you don't want that money in your district, just let me know.

Throughout the speech, though, especially once he settles down, Biden talks about a ton of economic policy. And it's very strategic what he chooses to talk about. And I want to make sure the college is more affordable. Let's continue increasing the Pell Grants to working and middle-class families and increase record investments in HBCU. He targets young voters who Democrats are really worried about winning in large numbers in this election by talking about his efforts to forgive student loan debt

and by proposing new ways to help people who are buying homes, often for the first time, because housing costs are a huge worry among young voters. I want to provide an annual tax credit that will give Americans $400 a month for the next two years as mortgage rates come down to put toward their mortgages when they buy. Not all of his economic policy here is aimed at young voters. Some of it is much more universal. But even the universal stuff has some real appeals to young people

in a way that Joe Biden relates to them, most notably snack food. You probably all saw that commercial on Snickers bars. You get charged the same amount, and you got about, I don't know, 10% fewer Snickers in it. He talks about shrinking Snickers bars as an example of corporate greed that's pushing up prices of things with what economists call shrinkflation. Same size bag. Put fewer chips in it. No, I'm not joking. put fewer chips in it. No, I'm not joking. And this is like a way for him to move from tangible concerns of young people into another big economic narrative he's trying to tell, which is Joe Biden wants to raise taxes on corporations and kind of wants to stick it

to big corporations that he thinks aren't paying their fair share. And Donald Trump, again, unnamed, but very much a main character, is the guy who cut corporate taxes. And Biden is trying to paint him as sympathetic to the interests of the wealthy and big companies over the interests of working people, including young workers. The working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It's not fair. We have two ways to go. Republicans can cut Social Security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy. That's the proposal. Oh, no. Republicans, by the way, do not take all of these Biden narrative reframings

sitting down. They get more and more agitated and start to heckle him. It leads to this much more raucous feeling of the speech as the speech goes on. And they really start to have some back and forths with Biden from the lectern, none as sort of stunning as what happens when Biden starts talking about immigration. We'll be right back. So, Jim, tell us about the section of the speech where Biden broaches immigration. Well, he is trying to continue his effort to flip the script on an issue that is unquestionably difficult for him right now. And he's trying to do it by basically casting himself as more serious about border security legislation than Republicans are.

In November, my team began serious negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators. team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators. He calls out House Republicans for not backing a bipartisan bill from the Senate. The result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we've ever seen. Oh, you don't think so? Republicans boo him. Oh, you don't like that bill, huh? And Biden goes right back at them. He basically says, oh, what? you don't like that bill, huh? And Biden goes right back at them. He basically says, oh, what? You don't like this bill? Conservatives negotiated this bill.

I'll be darned. That's amazing. That bipartisan bill would hire one. And then he ticks through how many more border security agents would be hired and how many more immigration judges and more asylum officers so they can resolve cases faster. He talks about how the Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the bill and the Border Patrol Union. And Republicans are really starting to heckle him now. I know you know how to read.

And Biden says at this one point, I know you know how to read. Like, you can read the bill. You know what's in it. You guys negotiated it. But he says, you're blocking this because it would be good for the country, but bad for Trump. And hey, we can fight about fixing the border or we can fix it. I don't think it's about me or about Trump. I think it's good for America. Send me the border bill now. Right. And here Biden is applying what has been, up to this point,

a very pointed critique of Trump to the entire Republican Party as a source of kind of blind partisan opposition to practical solutions and basically a source of government dysfunction. Yeah. And it's at this moment, Michael, when the speech kind of hops the track for a minute. I'd be a winner, not really. I... Biden gets interrupted by Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a famously conservative, bombastic, pro-Trump Republican member of Congress from Georgia. into the House chamber, she hands him a button with the name on it of Lakin Riley, a young nursing student who was killed at the University of Georgia, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant. Right. She hands him this wearing a red MAGA reelect Trump hat. And she says to him as he's walking by, say her name. Say her name. This has been the conservative call. Say her name. Say her name. Joe Biden is denying, they say, violence committed by undocumented immigrants. She starts heckling him on this, on this point, when he's in the immigration section of his speech. And Biden indulges her. How exactly?

speech and Biden indulges her. How exactly? Biden stops his speech and has almost like a presidential version of a screw it moment. He takes the pin that Marjorie Taylor Greene handed him. He looks at her and he says the name, although he gets it wrong. Lincoln, Lincoln Riley. Lincoln Riley. An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. A young woman killed by an illegal, which is not a phrase that Democrats usually use to talk about undocumented immigrants. And he says to her parents that his heart goes out to them. But then he goes back into his talking points about changing the dynamic at the border to make things better.

And he turns it right back on Greene and her colleagues. I would respectfully suggest my Republican friends owe it to the American people. Get this bill done. We need to act now. And says, you owe it to the American people to get this bill done. We need to act now. And says, you owe it to the American people to get this bill done. And it's this amazing moment. Right. What do you make of it? It was definitely off script, but I think it was strategic. Biden had success in last year's speech

baiting Republicans on Social Security. And I think he came into this speech hoping for some more successful exchanges where he could turn conservative and relatively unpopular across the country House Republicans into his foils. And here he is trying to do that. He is strategically engaging with Marjorie Taylor Greene on her terms in order to try to make her the villain in this new story he's telling. You're in the way. You say you care about this, but you're in the way. Got it. Eventually, Biden turns to get another hot button issue of very meaningful significance to him electorally, and that is the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. to him electorally, and that is the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

This is something I think many of us have been watching for from the start of the speech, and Biden waits and is deep in the speech when he gets there. But then he drops into something we really had not seen to this point in the evening, which was kind of slow, soft, compassionate Joe Biden. And he kind of gets the room suddenly really quiet. I know the last five months have been gut-wrenching for so many people, for the Israeli people, for the Palestinian people. He talks about knowing how gut-wrenching the time since October 7th has been for so many people, for people in Israel, for the Palestinians, for Americans.

And then he gets to the 250 hostages who were taken by Hamas in that attack. I pledge to all the families that we will not rest until we bring every one of your loved ones home. We also... We also. By starting with the hostages, what Biden does is have a genuinely large bipartisan outburst in the room. But then he has to pivot. Israel has a right to grab to Hamas. And he pivots into his support for Israel. And then he pivots into how horrible the human conditions are in Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas. And laments the deaths and promises more aid for the families who are homeless and hungry and without water. The only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time.

The only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time. And then, in the very end, he pivots back to sort of an admonition almost of the Israeli government, which has rejected Biden's preferred end to this entire thing, which is a two-state solution. Right. And in all those pivots, Jim, it feels like you can see a president and a candidate for president who is visibly struggling to figure out how to manage all the constituencies in this conflict. Yeah, the way I would put it is that you see a president who does not have a magic solution that can make everyone happy and that also comports with his values. Right. ports with his values. And you see him trying to be responsive to changing facts in the conflict, but not coming anywhere close to changing as fast as many of his critics would want him to. Finally, Biden turns to the elephant in the room, arguably the trickiest subject of all, which is his age and physical and mental readiness to be a second-term president.

Yeah. Listen, if you cover the White House, even if you write mostly about policy, you've been lectured by people in the White House about how the media writes way too much about Biden's age. But at the same time, the White House is acutely aware of how much of a problem Biden's age is for him in the polls. And this speech turns out in the end to be a direct acknowledgement of that and an attempt, just like with so many other things, to change the narrative. I know it may not look like it, but I've been around a while. Biden takes the age issue head on. When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever.

I know the American story. And then he tries, in sort of a Ronald Reagan-esque fashion, to sort of make his age into a good thing, an experience thing. My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy, a future based on core values that have defined America. Honesty, decency, dignity, equality, to respect everyone, to give everyone a fair shot, to give hate no safe harbor. And here is where he tries to use his age and his story to relate back to the narratives he's trying to tell about policy and the country right now. And he ends by trying to contrast himself in advancing age with Trump in advancing age. My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn't how old we are, it's how old our ideas.

Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you can't lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. This is like a total critique of Trump. He is saying Trump is like a cranky old man shouting that he wants things to go back to a way that they were and about all the people he's angry at. And that Biden is trying to be this optimist who wants to take us forward and unite the country. You're the reason we've never been more optimistic about our future than I am now. So let's build the future together. Let's remember who we are. We are the United States of America.

And there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you. In the end, was this an effective speech, given all the burdens and challenges that you outlined at the beginning of our conversation? Did President Biden rise to the occasion and will it ultimately matter? Well, we'll have to see what the polls show. But I think two things are important here right away. One is that in the time from when the speech ended until we started taking this episode,

I heard from a bunch of Democrats who had been skeptical about the president's ability to deliver a speech with this level of energy who were thrilled with it. And I think on that, he's done an important part of his job, which is to reassure some parts of his coalition. Right.

But also, there was this rather extraordinary ad that a group of Trump supporters aired earlier in the day that basically went straight at Biden on his age. It was a caricature of a caricature of an old, weak man unable to get up the stairs, let alone do the job, and implied that he wasn't going to be able to finish out a second term, like live through it. That is a low bar to clear, obviously, for a guy giving a speech to a joint session of Congress. But that's clearly not the guy who showed up at the State of the Union. That is not the guy giving the speech. He coughed. He stumbled. He had some Joe Biden-isms that happened. But he was not an old, frail man who couldn't walk. He basically closed the place down. He hung around talking to members of Congress long after most of the

networks had turned off their cameras. And he loved it. He was having a good time. And he was trying really hard to show the world that, hey, like that caricature you saw of me is nothing like reality. With all that said, it's almost impossible to reset narratives and change the way people view things in the span of one speech, whether that's your performance in the economy or your fitness for office. And so now we're going to see, in the span of an actual campaign over the next several months, a campaign that started in earnest this week, whether Biden can do this again and again and again. Whether he can have the repetition and the repeat performance that he needs to convince voters that, hey, these narratives, you should rethink them. You should rethink me and you should rethink my record and you should give me another chance and

reelect me well jim thank you very much appreciate it thank you michael Here's what else you need to know today. Lawmakers in Alabama have passed legislation to protect providers of in vitro fertilization from a state Supreme Court ruling that put many of them at legal risk. That ruling found that frozen embryos should be considered children, a finding that all but shut down IVF across the state over fears that damaging or destroying an embryo could become a crime. The new legislation, which was quickly signed into law by Alabama's governor, seeks to ensure that no legal liability exists. As a result, at least one major provider of IVF in the state resumed treatments almost immediately.

Today's episode was produced by Muj Zaydi, Alex Stern, and Carlos Prieto. It was edited by Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Pat McCusker and Brad Fisher. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.