The Dispatch Podcast - Waiting for the NASCAR Crash | Roundtable

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Sarah hosts a late-night State of the Union recap with Steve, Declan, David, and John to discuss the speech’s partisan nature and whether it will matter in November. This episode was aired Thursday night as part of The Dispatch Live, a members-only livestream. Join today to watch the video and gain access to more exclusive content. The Agenda: —A partisan speech —Biden meeting expectations —Katie Britt falling flat (and not mentioning Trump) —Where is No Labels? —Member Q&A Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Hello, everyone everyone. John, David, Steve's wearing a tie. Honestly, Steve's over. What is that? And Declan, coming all the way from the office. You're, you're literally joining us because you're

still working. That's what I heard. More or less. Yep. Yeah. Hi, everyone. So let's just do a little bit of everything tonight. Steve, I'm going to start with you. A reaction just to the president's speech tonight. Was it what you were expecting? Did it meet expectations? All that. Yeah, I mean, I would say he, you know, for people who are watching this as if it were a NASCAR race, waiting to see. see if he had a crash. He didn't really have a big crash. I think there were some there was some paint exchanged, some bumping offenders. He got lost a couple times, but I don't really think there was a moment where people are going to say, oh gosh, this was a Joe Biden moment. This is

an age issue again. But I thought the speech itself was very strange. It was an incredibly partisan speech. I mean, these state of the union speeches are always this mixture of sort of partisan work, policy work, performance. But this was incredibly partisan. 13 mentions of his predecessor, most of them attacks, and then sort of a litany of giveaways, big giveaways, that will please the Democratic base. So I thought it was a very partisan speech.

And I also thought, final point, there was real tension and what he was telling us about the country in this speech, which was his claim that the state of the union is strong and getting stronger. He finished with this big flourish of optimism. Big tension between his claims there and what he's trying to say in the rest of his campaign. He's representing Donald Trump as a threat to the republic. He's saying democracy is on the ballot. Democracy is at stake. But in this speech, he says everything's fine and things are getting better.

It just doesn't work, I think, just on a messaging basis, and people aren't buying it. The 23% of Americans today believe the country's on the right track. 67% think it's on the wrong track. And I didn't see much in Biden's speech tonight that will materially affect those numbers at all. So, David, what was interesting to me, I guess, was that as you said, Steve, it was a super political speech, certainly the most sort of part. one, I can remember. Why do you think that Biden was trying to consolidate Democrats in this speech? I mean, this is the largest audience that he's had since his last state of the union,

especially since he chose not to do the Super Bowl interview, for instance. So this is the most number of eyeballs he's really going to have for quite a while, maybe until there's a presidential debate, if there's a presidential debate. And he chose to speak to Democrats. I can see reasons for it, but I was still surprised. Well, I think he focused a lot on his base and on his party and that and the left side of his coalition because he needs to. I mean, look, one of the reasons that he's losing to Donald Trump in polling is because right now Democrats, at least not enough of them, are sold on him for re-election. Now, you know, we can make the assumption that he shouldn't do this because they're going to come home in the end.

And if they don't come home, there's nothing he can do to get them. But I don't think that's true. And there are different strategic ways to look at this. But he doesn't, the bulk of his issues aren't that he's, the bulk of his issue is that he has not sold the voters that will vote for him if they show up or that should vote for him if they show up based on their past history. that he deserves their vote. And so I think that is why the speech was focused the way it was. Secondarily, I will say that as he said in the closing of his speech, where he remarked about his age.

And actually, I found that interesting in that those were the most expansive, non-angry, non-defiant comments about his age, acknowledging his age that he's given. he needed to show fight because part of the doubts that Democrats have about him and that other voters have about him is his ability to be effective, his ability to get things done. And the way I think he chose to do that was to show fight. Now I'm sure we'll talk about the screaming in a minute and his delivery. But this is how Joe Biden tends to show fight. He's not a great order.

he's not smooth. He's not charming in these settings. And so I think this is why we saw what we saw. He needs to shore up his party, not just his base, and he needs to show voters that he can be effective. And so then the question is, will we look back on the state of the union and say, yeah, that was a great first step, as it turns out? Or will we look back on the state of the union and say it wasn't? Or will we look back and say it really didn't matter because there was nothing he could do? look john state of the unions rarely matter politically uh you know it's sort of in one ear out the other for a lot of voters but i'm curious if there were any policy moments actually the substance of the speech that surprised you moved you one way or the other that were interesting like what would you highlight substantively forget the campaign forget the politics forget the delivery i think i think i think biden's strongest moments uh where when he started out on ukraine i thought he's making a big play for the Haley voters right now. They were just spurn. He's talking about Reagan, Gorbachev, teared on this wall. And then it was a sharp partisan turn.

I also thought his second best part was when he had, it was actually ad libbed on the immigration stuff when he was talking about immigration. He actually started, you know, I mean, he was, I think he was interacted with Marjorie Taylor Green maybe and then saying, well, no, you know, if they're here for six to eight months or six to eight years, you know, they're going to do all these things, but if we can get him out of here in six, eight weeks. I mean, he was actually making some substantive points. I thought that was good as well. But in general, yeah, it was just, it was a partisan speech. It wasn't leavened with those typical state of the union moments where you point to someone in the gallery and you talk about their heroism

and everyone's heart swells and you're proud to be an American and everybody stands up and applause. There were a couple of those. There was a civil rights marcher, I believe. I can't recall anyone else really um and again i just thought in in terms of his delivery it was just it for like 20 or 30 minutes in the middle there it was just too fast to show energy and it sounded like he was like there were marbles in his mouth and he's kind of talked into a street like this and it's i mean it was again it was fine it's not going to be memorable no one's going to it's not going to be you know a saturday i've meme or something we're going to be talking about in two months but um you know yeah he didn't he didn't fall down in his face uh expectations are low

I'm sure after all the media, you know, fretting over his polling numbers and his gas that people will be, the general mainstream press will be, wow, he was so energetic. He was great. He was amazing. I didn't see that. But he had some good moments. And I'd say a bunch of partisanship in there, too. Declan, I've got two questions for you, but they're tiny. They're little questions, maybe. My first question is, do you think? think Joe Biden met or exceeded expectations? Yeah, yeah, because both his own team and the press and the way that the Robert her report was rolled out did a whole lot to lower expectations, but Republicans have also been lowering expectations for him for three years by, you know, just this morning Trump, the super PAC backing, President Trump's campaign put out an ad with one. one of his, one of Biden's more egregious senior moments from, from the past couple months.

And they've been leaning into that incredibly hard for several years. And it has had an effect, obviously, because 70% of voters, even, you know, a majority of Biden's own voters think he's too old to serve another four years. But at the same time, that also leads to, if he can deliver a speech without doing the Jonah, get the squirrels off me bit, then everybody thinks, thinks that it was a success. So my second question is then, did Republicans meet expectations? There was some discussion heading into tonight that Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, was telling his caucus to, you know, sit down and shut up, keep it to yourself. Did Republicans acquit themselves well tonight? Do you have to ask? I don't know. No, not. I mean, this whole,

the whole spectacle nobody really acquits themselves well generally speaking um no there there were plenty of outbursts i still am trying to figure out who exactly was escorted out of the room uh i don't know did anybody see answers on that i believe that was the father of one of the marines killed in afghanistan okay pat pergum of fox that that was probably the most um the biggest disruption in in in the speech but um no i think one one thing that I was drilling down on in the speech is just how uncomfortable Mike Johnson looked back there. He didn't know what I think he knows what he actually would like to do in every single moment, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do when there was very early in the speech when Biden was

going after Trump's comments on NATO and Russia, Mike Johnson basically went and that's not That's not what he's supposed to do in that moment, obviously, but it's certainly what he felt like. And there were several moments where he was put in that position of being up there behind Joe Biden, talking about things that divide Republicans and not sure whether he needs to clap, whether he needs to stand, whether he needs to smile or shake his head and go like, no. So there's some interesting body language experts that can get a lot out of that. So, Steve, let's go around the horn about the Republican response. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama delivered it. This was really, I mean, for 99.99% of Americans, their first time ever seeing Katie Britt. She's the youngest senator in the Republican caucus, 42 years old, former chief of staff to Senator Shelby. She's been rumored to be one of the Trump teams, at least, picks for vice president. What'd you think? she's one of these rare figures in Washington who elicits nearly universal praise you talk to us for the magasat and they'll say ah she wasn't trumpy enough during her campaign um you talk but but they love her now she's endorsed the president you talk to some more establishment Republicans they love her people who know her as a staffer so she was unbelievably competent carries herself well was a good campaigner um I don't think we saw a lot of that tonight, to be blunt about it.

It was, in a phrase, too much. She was sort of overly breathy. We felt like she was acting more than just talking in an authentic way to the American people, which I think would have been a really nice contrast, actually, with Joe Biden. I saw people online on social media taking shots at her because she was in her kitchen. come on like that's a perfectly appropriate place if you're a mom or if you're a dad to give this kind of a speech i don't think the location was the problem i think the fact that it was just so overly acted um that it diminished the points she was making i honestly sort of obscured

some of the the substance and i think on the substance she was pretty good i mean it's a tricky speech to right, having spoken to people who've been behind these responses, because you don't know what the president is going to say, you make a guess, but she didn't know if the president was going to give a speech that was as partisan as it turned out to be, or if he was going to really, you know, he mentioned a couple times in passing this unity agenda, but really there was no unity agenda, and she didn't know if he was going to say that. I think there were opportunities to go after some of the things that he says pretty routinely in his stump speech, his claim that he has dramatically reduced the deficit. It's just nonsense. It's just not true. It's been fact-checked

death. It's been fact-checked left, right, and center. Pretty easy thing for a Republican to make a big deal of. And I thought she probably could have, you know, what she said in the border, again, was very dramatic. And she made, I thought there was a good substantive argument in there. It was just overshadowed by the way she was. was presenting it. Sorry. So, David, you know, giving the State of the Union response has long been seen as sort of like being on the cover of Madden.

It's a curse. And yet, you know, people keep saying yes to it. I'm curious if you think Katie Britt was the right pick, set aside the overacting, which I think Steve has a great point about, but like 42 years old, in her kitchen, she's a mom of two. And interestingly, I'm curious what you thought of the fact that she never mentioned Donald Trump's name. Yeah, nine day we called it the Sports Illustrated curse. I thought it was a great contrast and it made sense to pick her because she could speak very authentically to the concerns that a lot of families have. I mean, if you,

If you take Katie Brits' delivery out of it and just read the speech, I would suspect that you would walk away saying that was a very effectively written speech that gets to the heart of the president's weaknesses and speaks to a lot of the concerns that voters have. Oh, look at the polls. Yeah, that makes sense to me. A lot of voters are concerned about that. I think the delivery gumbed up the substance. But I do think that she made sense as a pick because the best thing I think you can do unless you just do it old school and let a congressional leader deliver the speech is to try and attract eyeballs and attract ears with an interesting contrast. and she is an interesting contrast to the president. I think part of the issue of broad effectiveness,

if we're going to talk about a speech that not as many people watch this day as watched the State of the Union, which is also something that just goes along with this, is that a lot of the discussion she was having about what Biden was doing wrong and what Republicans offer instead is not necessarily true because the party she was talking about, the Republican Party that she was talking about, doesn't really exist under its current leadership, meaning Donald Trump, who she didn't mention.

And in fact, the contrast to Joe Biden is Donald Trump. He's a little bit ahead, but it's not as big and as good of a contrast as she is. And I don't know if there's anything to the fact that she didn't mention Trump's name. It could be simply that these speeches aren't supposed to be obvious campaign speeches. And so maybe she didn't mention him simply for that reason. As we've been talking about the fact that Joe Biden referred to my predecessor as often as he did and as specifically as he did is something we don't usually see. We'll see reference to the other party and the opposition and maybe one reference to what I've inherited. Presidents love to talk about what they've inherited, even though it wasn't foisted upon them.

They chose it. but Biden clearly delivered what could have been a convention speech. And so it's possible Katie Britt didn't mention Donald Trump for the simple reason that she was delivering a more traditional rebuttal. All right. Let's get into some questions from you guys. So a really good question here for you, John. Should the Supreme Court justices stop attending the state of the union? Oh, I think that's more of an advisory opinions host question, but, you know, I think they should just start, you know, they should be a little more aggressive and start shouting things back. You know, I mean, if they're going to be political, let's get a little feisty.

Let's have a little back. Justice Alito kind of did that during one of Obama's states of the union. You know, make it more like a more like parliament. No, I don't really have a strong view on that. I think there'd be a case for them not to be there. Yeah, separate branches. Stay home. How are they going to keep up on how things are going to?

going. I mean, Declan, when I, you said that it was the worst moment in the entire speech for you. Actually, wait, that was David French. You said that. But I think you agreed. But it, I mean, I was sitting there really thinking they had the best seat in the house, by which I mean, they didn't have to clap or react the whole time. I find the whole like sort of theatrics exhausting, like to even imagine being there and having to stand up and think about whether to stand up. And am I applauding for that? Well, I do like puppies. But it's the bad guy saying he likes puppy, so maybe I don't. And at least if you're John Roberts, you just have to, like, sort of do the Queen Victoria's advice to her daughter, like lay back and think of England.

Yes, except that's kind of a microcosm of the problem that the Supreme Court has found itself in, in general, in that every other branch can just lob grenades at it, and they just have to sit there and take it. And now their approval rating is 20% or whatever it is. Alito and Alito and Thomas and Barrett did not take it. They did not show up tonight. So there's a split decision among the conservative block. Apparently Thomas has not been there in like 20

years, which is incredibly smart by... Yeah, yeah. In fact, I don't think there's ever been a full court, if you will. And I will assume that Justice Barrett had parental duties tonight as well. Not long ago, I saw someone

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You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Okay, next question. Steve, I'm going to throw this one to you. How much support slash resistance do you think the White House will face from the Pentagon over the Gaza aid proposal,

as Susan, but I'll even expand that out to just resistance from, you know, within any policy experts across the spectrum? Yeah, I mean, look, I think Republicans today have seen, have made pretty good hay with this, making an argument that in some, you know, sometimes when Republicans sort of in a knee-jerk basis compare everything to the border, and why are you doing this? Because you're not doing the border. Why are you doing this? And you're not doing the border. In this case, they're talking about building this port and Hamas-controlled territory. They're talking about, you know, this aid. The president, I think, tried to, to, kind of have it both ways and his speech tonight. But there are real questions, I think, about that. It's likely to please or at least placate some of his harshest critics on the progressive left. But I don't think it's likely to do so in a lasting way. And if you look at polling, again, support for Israel in this moment is very high. And there's also, just sort of a logic to what's taking place what the White House is doing when you think about what started this on October 7th, the idea that we're stepping in in the way that we are with

this aid, I think that will not sit well with people over the long run. I have just sort of reporting questions that I want us to be able to chase down and, you know, coming days and weeks. How long does it take to build a port? He said no American boots would be on the ground. Who's building this port? What is the likelihood that Hamas attacks the American interests as they're building the port? And what will happen if Hamas does attack or destroy this port, which I don't think is out of the question?

This seems like a pretty fraught idea. And I wonder how likely it is to actually move. But again, reporting for the fun of the future. So, David, I'll throw this one to you from Anthony. Who is the audience for an election year state of the union? Is it low information voters just seeing their first election event? Or is it the base that needs to be energized? Well, the audience is always the broadest that you can get.

But really, I think it depends. It's up to the principle, right? The president and his team decide who, they want to reach. And you can kind of tell who they want to reach by the speech that they deliver. Because you don't know exactly who's going to tune in. You don't know exactly what the ratings are going to be, but you do know it's going to get wall-to-wall blanket coverage, at least for a good couple of days. And of course, the president's now headed to Philadelphia, and then the day after to the Atlanta area. And his cabinet officials are

fanning out across the country, beginning tomorrow, to go sell a lot of the messages that we heard in this state of the union. And that's why, you know, as we open our discussion, I was saying that it strikes me that the audience, the president, was interested in reaching is the Democratic Party, those voters that if they show up, either will vote for him or are inclined to vote for him because he's the Democrat. And it's clearly where polling shows he needs help. He needs help in other areas. It's true. But you have to start with the lowest hanging fruit because then you can poke holes in your opponents coalition and there are things you can do. If you're not getting the lowest hanging fruit, which are people that will definitely pull

the lever for you or are inclined to, as long as they show up, then you're just in a world of hurt. And so I think that's who the president was talking to. Although, And I think it was John that mentioned it at the very beginning, opening, first of all, on foreign policy, which is very unusual, but talking about Ukraine and quoting Ronald Reagan glowingly. And this is a liberal partisan Democrat who served during the Reagan administration. It just makes my head spin. But I do agree with him that that was an appeal to Republicans and independents who do not believe they can vote for Donald Trump, don't know what they're going. to do and he's trying to say, I've got something for you. By the way, just an interesting note on like who the literal audiences for a state of the union, it's the people who didn't turn off

their TVs, right? So who is interested enough in politics to watch that speech? In general, it's going to be higher information voters, higher turnout voters who have largely already made up their minds. Not exclusively. This is going to be sort of the most independence. You're you're going to reach for a long time if you're the president, which is why normally states of the union look the way that they do since the Reagan era. But they're still few and far between. They're going to tend to be older. They're not going to tend to be, you know, young people were not watching network news at 9 p.m.

tonight or tuning in, like sitting down and having their friends over to watch popcorn. And you know what? For all you young people watching this right now who are like, I sat there with my friends in our dorm room. Like, you're the nerds. you're the very, very high information voters to begin with. So I do not want those emails from you. I do, though, because I love you guys. Can I just point out that for Sarah calling people nerds is a compliment?

Just be clear that she's not integrating our members. Yeah, let's be real about what I was doing in college on State of the Union nights. It's like, I see you. I mean, it was like that in the West Wing. We literally had like West Wing parties every week. Sounds great. Uh, Steve, we're releasing a new high stakes, um, our member only content on our bet in which you bet me, um, almost, gosh, are we into like six, nine months ago now that Joe Biden and Donald

Trump would be the respective nominees of, sorry, would not be the respective nominees of their party and you bet me two steak dinners one steak dinner per nominee um anyway people have to tune into that but um do you want to just give like a little uh tiny peel back of the curtain on how our bed is going yeah i mean thanks so much for bringing that up sarah um it's not great not great pop um look it's not over until it's over, and the bet was, you know, I pay after Joe Biden and Donald Trump accept the nomination of their respective parties at the conventions this summer. It's March.

A lot can happen between now and this summer, and I'll just leave it there. For my much deeper explanation, quoting the smartest fantasy football analyst in the country, you'll have to tune into high stakes. Declan, I'm curious where you think no labels and the third party efforts are at at this point because I feel like the window is closing on this conversation even, frankly. No labels is running out of time, frankly, to introduce a nominee and a campaign to the American people. You can argue that as people get more and more tired of their two choices and then here comes a third party candidate, maybe there will be that opening.

But I'm sort of feeling like maybe there's not even a plan. I don't know. Yeah. And I'll defer to Drucker and Steve, who have done a lot of great reporting on No Label's effort in recent weeks. But yes, the short answer is they need to have a plan. And by all accounts, they do not have a plan. and the original plan was for there to be a nominating convention, I believe, in a couple weeks at this point, and not clear that that's anywhere that's even going to happen.

They don't, not clear, they know how they're going to select a nominee. And for voters who are looking for an alternative, this election with Biden and Trump, there's going to be probably, probably more voters than ever looking for some sort of third, third option. And it seems like it's kind of a right for that opportunity, but just organization and details comes down to that. Drucker, have you heard anything else since we talked about this earlier? Yeah, well, I mean, you still can't get No Labels leaders to talk definitively about what their plan is and if there is one.

Steve Peoples and I think Tom Beaumont at the Associated Press were reporting today, I believe yesterday or today, is that no label's sort of grassroots members, maybe 800 of them or so, are due in the next few days to meet virtually. And according to their reporting, the expectation is that they'll green light going ahead with fielding a ticket. But we still don't know who's supposed to fill out that ticket. And I think part of the problem here is because, look, look, it seems kind of joking now. They had a very, you know, detailed, orderly plan. They scaled it all back, which was the first red flag. But the larger problem is that they have not been able to get anybody to take a flyer on their idea.

They're looking for a credentialed, fresh face who can command media attention and flip up the battleground map, run an actual real campaign. And it's very much. and it's been very hard for them to get somebody to bet their political career on this or to find somebody who doesn't have a political career to burn but can can fill you satisfy the metrics that i just laid out and so a plan drucker isn't an additional metric that they want to make sure they don't take votes from joe biden yes and that's why The plan for this unity ticket is that it must be a Republican at the top of the ticket.

I mean, from their vantage point, that's how they look at it. In other words, by making the Republican on the ticket the president, the presidential candidate and the Democrat, the running made, the idea is that you get Republicans who are not satisfied with Trump but feel they have no other choice but to vote for him to say, Oh, no, there's a viable, really good center-right alternative. Another part of this that gets missed is they don't plan to just head to the same six battleground states. They plan to turn all of these other usually non-competitive states into battleground states. I'm not saying any of this will work, but it is an interesting idea. The ultimate problem is they can't find a candidate that we all might think is good even if it goes nowhere.

They've got no candidate. see i feel like you lose credibility with me the second you say that you want to make sure you're not taking votes from joe biden because then you're not a third party you're just trying to make sure don't don't trump doesn't get elected which isn't a third party that's just trying to help one candidate i don't even get well what it's worth democrats are really democrats are very concerned about this the the centrist democratic group third way continues to issue press releases uh criticizing no labels and they just sent out some more polling today explaining why this thing wouldn't work and would actually help Trump and hurt Biden. So who knows? I don't think voters would

necessarily care if it's true that 70 to 80 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with a rematch. I think if you were to present a compelling ticket and people found the ticket worthy of the office and different and it's something they could believe in and you could actually change of the battleground map, I don't think people would get caught. in the weeds like that. But I think the reason that No Labels has done this is to reassure a lot of the money coming to them that it's not going to help Trump because the people donating to no labels may not like Joe Biden, but they really don't like Donald Trump.

Yeah, and that's where, just to pick up on that point, David, I mean, you know, some of these groups and some of the most outspoken critics, including people at the Lincoln Project and elsewhere are claiming that this is just a pro-Trump effort, like the people behind it are for stealth Trump supporters. This is wrong. It's factually incorrect. I mean, maybe there are some mixed in there. It's not true. Most of the people who are involved, most of the people have been involved are never Trumpers or anti-Trumpers or people who are skeptical of Donald Trump and don't want them to be brothers again. It's a separate question, I think a legitimate one, about whether those efforts, however they intend them to come out, will have the

effect of actually helping Donald Trump. And I think that's entirely possible. And I think for some of the people, the No Labels groups of the No Labels leadership have been holding sit-down meetings with prospective candidates over the past couple weeks, long meetings sort of talking through their plans, answering questions, asking questions of these prospects. And it's definitely the case that some of the people who are involved in those meetings, some of the would-be candidates, some of them we've seen say this publicly, chosen to take themselves out of the running because they don't want to potentially help Donald Trump get elected president.

So that's a separate question as to whether the goal of this thing is to help Donald Trump. It just isn't. I just think the whole, everything you're describing is not what an actual viable third party would be really talking about. They'd be talking about the policies that are important, the best candidates for the country, the ones most likely to garner the most number of votes. I just don't remember Ross Perrault talking about, you know. The giant sucking sound? The strategy, right? Like, and the strategic voting aspect of this. I guess this is just why

I'm very skeptical of the whole project, because, and we've talked about this before, third parties generally rally around an idea that the two parties are ignoring. or they're sort of a candidate personality-driven effort. And this is neither. And so I do not understand it. It's not a third party is part of the problem. But the moment is different. I don't think we've never had.

I mean, these are the two most unpopular presidential candidates in American polling history. We've talked about 70 plus percent of the American public doesn't want the matchup that we appear to have. I think it creates, you pile that on top of the basically two decades of political volatility that we've seen with change elections almost every two years. And I think there's reason to think like something else can be motivating. And a protest vote, or what starts out as a protest vote could turn into something more. Take your point. I mean, I think you're right about the sort of mechanics of this and the weirdness of it. I wonder, though, whether that's not something that you pay attention to because you know campaigns really well,

we pay attention to because we're covering this stuff. But when you get to voters who don't pay attention to this as intensely as we do, they say, ah, I don't know. They're not Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. I'm for that. But I guess that's my point. If 70% of Americans are unhappy with these two choices, then your question if you want to field a new ticket is why and then solve for that instead of all, I'm only hearing strategy from them, the stuff that, and it doesn't even make sense to me, but like strategy that it would appeal to me or not appeal to me versus why do 70% of Americans not like these two candidates? Maybe try to answer that question with your candidate, but Drucker, I wanted to make sure you had the point

that they're not a third party, which you're right, although I'm still very confused on what they are because it depends who you ask. But Sarah, I don't, I don't, I don't blame you, Sarah. And My point wasn't to say that what you were saying was wrong because I agree with you. The way you beat another party or another candidate is A with a candidate and B with an idea. And right now, they're about pragmatism and just this could be great, you know, fill it in, fill in the blank. And, you know, it's kind of like a candidate without a record. Voters love to imagine it will be exactly what they want. And the no labels, but I was just explaining what their plan is and what their plan is.

has always been if we find the candidate and the candidate is compelling, can command media attention and can be looked at by voters as presidential, then that candidate will decide the agenda and those things together will be what it is that it takes in order to get this done. And they feel that starting a third party requires so much time and energy and money. And money. but just time that by the time you make it viable enough to compete with the other parties, which hasn't happened in how long, then you missed a moment and you can't get anything done quickly. They're trying to short-circuit the process. I'm not saying it will work. I'm the biggest skeptic there is, but I'm just to, and I'm saying you're right in what's perplexing you,

but this is what their idea is to short-circuit the usual failing third-party process. By the way, Wesley, you had a fun question. Is there anything in the speech that couldn't have been written a month ago? And I just thought that would be a fun time to mention since I worked in a presidential administration. That's a very astute observation because the State of the Union speech starts getting written about six months in advance. And it starts with a process of basically the White House speechwriters who are tasked with drafting it since. sending out an email to every cabinet secretary and saying, what do you want in the state of the union? And then you will go over to the White House and meet with the speechwriters to make your pitch of what you want included, how you would phrase it, sort of your big, you know, three or four things. It's why you saw sort of each of the cabinet secretaries, not every single one, but sort of get their moment, including this somewhat weird moment of Pete Buttigieg's face being on the screen. And so, yes, it gets written way in advance. And so, yes, it gets written

way in advance. And so, yeah, it makes it less relevant to the exact moment. Now, of course, they're sort of sitting there adding things or subtracting things. You know, they'll say that it's even on the motorcade on the way there. But remember, this has to be fed into a teleprompter. It's rehearsed so many times with the president so that there aren't messups in case the teleprompter goes down, all of those things. And like, if you've never given a speech off a teleprompter before, it's not as easy as it looks and it's really hard for the person running the teleprompter who has to know your speed, cadence, that's all done by hand and that person can lose their job for not being very good at that because it's also really hard to run the teleprompter

when someone is slowing down, ad-lipping, moving around, they lose their place and you're, yeah, it's a weird process. So anyway, great question because it's the state of the unions are a weird process, and they've always been that way. John, I don't know if you've done any reporting in the past on those sort of things. On this specific question, I could say two things that came to mind would be almost exactly a month ago. It would have been the implosion of the border deal, so that was part of the speech. And then Alabama IVF ruling, which was two weeks ago, so that was inserted. Didn't, nothing at the top of my mind come. It also didn't used to always be this way. It used to be a written memo, and we should go back to that.

And there's no more. Were you around for Thomas Sheperson? Is that what you're saying? Back in my dad. Spiritually, yes. I mean, Biden was. You think he'd take a hint and think it works better that way. Well, no, he had to demonstrate that he can stand up and talk for an hour and 10 minutes, but I thought it was really weird. All the people online who were like, he should give a 25-minute speech. And I was like, that's the worst advice I've ever heard. And this is why Twitter is not real life. Can you imagine if he'd only spoken for 20 minutes and sat down and been like,

thanks for having me. That's coaching care. Can't do that. Yeah. You'll lose to the Browns if you don't. Is it just me? I mean, was I the only one who had trouble actually hearing what he was saying, like, in the middle of the speech?

No, I thought it was tough. Yeah, for like a good 15. Yeah. I was sitting in the studio here at NBC. and I thought I have, you know, the IFB in, which is how you hear. And I thought it might have just been that the IFB was bad. So I messed with that. And it wasn't, I think, that the IFB was bad.

The other thing that I thought really made an impact. It wasn't true throughout the entire speed, but for large chunks of it, was this kind of jarring contrast between his sort of forced optimism? the optimistic message you know he came here to deliver and the really angry, shouty delivery tone. He had this sort of almost scowl on his face as he was saying these really optimistic things. And it just was sort of didn't work to me, didn't make a ton of sense. I always think almost more than the substance, when you're listening to someone speak on a stage, The audience either has confidence in that person or they feel nervous for that person.

There's like a sort of audience empathy issue. And you never want to be the speaker that the audience is like holding their breath for, feeling nervous for. And I went back and forth. There were moments where I was like actually, you know, listening and moving along. And there were moments that I started getting really nervous. You know, Sarah, last year, I thought the president struck a much better back. balance between this, you know, I'm going to show you I'm not old, but I'm also going to be folksy and much more enjoyable and down to earth. We finished that speech and Democrats were

thrilled that he passed the age test and look, I feel good, everything's okay. And one year later, he's right back where he started. Although, you know what? He took 30 minutes or so walking through the hall on the front end. He gave just over an hour's speech. And he was, I mean, they literally turned the lights out in the room before he had gotten out of there. He was not the last person to leave the floor, but pretty close to it. So that was definitely him, you know, when he was asked about his age, he said, watch

me. And tonight was definitely a watch me for him. I think he exceeded expectations and then some. I think it was a good night for Joe Biden. And I think last year's state of the union was a great night for Joe Biden. And so it does make you wonder, as Republicans sort of keep lowering expectations on this stuff and you think about a potential debate, I think Republicans think they have that in the bag. And I think the state of the union should be the counter example to that. All right.

Let's go around the horn. Final thoughts on like what's next, I guess. We've now done Super Tuesday, and we've had State of the Union, and now we're just in for the slog. Declan, what's the next thing you're sort of seeing as a pivot moment? I mean, logistically, the New York trial kicks off, what, in two and a half weeks? Is that right? So we'll be able to see how Trump and his campaign plan to message around that. we could also get a conviction in that shortly after it begins obviously appeals and all of that but that could be a potential pivot point and then I think we're just waiting for another

senior moment from either of these guys Steve this also would seem to me to lay to rest or it should lay to rest the Republican conspiracy theory that Joe Biden's just biting his time until he drops out and taps Harris or Michelle Obama or whatever else. Like, this is a guy who's clearly running for president. He wants to run. I mean, I never bought any of those conspiracy theories. I still think there are, there could, if we have more of these moments,

we'll once again have more pressure, including from Democrats, on him to get out. That's not going away. But yeah, this is a guy who wants to run for president. He's reversed himself from what he said four years ago. In terms of what's next, I mean, he's, you know, he's, he's now. taking off on a tour as presidents often do after the state of the union. He's going to be doing a bunch of media appearances and giving you some speeches. I think he's headed to Pennsylvania. I am genuinely interested to see how they handle the optimism and a claim in the

speech, the theme of the speech that the state of the union is strong and getting stronger. That's how he characterized this with the way that he wants to campaign, that we know. that he wants to campaign, which is that potentially the end of America is on nigh. Donald Trump is a threat to the existence of the republic, and we better vote like it. Those seem very difficult to reconcile, and I'll be interested to see if he chooses one, if this was just a moment of optimism for a big audience, and then he goes back to pounding the negative as he has. But it seems to me that's a challenge for them in the coming days. Drucker, what's your next pivot moment?

Well, look, the conventions will happen this summer. I'm interested to see now that the general election is in full swing. By the way, Drucker, I can already tell you're ready for this summer. You're in a short sleeve polo with a popped collar, dude. Hey, it was in the 60s today, you know? I mean, I had to pull out my spring wardrobe. I think it's the midnight popped collar in the bright summer green that's really doing it for me. I thought it was a dark shade of green, but whatever, it's fine.

You know, I want to see if we start to see more of Joe Biden on the trail and more speeches. Now, even though I do this for a living and I love doing it, it's not that I need more speeches because I get enough of those. But, you know, Biden doesn't tend to give a lot of speeches, even about things. he really cares about. I don't think that's necessarily an age-related thing. I think it's been his style to hang back, try to let things come together with a whole bunch of people and then swoop in and sew it all up. But I think that one of the ways he could use the state of the union to prove that he's vigorous enough to be effective and try to turn that around would be to show more of what he showed tonight, however imperfect, on a regular basis, particularly on issues where

there are problems. Will he go back to the border? How many speeches will he give about the border demanding that bipartisan bill that he'll never forget, but so what? How many speeches will he give demanding that he get money for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan? Maybe he never gets it, but so what? How many times will he take the elements of his speech where he looked really committed, at times angry, feisty for sure, and show it over and over and over again. Or are we not going to see a speech like this again until the convention? And that's what I'm interested in it. Last word to you, John. I'm most curious to see if Biden's softness among young voters begins to change as it really sets in that, no, you're not going to get somebody else. There's not,

this is it. It's Trump and Biden. That is one reason I've been somewhat skeptical. that the polls are going to end up where they are right now. Again, I don't think that young people were watching the State of the Union, but I'm sure that this all trickles out as a moment in sort of setting off the beginning of the general election, as did Super Tuesday. So that's what I'll be watching. All right. Well, thanks everyone who stuck with us and hope you enjoyed your evening with the dispatch. And I'll just note, it's really funny to see everyone's title. on here. First of all, John McCormick doesn't have a title. And second of all, all of us outranked Steve

Hayes, unless this is like the White House where the longer your title, the less important you are, because Steve is only an editor. That's it. But I do have the sinking suspicion that maybe it is White House style where the shortest title is the winner. So, congrats, Steve. Appreciate that. I feel powerful. Good night, boss. Thank you.