The Daily - Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018

Episode Date: January 31, 2018

In his first State of the Union address, President Trump left behind divisive rhetoric and called for one American family. But hidden in his many stories of everyday American heroes was a deeply nationalist message. Guest: Mark Landler, a White House correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, in his first State of the Union address, the president left behind the divisive rhetoric calling for one American family. But hidden in the many stories he told of everyday Americans acting heroically was a deeply nationalist message. It's Wednesday, January 31st.

Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and the distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States. From the moment President Trump took the podium Tuesday night, it was a very different Donald Trump on display. Mark Landler was covering the State of our union is strong because our people are strong. Rather than telling Americans, he was really showing Americans a vision of the country, a vision of everyday Americans helping each other out. And very much in this part of his address, he focused on all the trials and tribulations the country had been through during his first year in office. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. Mass shootings in Las Vegas. We have endured floods.

Fires in California. And storms. Hurricanes in Texas and Florida. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul and the steel in America's spine. And then he pointed to people in the room, standing in the visitor's gallery, who had acted bravely and courageously and selflessly through the course of these tragedies. We heard tales of Americans like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashley Leppert. Ashley Leppert, who was one of the first helicopter pilots on the scene in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg,

a firefighter who faced down a wall of flames to rescue almost 60 kids trapped at a summer camp in California. The legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who survived a shooting at a congressional baseball game. And in each case, it was sort of a very heartwarming anecdote about someone who had survived a terrible experience and helped other people in the course of it. Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are and show us what we can be. I mean, one of the realities of the Donald Trump presidency is that his base is only about 36 to 40 percent of the American public, depending on how you count his polling numbers. What he's trying to do in this speech is transcend those limitations, present himself as the president for all Americans, not just for his base. And it's an important message. It's one that's been much debated internally within the White House.

There are those who advise President Trump that think he shouldn't do this, that he should double down on that part of America that is his base. And then there are other people around the president that think that now is the time that he should try to expand his message. He should try to be more inclusive and make a bid for the Americans that don't consider themselves to be part of the Donald Trump movement.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided all by himself to change that and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston, a job well done. And, Mark, why do you think the president is using stories, so many stories, these individuals that he keeps evoking and telling very rich narratives about, to accomplish that?

I think there's two reasons. One is a very simple one. This was a speech that was very light on policy. There were really very few policy proposals or very little discussion of policy. And stories give you a very captivating, diverting way to engage an audience without getting drawn into the specifics of policy. And I think significantly in this speech, it's a way for him to, in almost a sub-Rosa way, get some messages across to his supporters. Some of these stories are uplifting. Others, however, are pretty harrowing. And I think he's getting some rather difficult messages across to his supporters on issues like immigration,

drug abuse, Islamic militancy, through telling these stories that in a way make his speech both appealing to his supporters, but more palatable to people on the other side of the aisle, who he's also trying to reach out to. So let's talk about some of the messages that the president focused on in these stories and in the related policies to them? Well, sure. And to begin with, he took a very long, enjoyable victory lap on the issue of the economy. Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs. He talked about the lowest unemployment rate.

Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. Economic growth. The stock market has smashed one record after another. The greatest stock market. We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. So the economy and celebrating the economy and the economic expansion was really the very first part of the speech. It's really what he led off with. It was very much a pat on the back, taking credit for growth, much of which it must be pointed out is a result of policies of his predecessor, Barack Obama. But he very much wanted to stamp this as the Trump economy. very much wanted to stamp this as the Trump economy. Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing,

a small, beautiful business in Ohio. They've just finished the best year in their 20-year history. So, Mark, this anecdote that the president describes of this Ohio couple and their factory revolves around his belief that the tax cut he just passed is already helping to spur American business and it's benefiting workers and bringing businesses back to the United States. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people and expanding into the building next door. As far as we know, is that right? I mean, the tax cut was just passed. Are we already seeing evidence that those things are happening? I think it's a mixed bag. Some major American companies have announced that they're repatriating large amounts of money. So there is some fairly short-term benefit attached to this tax cut. On the other hand, particularly for small business people like the Staub's in Ohio, it is highly unlikely that they're really feeling any measurable impact from this. There might be a confidence boost that comes

with recognizing that you might have a little more money in your pocket this time next year. And President Trump has made this point repeatedly throughout his presidency that it's not just the concrete policies, it's the intangible confidence that flows out of the policies. He's saying that his policies have delivered this kind of shot of confidence, this tonic to the economy. And the Staub's are merely a small example of something that's happening in tens of thousands of ways around the country. Then the speech takes a turn. Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers, Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddie Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens.

They are two teenage daughters, Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens, were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's 16th birthday, such a happy time it should have been, neither of them came home. He talks about this gruesome murder of two teenage girls in Long Island perpetrated by members of this fearsome gang, MS-13, a gang that he never fails to point out is fueled by our country's lax immigration laws.

Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as illegal, unaccompanied, alien minors and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school. And the president doesn't say this, Mark, but he has just ended temporary protected status for El Salvador, which has been connected to the birth of MS-13. Yeah, that's right. This is kind of the implicit theme, if you will, of this part of the speech. He doesn't want to come out and talk about withdrawing this protected status. It's an extremely fraught issue. It would antagonize the Democrats sitting in the room. But really, he doesn't have to, because particularly among his supporters within his base, just mentioning MS-13 and raising the specter of this gang gets the message across.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddie and Robert, tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. Please stand. Thank you very much. And so the message here is, look, Democrats, if you want to have a discussion about dreamers, about these young undocumented people who came as young children, then we also need to have a conversation about all the other weaknesses in the immigration legal system that allow all these unsavory and even dangerous and killer elements to come into the country. That's the price of my compromising with you on the Dreamer issue. So this is what you've been talking about. He's satisfying his Republican and conservative base through these stories that he's telling, but he's not coming out and explicitly saying anything particularly divisive about the policies that would seem to flow pretty naturally out of these stories.

Yeah, that's right. Because remember, the Democrats only voted to reopen the government a couple of weeks ago on the promise that there would be a real effort to find a compromise on immigration. So this is the next difficult legislative issue the president faces. He couldn't afford to come to the Capitol on Tuesday night and lay down the law in a way that antagonized the Democrats and burned bridges. So he was doing something rather delicate here, appealing to his base, but also keeping open the possibility for compromise. We'll be right back.

No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea. So what happens through the course of this speech is that the president pivots from this idea of strong Americans, heroic American figures helping one another, to Americans under siege, Americans victimized either by lawless immigrants who've come into the country, MS-13, or... We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime

to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies. By cruel foreign regimes, the North Koreans, this young college student. Fred and Cindy Warmbier are here with us tonight, along with Otto's brother and sister. Who was detained in Pyongyang and fell into an irreversible coma. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength truly inspires us all. Thank you very much. Thank you. We are joined by one more witness

to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. G. Sung-ho. In 1996, Sung-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food, which were very hard to get. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain or the hurt. without anything to dull the pain or the hurt. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China.

His tormentors wanted to know if he'd met any Christians. He had, and he resolved after that to be free. So what's consistent through all of these stories is this notion of people who've really suffered greatly under extreme cruelty inflicted by evil foreigners, in effect. Sung Ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom. It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth

to a special place called America. So it's a deeply nationalistic message, but it's embedded in these stories he's telling of almost operatic suffering and pain. discussion of American values or America as a model. It's rather much that the country needs to fortify itself against these threats. That means building a great wall on the southern border. And of course, in concrete terms, when he talks about fortifying the country, he's talking about the border wall. When he's talking about North Korea, he's talking about North Korea. He's talking about... We must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful

that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else. So it's very much this notion of Fortress America trying to keep out these evil forces. At the same time, I was struck that these stories were all about individuals and that the president spoke to this idea of this being a moment where any individual can rise up and be great. So to every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you've been or where you've come from, this is your time. It seemed almost kind of removed from the idea of government and a kind of collective good from government. I think that's a very interesting observation.

And I think what it reflects is that we have a president who doesn't put much weight in the ability of government to solve problems. He doesn't really think of the government as an institution to be respected as a catalyst or an agent for good. He really does think of the world as individuals. After all, if you look at his story, he's nothing more or less than an individual, a sort of a business Superman who claimed his own destiny. be drawn to stories of individual acts of heroism, of defiance, of endurance. These are the kinds of stories that resonate with him much more, for example, than collective effort, a government working together, even a nation working together. Those are not themes you hear often from Trump.

You hear much more the power of the individual. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything. You can be anything. And together, we can achieve absolutely anything. Speaking of things we don't often hear from Trump, I was also struck by what the president didn't say, Mark, on Tuesday. he very much stayed focused on these other Americans, these anecdotes he was telling throughout the night. He really didn't focus on himself at all. He didn't use the space of the speech to air his grievances, to fight his fights against the media, his frustration over the Russia investigation. So none of those battles that are playing out in Washington or on his Twitter feed were in this speech, really. And it ended up, for the most part, being about everyday Americans.

They are firefighters and police officers and border agents, medics and marines. But above all else, they are Americans. You're right. And I think, again, that was very deliberate. And I think what was driving it is the people around Donald Trump understand that he's the problem. I mean, part of the reason that this presidency has had such a difficult time is because he has so often thrust himself into the debate. And I think that Stephen Miller, who took the main hand in writing this speech, made a deliberate decision

to pull the president out of the speech. This couldn't be a speech about Trump, because Trump himself is just too much of a lightning rod. So I think they really tried to very much make it about a message embodied in other people. And again, he used other people's stories, but the message was very much the strongman leader and the policies that will keep Americans not only great, but safe. by a line in the speech that I think gets at this, when the president said, Americans are dreamers too. That is perhaps one of the most important lines in this speech, because I think it again had that dual message. He was acknowledging the strong feelings surrounding the dreamers,

but he was putting it into a different context, saying, make no mistake. context, saying, make no mistake. My duty and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber is to defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American dream. I'm not interested in the special pleadings of one group or another group. I'm interested in the entire American population and the great American dream. And I think the way he encapsulated it there was something that resonated a lot with his political base. The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it's the people who are making America

great again. Mark, it is very late. It's actually Wednesday morning. Thank you very much for coming on. Glad to be here, Michael. Thank you and God bless America. Good night.

Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday evening, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that President Trump has no plans to release the controversial memo prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee accusing the FBI of abusing its power in the Russia investigation. But a few hours later, as he walked out of the House chamber after the State of the Union speech, Trump had a different message for a Republican congressman who encouraged him to make the memo public. Don't worry, the president said, 100%.

worry, the president said, 100%. And there is a new understanding of what happened on the morning of January 13th, when millions of people in Hawaii received emergency alerts to their phones about an incoming missile attack. The Times reports that the emergency management services worker responsible for sending the alert had a history of poor performance and sent the warning not by accident, as previously reported, but because he misunderstood the test instructions he had received from a supervisor and believed the state was facing an actual threat.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.