MSNBC special prime time coverage of President Biden's State of the Union address
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The president makes his case for an American comeback. Let's finish the job this time. The economic success story amidst partisan combat over the southern border, U.S. support for wars abroad, an assault on the fundamental rights of women, and the preservation of democracy itself. Democracy must not be...

partisan issue. Tonight, Rachel Maddow, Nicole Wallace, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Alex Wagner, Ari Melber, Jen Psaki, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Stephanie Ruhle, all here for MSNBC's special coverage of the State of the Union Address.

And thank you for joining us for the State of the Union. For democracy, this is the school band recital and the scout jamboree and the Black Friday sale and the Christmas pageant and the New Year's Eve ball drop and my girlfriend's birthday all rolled into one. Happy birthday, honey.

We know you could watch the president's State of the Union address anywhere and everywhere. It makes us all the more grateful that you are watching it here with us. It's a big night for for all of us. I'm Rachel Maddow here at MSNBC headquarters with some of my beloved colleagues. Nicole Wallace is here. Chris Hayes is here. Ari Melber, Jen Psaki. It's great to have you all here. Our MVP, Joy Reid, will be here in just a few minutes, along with

a whole bunch of our other colleagues over the course of our special coverage tonight. There really is nothing else in American life and in American politics quite like a State of the Union. There's no other moment when you get the president and the vice president and the entire U.S. Senate and the entire House of Representatives and the cabinet and the heads of all the branches of the military and the Supreme Court justices all in one room.

If you are someone who likes to show off to your friends how many political figures you can recognize on site, this, of course, is your night. Anybody correctly spotting the acting secretary of labor, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the ambassador for Palau, you will be well on your way to State of the Union. Who's that in the aisle? Bingo. Tonight, we will be playing along and inevitably getting some of them wrong as long as I'm on the microphone.

The State of the Union is, of course, prescribed in the Constitution. It is always a big deal. It's always an even bigger deal in an election year when the incumbent president is running for reelection.

President Biden's White House has made no secret of the fact that they see tonight as an unparalleled opportunity for him to set the terms of the long campaign ahead. This could well be the largest audience President Biden addresses until the Democratic National Convention, which is nearly half a year from now.

So tonight's speech comes just after President Biden and Donald Trump all but swept the Super Tuesday nominating contest this week. Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee. Biden has been the presumptive Democratic nominee from the beginning.

We don't expect President Biden to call out Mr. Trump by name tonight, but according to excerpts of his speech that were released by the White House earlier this evening, President Biden will draw a contrast between two visions of the American story as he describes it. One that embraces, quote, freedom and democracy, honesty, decency, dignity, equality and respect.

versus another vision, which he says is based in, quote, resentment, revenge and retribution. So, no, maybe he won't say Trump, but he'll spell it every other way.

Other excerpts of the speech released tonight make it clear that President Biden will talk about the booming economy and job market that he has shepherded. He will also call on Americans to elect a Congress that will restore Roe versus Wade, that will restore the right to have an abortion as the law of the land. On the Republican side, we'll watch tonight to see if members of Congress...

can keep it together. There have been increasingly rowdy Republican outbursts at recent State of the Union addresses. Today, House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly warned his Republican colleagues that decorum is the order of the day. We shall see. It hasn't been for a long while.

But it's a big night ahead. We've got lots to talk about. We're going to start by handing it over to Chris Hayes, who has an important guest standing by right before she takes her seat in the House chamber for tonight's speech. Chris. Thank you very much. Joining us now from the Capitol is Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. Senator, I know you're on the rules committee of a special role that you play in tonight's activities. Is that right?

Yes. Get to escort the president in. I hear that he is very excited about this speech and good spirits, a seasoned leader. And as Rachel was just noting, I'm remembering last year when maybe decorum didn't rule and when they were heckling him and he went with the punches and did an extraordinary job. So I'm looking forward to the speech.

Are there specific areas that you feel particularly invested in, things that you're looking for, signals from the White House, particularly about pressing legislative issues right now, supplemental funding, as well as an agenda past that?

Well, clearly the president's going to be focused on getting this budget done so there's not a shutdown, making sure we get Ukraine funding, humanitarian aid to Gaza. But I think the other thing is just going to be that contrast. You know, he is defending the rights, freedoms and

They're trying to destroy them. He is defending democracy and they're trying to diminish it. He has the backs of the American people. I think you're going to hear a lot about costs. I'm very interested in the focus on prescription drugs since I led that bill way back about negotiating Medicare prices. And finally, that is happening. Insulin capped at thirty five dollars. I think

You're going to see a futuristic speech. You're going to see a speech not just about the accomplishments, as important as that is, but also the progress that needs to be made for the future and a really future orientation to what needs to happen in a second term for President Biden. You get to bring guests along, one of your privileges as a member of the United States Senate. Do you have any guests tonight? I.

I do. I have a woman named Ann Buzzy, an Iron Ranger, if you've ever been to Minnesota, northern Minnesota. Okay, good. And she is an incredible woman who's paying $10,000 a year for prescription, her husband's cancer drugs.

And the focus is going to be there on, again, Medicare negotiation, what that's meant for people with the 10 blockbuster drugs, including Eloquus and Xarelto and Genuvia and Jardians, I memorized them, that are being...

that are being negotiated now, but more can come to bring down drug prices for the people of this country. All right, Senator Amy Klobuchar of the great state of Minnesota. I know you have your hands full tonight. I'll let you go. Thank you so much for joining us. It's going to be great. Thank you.

Rachel, you know, it's what she said off the top about about decorum and what we put right at the very top of the broadcast with the big voice guy talking about what's going to happen. It is weird because of what's going on in the Republican Party right now that we are thinking about what the president's going to say and how it sets up the campaign and how he tries to address the legislative priorities of the people who mean the most to him and all these things. And we're also like, what are they going to do? I mean, there is a little bit of a there is.

there is anticipation of like what weirdness may come from the Republican opposition. I don't know if Speaker Johnson has the ability to to calm them down or talk them out of it. But I it's I think it's telling that that's a big part of how we brace for nights like this. Well, I mean, look at a selfish level, it makes it more fun to watch. I mean, anything could happen. It's like at least more stressful. Well, but I think it

gets back to a larger dynamic in the general election contest, President Biden is the only one in charge of his destiny, right? Like you just said, the Speaker can't control his caucus. It is the analog of Trump can't control his impulses. Trump will be what Trump will be. The Republican members will be what they will be. They can't control themselves.

But the president is the most disciplined and experienced. And I know lots of times we talk about how that cuts against him. Of all the people in the room tonight, he really is the only one in control of how this night goes down. In that, of course, they will be what they will be. He's having the same conversation behind closed doors, I'm sure, that we are right now. You know, anything could happen. And I'm sure Anita Dunn's going, oh, God, but don't say the F word. I mean, you know, I mean, he's the only one tonight. Fantastic.

I mean, I think it'd be great, but that's probably for another block. But he's the only one in control of how that goes down. And I think last time it happened, as the senator just said, it went great for him. Yeah. And the public watches this, right? And they're reminded, oh, wait, what happens in Washington? The president has to work with this Congress. Why is there a new speaker? That new face behind him is not the one from the last state of the union. Well, they may people have heard or have some idea that the guy who

could barely get in the first time. McCarthy then got fired and now they got this new guy. And so when you talk about, oh, immigration, there's real stuff to be done. The economy, they've been doing it kind of the White House argues without Congress. Right. And then you say, oh, we want to do more. And this is I don't know how the president will do it. We're waiting to see one of the least productive Congresses in modern history. So I think he's both going to talk about an economic comeback. We've seen that in the excerpts.

plans. Hey, there's more I can do. That's why he wants a second term. And also implicitly or explicitly the negative space in the painting. Everyone else in this room on the Republican leadership hasn't done much with their time or jobs that you elected them to. That's very true. And I think the best moment last year that we all remember was the Social Security moment, right? When the president had the back

and forth. There's no doubt, as Nicole and I both can confirm, you plan those moments to the best that you can. But there's some aspect of it you can't plan because they can't plan. Is somebody in that audience today likely going to yell about immigration? Are they going to yell about some other issue that the president's going to have to respond to? The White House also plans for that. So it's very weird. We're talking about it. It's also weird, maybe weirder, that you're sitting in the White House over the last few weeks planning out

Okay, how are you going to respond if Marjorie Taylor Greene yells about this? How are you going to respond if they yell about that?

And that might be the moment we remembered from tonight. There was news today that, you know, that there's there's back and forth efforts to stop that, that Mike Johnson, I think, rightly thinks it reflects poorly on his members and wants to police that, that he got responses from Warren Boebert being like, nah, dude. And I mean, we're going to do it anyway. Yes. I mean, I won't choose like I don't even check my behavior for my preacher. I think she's in church was the quote, if I'm recalling that correctly. My first thought was a theater. Right. Good point. My.

Exactly. What exactly should we be expecting? Self-regulation is a really important skill to teach your kids. Just as a side note to everyone out there with kids, like self-regulating is a really important thing in adulthood. But also the fact that there is a contrast to Ari's point with this Congress that is really invisible to people that don't spend a lot of time thinking about politics. Everyone in America knows who Donald Trump is.

everyone knows who the president is, Joe Biden. Maybe one in five people know who Mike Johnson is. Maybe, I don't know what percentage of people could tell you which party controls the House of Representatives. So the basic facts of that dynamic that you just listed, that's like news to a lot of people that come to watch the State of the Union on a night when tens of millions of people pay attention. And very briefly, there's who is Mike Johnson? And then there's why is

is my phone. And that goes to how they've spent a lot of time fighting with themselves rather than delivering, even on conservative principles, let alone any other legislation. The point that you made, Ari, about how this is the least, one of the least productive Congresses, if not the least productive Congress in the modern history of the United States, is a double-edged thing for this president, too, because he wants to talk

about his record of getting things done with bipartisan legislation. But he's standing in front of a Congress that literally can't put a Y on the end of a weekday without being sure that they're going to be a fight about it. You know what I mean? So we shall see. We are still waiting right now for President Biden to leave the White House, get in the beast, drive over to the Capitol to deliver this year's State of the Union address. We're going to take a quick break right now just before just because we we want to be back with you right before all the action starts. Stay right here with us.

I must say to you that the state of the union is not good. The state of our union is sound. The state of our union is strong, but our economy is troubled. The state of the union depends on each and every one of us. What is the state of our union? It is growing stronger, but it must be stronger still.

new election matchup with new energy surrounding the race. There is an electricity on the ground. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premiere live audience event to break down all that's at stake in this historic election. The election of 2024 was always going to be a big freaking deal. MSNBC Live Democracy 2024 Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Visit msnbc.com slash democracy 2024 to buy your tickets today.

I have no more campaigns to run. My only agenda, I know because I won both of them,

President Obama at the State of the Union after winning re-election. Republicans very excited he would not be campaigning again. Him rubbing it in just a little and winning the interaction. So here's a split screen for you on the occasion of this year's campaign year State of the Union. Former President Donald Trump is tomorrow scheduled to take his first meeting with a foreign leader since he became the presumptive Republican nominee for president in 2024. Tomorrow,

Tomorrow, he will host at his home in Florida, at Mar-a-Lago, Viktor Orban, the authoritarian prime minister of Hungary. He's been in power for nearly 15 years. During that time, Hungary's democracy has significantly backslid towards something much more like an autocracy. Orban is also a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Last year, he tried to block European military aid to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, when President Biden gives the State of the Union address tonight, a different prime minister, the prime minister of Sweden, will be watching from First Lady Jill Biden's box seats. Sweden has historically been a neutral nation in times of war. That neutrality effectively ended today when today, this day, Sweden became the newest member of NATO.

the 32nd country to join NATO. They decided to end years of neutrality in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And so to mark the occasion, the prime minister of Sweden will be a guest of President Biden and the first lady tonight at the State of the Union, while President Trump tomorrow hosts Viktor Orban's

best friend forever. Joy, it's great to have you here. Thank you. The split screen here is always there during a president's State of the Union when it happens in a campaign year.

I don't know whether this was timed to coincide with the State of the Union, whether this Orban visit was timed specifically to essentially be an anti-democratic poke in the eye and reminder about what the Republican Party is offering this year. But I wonder what you think President Biden will make of it. Prime Minister of Sweden sitting there, a new NATO member.

And that contrast is as bright as it could be. Just as bright as it could be. And, you know, and holding NATO together and holding the alliance together during this nightmare that's happening in Ukraine has been one of the things that President Biden has been most proud of. So I think one can expect that he's going to make a big deal out of it and that we did hold

the Western alliance together. And he's sitting in front of a Republican caucus that is as, you know, non-interventionist isolationist as we've seen in a generation. So it is an interesting contrast. And, you know, Donald Trump has been trying to sort of style himself as a president in waiting.

As sort of what Victor Orban was when he lost and then returned to power and then began to dismantle democracy, making sure he would never lose again. And he hasn't. And so there is this interesting split screen, as you say, somebody who is literally going to be sitting with a man with whom he can get advice about how to remain in power forever, how to become president for life.

at home, allegedly going to fact check President Biden on his pretend Twitter. You know, he's got his own plan to sort of style himself while the real president is talking as the president in waiting, who's also consulting with the dictator who's going to train him. He is, for all intents and purposes, the apprentice while he is in Mar-a-Lago. Well put. I

I think the president has to do more than point to NATO as an accomplishment, because I think this is something that you have to connect the dots for people. Yes. The opposite is a threat. You know, doing it is sure it's an accomplishment, but I think he has to go further and say being against this is a threat. I think you have to. I think the whole.

reaction, all of this may get more traction in foreign capitals than in ours, right? They'll be looking in Ukraine. They'll be looking in Europe to see how half the room reacts when he talks about Sweden. Will they clap? I'm not sure. And to see this lurch of not just the presumptive nominee, but one of the two parties, I mean, it

They know more about Mitch McConnell's retirement and his comments about foreign policy than probably folks, to your point, paid attention here. But this is, I think, and I interviewed the former prime minister of Australia. I mean, this is what they're watching to see if America remains part of Five Eyes intelligence sharing.

Why does it matter? Because the opposite is dangerous to you and you and you. And it's not just bragging about the strength of the alliances. It's making abundantly clear the danger of destroying them. And by the way, there are there's been reporting, and I think you had on your program as well, that European leaders are looking and they're wondering if it's even worth doing

if it's worth even dealing with the current president of the United States if he cannot control foreign policy. And they're watching as the current sitting president of the United States has his foreign policy held hostage by a civilian, by a retiree in Florida who seems to actually control whether or not the United States can help you. They're also watching for this connection, as Nicole said. I mean, these foreign capitals, as you said, they get briefings on our politics in the United States, who's up and who's down. And I think in this speech, I would have

expect the president to connect the importance of funding for Ukraine as a defending democracy and defending authoritarian impulses to the challenges here. Because the other frustration that President Biden and Secretary Blinken hear when they go overseas is sometimes a lack of recognition of the challenges we have here at home. So acknowledging that and acknowledging and speaking to the defense of democracy, the inflection point we're in, and tying that to Ukraine, I think is the way I would expect

them to do it. And I think there's a homework part of the State of the Union as well, because this is an address to the public, and you're going to hit your big moments, and we talk about that, so sometimes people remember, but

You don't have every day where you can just kind of give a world briefing about what's going on. Why are these countries that have been comfortable at a security level in Europe being neutral for so long shifting? You know, this isn't World War Two, but it is the largest land war in Europe since World War Two. And Putin does have apparently a friend in Florida. That sounds like a criticism.

But that's how his Florida friend talks. That's what he admits. And so this president, Biden, right, has overseen a transition out of all the Trump chaos in the United States. And I think that's where most of Americans' attention is. And there's very little interest, I think, in either party for a lot of foreign adventures. And yet...

This is how much it's moving, even with a push against Putin. Imagine the alternative. Well, and he's also fighting tonight the sort of, for lack of a better phrase, the entropy of attention, which is what happens with anything that goes on. Like when they invited Ukraine, it was rolling coverage. Right. And then it's two years go on and people pay less attention. And you see that that that salience start to fall down. You see it in polling. How important is this to you?

What he has on his side is that even as a low salience issue, it's not front of mind for most voters, it is still popular.

Like, it is still a majority. There are strong, robust majorities support continued aid to Ukraine. Like, it's not, even though it has decreased over time. It has decreased and has been very effectively decreased both by right-wing media and Donald Trump, the two of them. But it remains a popular issue. It remains a majority issue. And what he has the unique role of the bully pulpit tonight as the State of the Union is to try to increase the salience back

And it's working.

Vladimir Putin. Like the pro-Putin foreign policy that right-wing media and that Donald Trump are selling, they've talked the right wing into the idea that that's somehow some sort of America-first nationalist good-sounding thing. But it's about helping Vladimir Putin, who is wildly unpopular in every sector of the American public. And so...

For President Biden tonight, that's an easy thing to point out. I will mention that he's... that Evan Gershkovich's parents are going to be there. Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, who's been held in Russia unjustly by Vladimir Putin for a year now. We've just had...

Alexei Navalny assassinated in, in Russia. And it's still a very, very, very short, sharp shock. Uh, we know that the white house invited Navalny's widow to be here tonight, even though she couldn't, I'd be surprised if we don't hear about that, but personifying the, the, the evil and the aggression that we're up against here, I think is going to be something that president Biden's going to find fairly easy to do. And they are Evan's parents are guests of Mike Johnson, uh,

which I thought was actually a really important bit of signaling on precisely that. He gets to invite who he wants. He gets to signal what he's trying to communicate. And that I thought was actually a very good sign about where he is on this particular issue. The other piece, and this is the thing that I hear sort of out

in the world that people in the regular world who don't really necessarily pay attention to foreign policy aren't necessarily jazzed about the issues of Putin versus, you know, Ukraine. They aren't really thinking about it. But when they talk about Ukraine, what they wind up talking about is the United States spending tax money over there instead of over here. And it would be probably helpful if somehow Ukraine

President Biden could do two things. He has to talk about the scale. I think that people over people overestimate the scale of that spending versus what's spent domestically. Yes. People perceive it as hugely as much more money. But they also they connect it to a lack of spending in the cities, a lack of spending for them. And he needs to make that case. We're going to take a quick break. I do want to let you know, actually, while we're talking about this topic,

One of the things that we're keeping eyes on tonight is there's been one arrest already thus far at a not gigantic, but a significant size protest outside the Capitol tonight. This is a protest calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Again, we just got word there's been a single arrest. There may be additional arrests there, but this is outside the Capitol on what is, of course, a very not only high profile, but a very high security event with so much of the

government establishment of the United States gathered in that one room to hear this address tonight by the president, protesters making their views known. All right. In just a few minutes, we expect Speaker Mike Johnson to call the House to order ahead of President Biden's address. We're going to squeeze in this last quick break and we'll have live pictures inside the Capitol on the other side of this. So stay with us. To the investigations of the so-called Watergate affair. I believe the time has come

to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough. If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.

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Good evening and happy Mardi Gras. I'm Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana. Tonight, we witnessed a great moment in the history of our republic. Speaking for the Democratic Party tonight will be Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas. These Americans were chosen from across our nation. They are expressing themselves about Democrats, Republicans, and the part government plays in their lives. In the short time that I've been here in Washington, nothing has frustrated me more than false choices like the one the president laid out tonight.

Never. It's not tiny. Too close. We'll clean it up afterwards. We'll fix it in post.

The assignment of responding to the State of the Union is thirsty work. It's a little bit like what used to be called the Sports Illustrated cover curse in the sense that it is a great honor. It means you are a big deal and have done some great stuff and people expect more great stuff from you. But it often doesn't go well for you. The person who will deliver tonight's Republican response.

is Katie Britt, a freshman senator from the great state of Alabama. She was sworn in last year. She's the first woman from Alabama to be elected to the U.S. Senate at just age 42. She's also the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate from any state.

Senator Britt's an interesting and strategic choice for Republicans. She ran on her staunch opposition to abortion. She celebrated the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Republicans have since lost election after election after election. Any time it's been tied to that subject in any state, even dark red states where it's gone up on the ballot in various ways.

After the Alabama Supreme Court effectively banned in vitro fertilization, effectively banned IVF last month, Alabama state legislature subsequently rushed through a bill to protect it. The Alabama governor signed that bill last night, which happened to be on the literal eve of Senator Katie Britt's national debut. Lucky her.

Joining us now is our friend John Archibald. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and columnist for AL.com. John, it's great to see you. Thanks for being with us tonight. Good to see you, too. Thanks for having me. So you have seen Katie Britt up close in Alabama politics for a lot longer than people on the national scene know her. What should we expect and what have you come to learn about her in her years in Alabama politics?

Well, you know, she came to power sort of as an alternative sort of politician to to the craziness of the Mo Brooks of the world and the funerary of Tommy Tuberville and that sort of thing. And I think that she wants to present that sort of image to, you know, the nation as as sort of an alternative to crazy. But, you know.

At the same time, if you really want to see who she is, you have to look at sort of the Republican Party that that exists in her state, which is.

you know, busy right as we speak, you know, passing more don't say gay bills and more bathroom bills and ignoring prison crises that that also affect life. And so, you know, if that's if that's the that's what you're going to get from Katie Britt and probably anything that

that she thinks Donald Trump might want to hear. So she was up against Mo Brooks in the primary to get to this Senate seat in the first place. Mo Brooks started off as very much Team Trump, and then Trump sort of turned on him, effectively disassociated himself with him in a way that was very harmful for Mr. Brooks's campaign. Katie Britt ended up winning that campaign by a lot after Trump and Brooks split.

I mean, we all saw that drama unfold. But where would you put her on the scale of zero to Trumpy in terms of what what type of Republican politics she has, how closely she's aligned herself with the former president and crucially with his claims about elections being fraudulent in the United States?

Yeah, it's really interesting because when she went around campaigning here initially, tons of people would say, oh, but she's not like that. She's not like that. She really doesn't believe that. She's not that Trumpy, which only leads me to say, you know, you are what you pretend to be. And in the time that she's been elected, she has pretended to be nothing but, you know, a Trump shoeshiner. And I think that she intends to she hopes deeply to be put in that position.

vice presidential lottery. So so I think that in many ways, it's sort of an illusion because because she has been the result is exactly the same. If you had Tommy Tuberville saying crazy things and you have Katie Britt, who is saying less crazy things, but ultimately the result is the same. And and I think that's where we are.

John Archibald, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and columnist for AL.com. One of all the people writing columns, journalism in the United States, my favorite person to read of all of them. John, it's great to have you here. Thank you, my friend. Thank you.

We see live shots from the chamber here as Vice President Kamala Harris enters the chamber. We also saw the Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, coming in behind her. This starts the process, a long process, which will take at least the next 20 minutes, as you see members of the House and Senate already there. We'll see the diplomatic corps of the cabinet, the joint chiefs, the military leaders of the various branches,

I'll come in. We'll keep eyes on that as it happens. Chris. Oh, I just Katie Britt is a fascinating figure. She was, you know, choice and choice. She were I mean, clearly, look, they understand they have to protect themselves on this flank. They have coordinated this timing. Right. Like she's coming to be like, look, we signed the IVF bill. We're not coming for your frozen embryos. You know, IVF, you reserves of America, even though that's.

The majority of the House Republican caucus is currently, as I speak to you right now, a co-sponsors on a bill that's filed in this Congress that would nationalize the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that has no carve out for IVF.

But the other thing that I think is interesting is like the sort of expectation setting that happens when you're the senator in a state where Tommy Tuberville is the other senator. It's like it's like it's like a bridesmaid's dress for reasonableness. You know what I mean? Like you look good if you're next to Tommy Tuberville, who is one of the most embarrassing and ludicrous members of the U.S. Senate I can editorialize. Katie Britt is like extremely, extremely good.

and looked to as like the future in Republican Senate circles. She was a staffer for a long time. She was chief of staff to Richard Shelby. Who she replaced. Whose seat she now holds, right? And so she is, she is an interesting kind of inside, outside, uh, transcender, uh,

in this generation of young Republicans. She's also the only Republican woman in the Senate with kids who are like, you know, she's raising, which is why probably she is their choice. It is still odd. I understand they have to like protect their right flank. At the same time, this is the biggest problem they have. And when she won her Senate seat, she proudly said,

you know, brags. It was excited about the row being overturned. I mean, so she could be like Republican Gandhi and she still possesses a position that 83 percent of Americans oppose. Abortion is more popular now than it has been since the poll question has been asked. And Republicans, radical extreme Republicans have made it so it doesn't matter how reasonable she looks next to Tommy Tuberville. And on the IAF question, they don't have an answer.

I mean, Alabama did sort of an end run around it, but they're not answering the fundamental, quote unquote, moral questions that they brought up. So it's like... But they answered it. I mean, embryos are children. And it's in the concept. It doesn't matter what law they pass. It's over. Does that mean you can freeze children? I mean, you know, like that's the... When you're defending frozen children, you know you're losing, right? Yeah.

Beyond that, they also have, I think Johnson's invited someone who runs a pregnancy crisis center. I mean, they're not doing themselves any favors vis-a-vis, you know, the larger kind of questions that came out of Dobbs. What's really one of the key dynamics in this election is that

If everyone was smart on that side, they would just shut the hell up about this issue until November. Like, they would just be like, no one talk about it. We're not doing a national ban. Wait till we get in power and then we'll do it. But they can't do that. They can't do that. Because it is their strongest issue. And the right wing won't let them. And women will keep dying in the

The problem is local news still exists. And even right wing local news will still cover a woman who has died because she was not able to get health care in the state, even of Texas. It will still be covered. It's going to happen in Ohio and Texas. It's going to happen in Florida. It will happen everywhere. And those stories are so compelling just as narratives that they will be irresistible to the media, local and national as women die.

It doesn't matter how attractive and reasonable sounding Katie Britt is. And the reality is the polling on this among the Republican base. I think it's something like only 35 percent of the Republican Party disagrees with the Alabama ruling. No, but Mike Johnson, I don't know if you all saw the Mike Johnson interview today because he was asked about IVF. Couldn't answer it. And what he said was it's new since the 1970s. And we're in a brave new world. Yeah.

First of all, he's probably been around since the 19th. I mean, he's younger. I mean, he's not that much... Was he born in the 1970s? Yes, that's my point. Right, right. And then the other issue is that the problem... And look, I...

I come from the 1980s. I was in high school in the 1980s. And I'm just telling you, when we first started hearing about this and the whole quote unquote test tube, the right, I'm just promising you as somebody who grew up Christian in the 1980s was four square against it, declared it to be demonic and did not believe it should happen. They believe life begins at conception. And if you create 12 embryos, they believe you must implant all 12 and make all 12 embryos into people because they're

already people. If you say life begins at conception, that means that by definition, if you dispose of an embryo you've frozen, you have killed a person. That is what they actually believe. They can cover it up with whatever marketing and slogans and a different messenger, but that is what they actually believe. And while we're talking,

and we're looking at these scenes from inside. There's Tommy Tuberville, senior senator from Alabama. But when we've had those wide shots of the room, you might have noticed that there's a lot of female members of Congress who are wearing white or wearing cream, light colored. And it really stands out when you see the wider shot of the room. Those are members of the Democratic Women's Caucus who are wearing white specifically to signal support for reproductive freedom.

And so this is going to be the centerpiece of what happens tonight, almost regardless of what has said, what is being said, right? With the Republicans choosing a Republican from Alabama to give the response to the State of the Union, an anti-abortion Republican from Alabama, and to have the Democratic women highlighting it

in this very high visibility. Can I make a sartorial note that we did not coordinate myself and Jen Psaki? We just randomly were. And you're not coordinating as part of this message. No, no, no. You both just look amazing in that.

Speaking of which, Jen Psaki, you have a guest. I do. Joining us now is Jeff Nussbaum, the former speechwriter for President Biden. He joins us. Thank you for joining us, Jeff, for taking the time tonight. Oh, good to be with you guys. This is fun. So, Jeff, one of the things that we've been talking about tonight is in this world we're living in in 2024, how do you

How do you prepare for the moments that might be scripted in a speech and might not be? So as somebody who's written speeches with President Biden, helped him walk through them, helped practice them with him. How do you do that? How do you prepare for protesters from either side of the aisle or for moments where you want to put the other party in a tough spot?

Well, you do prepare. And I think you mentioned it a little bit earlier. You have lines ready. You have responses ready. You have a pretty decent sense, even though the speaker has tried to tell his caucus to stay in control, that they may not. So that is part of it. But you also ultimately...

the president is up there alone and he has to trust his instincts. And so, you know, Bill Clinton, one of his advisors before he would go up for the State of the Union, would whisper in his ear, "You have the best political instincts I've ever seen, trust them." So part of it is the president being alone, part of it is preparing. And I think this year especially, I think if there are responses, if there's chaos, certainly last year the president showed that he can rumble with anyone, right? He won that exchange.

And so if he wants to wade into an exchange, we know he can win it. But also this year, if he gets, if the rabble rises up, I think it presents this perfect split screen between the visual manifestation of the chaos in the House and a president up there who's being a leader.

So I'm not one to tell him what he should do, but I think either way he can kind of win the exchange. Jeff, let me ask you, I'm sure you've seen the excerpts. They struck me as particularly spicy. Spicy Scranton Joe, perhaps, maybe an indication of that. Tell us.

Tell us a little bit about how, as a speechwriter, you prevent these speeches from becoming a listicle because everybody's pushing cabinet members, everybody in the White House for their things in the speech and make it more of a story. And what these excerpts may tell you about the tone of the speech.

Completely agree. I had the same response when I when I read the excerpts. I thought this spicy, yes, but also conversational. And I think that's one of President Biden's strengths. Like, yes, it's an oration, but it's also a conversation. And he's he enjoys those conversations. He's at his best in living room conversations. So I think you see in the language we've already seen that he's taking an oration moment and turning it into a conversation moment.

And then in terms of the list, right, the people trying to get their piece in, right, there are a lot of people in government and out of government who are validated if they have their line in the State of the Union. And that's why you want a leader and people around him who know what they are about.

And luckily, President Biden knows what he's about because he's always been about it. Right. An economy from the bottom up in the middle out, you know, restoring the middle class, rebuilding our infrastructure, rebuilding our economy. So so part of it is resisting those impulses on a staff level. Part of it is a leader saying there's one story I'm telling and I'm going to bring in the information that advances that one story.

Jeff Nussbaum, always a pleasure. It's also true, as you and I can confirm, that people do wait for you outside of the bathroom before these speeches to get their thing in the speeches. It's very true. Thank you for joining. Thank you for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it. Meaning you're saying that if people know that you have a hand in getting in and helping craft the speech, people will stalk you like inside the White House? Oh,

There's crazy behavior that takes place. Nicole may have experienced this as well because everybody wants their line, their proposal, their thing in the speech. And as Jeff just talked about, the challenge when you're writing the speech or when you're the communications director is you need it to be a story, a narrative, not a list. So everybody, there's a lot of disappointed people, even when they stop you outside the bathroom. So you just drink a lot less water. You make sure you can't get caught. The reason we're looking at this door

through which a whole bunch of people you don't recognize just walked through is because of that moment right there. The first lady and the president leaving the White House, getting in the presidential limousine for the very short ride over to the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol. President there is taking his time getting in. Looks like he turned around and...

kind of greeted some people back in the White House. As you guys know, Nicole and Jen, having worked in the White House and been there on big nights like this, it is very much like Christmas pageant time. Like it is all systems go and everybody's working and everybody has been working a lot. And things are changing right down to the very last minute. It's very high energy. It's very high stakes. And there's always a divide. You know, somebody has to go with them. But most

people want to watch on TV to see what the country's seeing. And so there's usually like the short straw is actually the person in the car and the car behind it, because most people want to see what people are seeing and don't want to be the person that's going and fielding any last minute calls with the principal or any other changes. It's not like the American president where Michael J. Fox says, I got to write a brand new speech. You know, the last minute stuff, you kind of want to see what the country's seeing and hear the immediate reaction, positive and negative. I think Biden

saying, I'm not a lip reader, but I play one on TV. I think he said feeling good when he walked out of the White House and was going to the little kind of very good feeling good. Yeah.

waving as he goes. You know, also keep in mind that this is the first time that a president gives a State of the Union. We don't call it a State of the Union, but it effectively is. So 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, at least one of the States of the Union that President Biden has had to give

had to be changed at the last minute because of the invasion of Ukraine. That's right. It was in 2022. And the speech that we had prepared was leading with the economy, as they often do, almost always do. And we essentially ripped up the speech, which doesn't happen often, but sometimes it does happen because of events in the world. And the speech, as you all remember, became largely about Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine and the moment we were facing. And it's not quite that at all. But I was speaking with somebody from the White House yesterday. I was curious about what they were going to say. The president was going to say about Gaza. And they said it's not quite written yet because it is an issue. Obviously, there was announcement today they made about aid and assistance where they want to provide the most up to date detail. And there are issues, especially in national security, where you sometimes do have to wait. You sometimes do have to rewrite it or scrap it or change it or move it around.

where it is in the speech. The size of this motorcade is intense. I mean, I know this always happens for State of the Union. It always happens for any presidential, any presidential movement at all. But the fact that this is presidential movement and State of the Union, I mean, that was like a small city moving President Biden there. Jen, you asked in your interview, and it was an interesting question about how

The White House is preparing for potential disruption. And I think President Biden has proved he's very deft at dealing with disruption when it comes from Republicans. He did it very well in his previous speech when Marjorie Taylor Greene got up and made a spectacle of herself. How do you expect him to respond if the disruption is on Gaza?

I can tell you how I hope he responds, which is to show empathy and to acknowledge what people are raising and to say, I share your desire to end this war and to save lives in Gaza. You know, that is the piece that I don't think has been communicated as well as possible, which is that that is what he's trying to do. And obviously, there are a lot of people in the country, as we've seen, who are frustrated. But there's also a lot of people in the country who feel that

some of the language they've seen from some of the Democratic Party is anti-Semitic. I'm not validating that, but it's a very difficult issue for President Biden and for Democrats because of all of that. Yeah, one of the things that will be interesting about that part of the speech tonight is Donald Trump and the Republicans have basically maintained what I would call strategic silence on the entire question.

It is really striking. It just needs to finish. I think that's what he said. Finish the problem as a phrase has is not my favorite. And what you see, however, and what you will see in the room is that there are two coalitions in American life, two parties, one of which is having an inter coalition.

coalitional battle over this issue, and one of which is having no such battle over the issue, which is four square in one direction and on one side. That has been true about everyone who's been speaking about this issue from the Republican Party, every Republican member of Congress who's walked through the halls. So what will be interesting tonight will be to see that in the room, because there is no division.

on the Republican side on the issue, and it points in only one direction. Let's bring into the conversation now NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles. I want to bring... The joint session will come to order. Hold one moment. The chair appoints as members of the committee on the part of the House to escort the President of the United States into the chamber. The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Scalise. The gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Emmer. The gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Stefanik. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hudson.

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer. The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Moore. The gentleman from Michigan, Mrs. McClain. This list of names here that you're getting from the House Speaker, this is the escort committee, which is a long list of members of Congress and the Senate that will walk in along with

The president to start his address. I want to bring Ryan Nobles into this conversation, mostly because Ryan is in the room. He can't join us on camera, but he can join us audio only. Ryan, can you give us any color, any sense of what you've been seeing? One of the things that we've noticed is the number of Democratic women who are wearing white. We're told that is in support of reproductive rights. It's obviously making a quite striking visual in looking at the room.

Yeah. And Rachel, if it comes across that way on television, it's even more stark here in the room. When you're walking, your eyes are immediately drawn to this group of women, not only because they are dressed in that white color, but they're also made the calculated decision to bunch themselves all together and sit in one big block.

And it certainly sends quite the message because, as I said before, your eyes are immediately drawn to them and the message that they're sending. And, of course, with everything that's happening in the country right now related to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the situation with the controversy over IVF in Alabama and the freezing of embryos,

And then just in general, the overall conversation about women's rights. This was something I talked to Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal about this earlier today. She's among the group dressed in white. And she said this is something that Democratic women feel is an urgent topic that needs to be discussed. They want it to be brought to the forefront.

And this is something that we see members do, right? They don't have the opportunity to speak at a night like tonight, but there's obviously millions of eyeballs that are paying attention to what's happening here in this chamber. And this is a way to subtly send a message to all those people that are watching that this is an issue that they care about. And they're not the only ones. We're going to see members wearing ribbons that denote a number of different things. In fact, there are Republican members that are wearing white ribbons that represent the

their concerns about the border crisis and what they would describe as the violence connected to the border crisis. Of course, that's certainly up for debate as to whether or not that's a causation or a correlation. But regardless, that's obviously an issue that is front and center for Republicans. And so these

These are all just kind of the subtle ways that members try to make the most important issues that they care about front and center in a speech like tonight. Because, you know, one of the things that members do, and this is one of the things we talked to Congresswoman Jalapal about today, is that they push the White House. They say, this is an issue that we care about and we want you to talk about in this speech. But there's no guarantee that any of that is going to get into the speech. So that's part of why they want to make that message heard just in the way that they look.

ABC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles. Ryan, thank you. And keep us keep keep us on speed dial. Flag us as you're noticing other dynamics at work in the chamber there. Speaker Mike Johnson on the right. Vice president on the left. This is the assistant house sergeant at arms.

This is the dean of the diplomatic corps, the longest serving ambassador to the United States. By tradition, the longest serving ambassador to the United States, the man who just walked on your screen there from left to right, he's the ambassador to Palau. That makes him the dean of the diplomatic corps. We'll see the justices of the Supreme Court introduced shortly. We'll see the first lady introduced fairly shortly. We'll see the cabinet introduced shortly. Let's watch a little bit of this for a second.

Watching along with us is our friend Claire McCaskill, former Democratic U.S. Senator from Missouri. Claire, am I right that you've been able to talk to some of Democratic women who are in the room tonight? Well,

Well, I've certainly had communication texts with some of my friends and former colleagues, and they are, to a person, very optimistic about the speech. They think that President Biden is going to be very comfortable in that room. I don't think anybody in that room has been to more State of the Union speeches than Joe Biden. So he knows most of the people there, especially in the Senate side, very well, and they're

They think he's going to be loose and aggressive. And frankly, everyone is assuming that somebody is going to act out on the other side. There is a little bit of concern that there may be some acting out around the Gaza issue. And I think what you all said earlier holds true. I think most of the members that I've communicated with think that it will give him an opportunity to show the empathy that everyone is feeling.

about the loss of innocent lives in Gaza in terms of the way that war is being prosecuted. We just saw the assistant house sergeant at arms announce the chief justice and associate members of the United States Supreme Court. You see the chief there, John Roberts, in the lead, followed by Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Justice Gorsuch.

All members of the Supreme Court never attend anymore, but some interesting mix of them always does. You see Justice Kavanaugh there. It's the president's limousine there. We have, correct me if I'm wrong here, but Justice Alito hasn't attended since the State of the Union when he was kind of heckling President Obama and got caught on camera, right? That was the last time that he came? Yes. But we have since. So that's an interesting way to leave your mark.

You'd think you'd want to kind of clean up that impression, come again and be well behaved. So people would remember that. We've sometimes seen former justices, retired justices. I was just going to say Justice Kennedy is there. Justice Kennedy there. And we see Justice Katonji Brown Jackson. Yeah, Kennedy's right behind him there.

That's a privilege that you are allowed as a former justice of the United States Supreme Court. We should also mention along those lines that another privilege, House floor privileges are extended to former members of Congress. There has been a little bit of buzz tonight about

expelled member of Congress, George Santos, sort of proudly returning and using his floor privileges to try to attend this evening. He has pled guilty to multiple felony charges. Had he been convicted of any of those felonies, he would not be allowed on the House floor. But as a former member, even one who has been expelled, he technically can be there. So he's lurking somewhere. Get it in while you can. Yeah, exactly. Lurking somewhere and hoping desperately that we will talk about

about him and put his picture on television. So while I have just talked about him now, maybe that'll be it. Maybe we should change those rules. Those rules seem a bit odd, isn't it? Yeah. Why do you need to come back? I mean... Because nobody ever thinks of, you know, someone like him existing, right? It's all of our conversations with Trump. How is that possible? Well, the Patterson thing of someone like him. Can I just really... I've been doing my... One of my favorite things to do is to text Republicans. And maybe just to remind people that I actually do know Republicans. I have a Republican friend. I was like, this is an

app. I know there's an app where you just text the Republicans. It's dot org dot net. So I texted a couple of Republican friends and it's interesting that they really are saying the same thing about what they think. I asked them the same question. What should or could President Biden say to win over the Nikki Haley supporters? And they've all been very clear that they think that he should laser focus. And they're saying that her base was

It was really women who in some cases don't normally vote in Republican primaries, at least according to one of the men. That's who her base is. They're sort of light voting Republicans loosely attached to the party, except for in this case, they were driven to come out because of abortion and IVF. And that he should do a heavy emphasis on trying to win over Republican women, not so much necessarily on the democracy stuff, but specifically on IVF and reproductive rights.

It's interesting because one of the excerpts they released, I mean, he's not I don't as you said in the beginning, he's not going to mention Trump. I would be shocked by that even accidentally. But is clearly those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America. He's talking about Trump there. Clearly, he's also lifting up and speaking to many of those Nikki Haley voters, I think, in there and those independent women who are outraged about IVF.

may be pro-choice and feel like this is a bridge too far. We just saw President Biden walking through the hall of columns. He said to reporters as he passed through, of course, he's on his way to the House chamber. He said, I'm feeling great, was his comment as he's approaching the

It is just past nine o'clock right now on the East Coast, which means that we are expecting shortly the House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland to announce the arrival of the president of the United States. And then what we will then see is the escort committee. We just heard all those members of Congress, their names, all the members of the United States Senate, a big long list of members who haven't come into the chamber yet, along with all of their colleagues, colleagues.

who will walk in as the escort committee for the president. And then he will start the long process of shaking hands and interacting with people in more or less performative ways, depending on the member, as he works his way down that center aisle toward the rostrum. One other thing to keep in mind. There's there's the man who did it. It's done. And we're done. Thank you.

Thank you. The one thing that we'll be watching for, you guys might remember when we covered State of the Union last year, when President Biden finished, and last year was kind of like an

high energy, rock'em, sock'em State of the Union, including the heckling and him going back at the hecklers and getting big rounds of applause. And it was like a very kind of loose, very high energy thing. At the end of it, he stayed for 20 minutes. He was the last person to do it. Does anybody else want to talk to me? Does anybody else?

Where did this came from? He loves it. If you were with Biden on the campaign trail as a reporter or as a staffer, I mean, you'd see him do these speeches and then he'd just, he'd kibitz for a long time. This seems like a weirdly counterintuitive hot take, even though it's the most obvious thing you could say, which is that Joe Biden is good at politics. Joe Biden is good at politics. He's very good at politics. The man really does know what he's doing. And

You really see it in those sort of situations. We discovered when I was still there at the White House that when we traveled with members of Congress, he was more elated.

It energized him, which is so rare. That is not how President Obama would have felt about traveling with members of Congress. But it was you have a drink with Mitch McConnell. My favorite state in the union. In 2022, also, when he came back from that speech, that was Russia and Ukraine heavy. We all waited to cheer for him in the palm room, which, as Nicole knows, is kind of the room you walk back in, you walk back out. And we were there for like an hour. I mean, he was there for so long that night for the same same reasons.

And I mean, part of being good at politics is enjoying that. You have to be the kind of person who likes that. Exactly right. Because you can tell when you're faking it. That's why presidents don't tend to be introverts and the ones who are tend to be pretty miserable in the job. But yeah, I mean...

We shall see. There is a pageantry and a scripted nature of State of the Union nights which make all of these things seem familiar, that there is often a visual signifier in the crowd on an issue or two or three. There are members of Congress who are expected to be performative and heckly

There's the expected speech being put on the podium. We see the Senate president, the vice president, and the speaker of the House who will be positioned over the president's shoulders. All of this stuff is very familiar, but there is

A big wildcard vibe that looms over all of it because none of these is ever exactly the same. And especially in an election year when the stakes are so high, especially in this election year when the stakes are this high. And with a House of Representatives that is divided by...

in terms of the partisan division between the parties, with the turmoil that the House Republicans have been through for the first time in U.S. history, turfing out their own speaker of their own party and replacing them with another who's now riding this majority like a bucking broomstick.

and a broken hand on the reins. I mean, this guy is barely holding on his speaker himself, and he's only been there five minutes. We're showing here the man who more than anyone orchestrated the ousting of the previous speaker, who not only left the speakership, but left Congress altogether. I mean, this is a very, as they say, fluid situation.

And that feeling in the room, I think, can manifest in some ways as sort of nervousness and jitters. Tonight, so far, it's manifesting as one of the chit-chatiest cocktail roomie, cocktail partyist starts to a State of the Union that I think I've ever seen. It's also eerie kind of to watch it. And I can't unsee it as the scene unfolds.

of the crime on January 6th, 2021. And to see it seem so sort of ordinary again, and sort of behaving in its traditional way that we all, the politics nerds have been watching it for, you know, the decades of our lives that we've been nerding out on it. But it,

it's just changed the vibe of looking at that room. There's something eerie about it to me that it's returned to this normalcy when in, you know, it was a space of such violence and fear. And I think about those members and their staffs hiding under their desks and terrified,

running out of there and figuring out where to hide, where their safe rooms were, where their panic buttons were. And, you know, it returns to such normalcy. We're doing a normal thing, but we're doing a normal thing that precedes an election that decides we'll ever get to do this again, where any of this will matter anymore. It's really eerie for me. I also think that's an opportunity for the president, as strange as that may be to say, because that

That floor is so hallowed for him. I mean, it is he feels more comfortable there than I think he does in the White House. And so I would expect he'll talk about that. January 6th election deniers and kind of who we are as a country.

The Justice Kennedy shot is reminding me of one of the things that hangs over this election. It'll be interesting to hear if we hear about it. I think we will hear about judges. But of course, justices get to, well, unless fate intervenes, they get to retire when they want to retire, as long as their health obtains. Justice Kennedy clearly waiting until he had a Republican office to hand that seat over to Donald Trump to fill. Specifically so it would be Brett Kavanaugh. Specifically so it would be Brett Kavanaugh, his former clerk. There are two Republican...

appointees on that court who are over the age of 71 or 72 in Alito and Clarence Thomas, the two that are not there. Their fate rests in some ways. I think their future rests a lot. The decisions they might make about that, about who wins this. Literally how they live for the next year. Yeah, I mean, hugely important. And so that hang, you know, it is a 6-3 corp. That 6-3-ness is not set in stone and can change and actually is one of the things that is...

It hangs over this entire election. And the court has been publicly cosplaying unity in recent days, right, with the per curiam decision on the 14th Amendment. I mean, we can't tell much from body language in a moment like this, but man, to be a fly on the wall and understand what the social dynamics in that court are right now, given how much they're trying to sort of mask what clearly must be a serious cleave between the liberal justices and the conservative ones on really central issues to America.

We're seeing actually there's the second gentleman, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, entering the entering the chamber now. I will say it's about almost nine minutes past the hour, which is means we're getting started a little bit late here. This is usually I mean, we know President Biden is is on site. He's in the Capitol. We've seen him there. We've had live images, both of him leaving the White House and of him arriving at the Capitol and being inside the Capitol building. But we are.

I'm not sure. Timeliness is not his superpower. I think that's important. Democrats are never on time. Have they ever been on time for him? I just want to say that I think I would be a good second gentleman.

Every time I see the second gentleman, I'm like, I would like that. I would vote for Kate Shaw for anything. So I said, if that would be the side effect of us getting Kate in power, I would take it. I would take it. And I think a lot of people would, too.

In terms of the guests that are in the room tonight, I mean, this is fascinating to be able to see all these different the people from different branches of government chatting to each other for this extended period. Who often don't have an opportunity to have these conversations. Exactly. One of the reports that we got from our Hill reporting team is that when Justice Katonji Brown Jackson, the newest member of the court, walked into the chamber, there were loud cheers from Democratic women members of Congress who were near the aisle. Here's First Lady Jill Biden.

entering the room in a beautiful kind of a sage dream. It's kind of sage, right? The showcase of the sort of box seats where the first lady sits with her handpicked guests, many of whom have been or all of whom have been sort of advance noticed to the press and the public in terms of who's going to be sitting with her. A lot of them will be referenced during the president's speech this evening. The signal here is that this is getting close to beginning.

Mr. Speaker, the president's cabinet. Cabinet led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin looking hale and hearty, this should be noted. Attorney General Merrick Garland. You think of him as short. He's not. This is usually the last part of the process that happens before we get the president himself introduced.

But yeah, it is a boisterous and happy bunch in the room. Am I right that this is kind of vibing different than other states of the union? It is. It's also interesting to see, well, people interacting, but who is friends, I guess, and who decides to sit next to each other. I mean, I just noted Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin look like they were in a best friend comedy there or something, sitting together. And who chooses to sit with each other is interesting, too.

I think we had Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz sitting next to each other. A different kind of movie. Critical mass thing happening there. What could go wrong?

Claire McCaskill watching this along with us. Claire, are we misreading the vibes here? It's always pretty much like a little gab fest as you wait around and wait around and wait around. Now, I will say there's some work being done here. I don't know if you noticed, but you saw Schumer and Pelosi, and Schumer was doing his gesturing like, I'm going to win this point and I'm going to make you give in to what I want.

And my arsehole also noted Pelosi talking to McConnell. So Pelosi's working, and so are some of the other members. They're running around finding people.

It is very unusual to have the House members and the Senate members together like this. And it's one of the only times that the senators feel outnumbered because there's so many more House members. But it's always pretty much of a gab fest before it starts. This doesn't feel particularly more convivial than normal. It's kind of an uplifting time to be in the moment when you're there.

Although an hour later, when the president is still talking, there is a little toe tapping that begins. You see the interior secretary there, Dov Halin. You see the attorney general, Merrick Garland. You see Lloyd Austin here, the defense secretary in the foreground. We just saw the defense secretary, the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, the energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm. Yeah, so the U.N. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield there. So I will mention this is always sort of awkward.

because it's a little bit dark, but because of the...

and diversity of government leadership that is in this room with the principles of the executive and legislative and judicial branch, not to mention the United States military, with everybody in that same room. Each year at the State of the Union, one person who is in the line of succession for the presidency is chosen as a designated survivor, and they explicitly do not go to that room just in case the worst happens. And tonight...

It is. Ready? The Secretary of Education, Dr. Miguel Cardona. So Dr. Cardona will not be there, but pretty much everybody else will. And at this point, we're waiting for the president to come.

for the president himself to be announced? One policy item just to look for tonight that I've been thinking about is the Trump tax cuts, which I think will appear in this speech for a few reasons. One is they will expire in 2025 and the next president will determine whether they're restored or not. And number two, the least popular agenda item of the last president and his signature domestic

policy accomplishment. They're also a live and pressing issue. And they Democrats right now enjoy in polling an advantage on taxes, which I don't think I've ever seen in my life. And I think that's partly due to that. And I think we'll expect to see the president make quite a bit of hay on that tonight. Well, yeah. And polling shows that working class voters who Biden is intent on courting for very, very good reasons that those tax cuts and, of course, the social safety net are among their top concerns over anything else.

A number of the people who are going to be sitting in the first lady's box with Dr. Jill Biden are people who are there to highlight the issue of health care prescription drugs, the insulin price cap and those matters, including a man with blood cancer who has one of the drugs that Senator Klobuchar was telling you about, Chris, just a few moments ago. One of the drugs that is targeted for the first round of Medicare being able to negotiate to bring down the price of prescription drugs.

That is something that has been on the policy wish list in Washington for a generation. And Joe Biden finally got it done. He's been wanting to expand the number of drugs that are included in the on the negotiation list and also to expand the benefits he's been able to achieve. The thirty five dollar insulin price cap, the the the overall annual cap.

on the amount you can spend on prescription drugs out of pocket. He wants to expand those things so that they don't just cover seniors on Medicare, they apply to everybody. And I think he'll make that case tonight with an explanation point. It's so popular. I mean, it is more popular than almost anything else he has done. And this is why it's the perfect opportunity

opportunity to talk about it because this is when people are listening. Health care is also a contrast they're drawing on the campaign. So as much as this is not a political speech, this is an example where there will be the contrast with what Trump is presenting and what he is presenting and something that's reflected on the campaign trail, too. The parents there of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter we mentioned earlier, he's about a year now in Russia being held unjustly. And we expect that to be discussed this evening.

Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States. This could take a while. I want to keep the mic open here, see if we can hear anything. Thank you.

He's gone approximately four inches. It's like old home week. Thank you.

I can also just say, I mean, we're used to seeing the president in the security bubble, right? And to see him here, I mean, he's in the most secure place in the world, right? But to see everybody else just, everybody reaching out and just grabbing him.

And touching, it is an unusual thing. Like, you don't see this. And there is a lot of jockeying for the pole position to be as close as possible. And that is a whole other drama. Do you remember Congressman Elliot Engel used to show up first thing in the morning to always be on the aisle? That's correct. Yeah, right there. A seat for himself and a seat for the mustache. Biden loves it. It's Christmas morning right now. Yeah. Yeah.

The 153 that you see members have, I think it's pinned to their lapel. 153 is the 153 days that hostages have been held by Hamas in Gaza. That's Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Congressman Steve Horsford there from Nevada next to him. Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Isn't that on the left side of our screen? Yep, that is. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who will be leaving Congress, gave up her seat to pursue that Senate seat in California. Both she and Katie Porter giving up their seats in Congress to have competed for that Senate seat. They will not, neither of those...

Democratic members of Congress will be going on to the general election in November. It's such a loss in terms of Democratic talent. Congressman Barbara Lee is an icon. She's an OG icon of the progressive left. She was the squad before the squad. And I think there's a lot of reverence for her. A lot of friends in California really, really hate to see her leave Congress. She's a brave voice for the authentic left. And there's MTG.

Interestingly, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert and now MTG have all had these poll positions on the aisle, which is we don't know. You have to be there very early in the morning to get. Yeah, she was trying to do some confrontation thing. I'm not sure. I'm not sure it worked. I saw Representative Al Green there, and I believe he's the one who came off of his hospital bed to make sure that he was going to cast an important vote. Claire McCaskill still with us. Claire.

Don't take a selfie. I love it. I just have to ask you about the hat. Isn't there a rule? Yeah, I'm really surprised that she is not being asked to remove that hat. It makes me think that Speaker Johnson is really afraid of her.

Because there's a rule. Are you saying there's a strict rule, no hats for any reason? Well, especially a hat that is... I mean, I'm not aware of any time a hat is allowed on the floor of the Senate. Now, I am not as familiar with the House rules, but you could never wear a hat on the floor of the Senate. So I'm not sure, other than if the Speaker just doesn't want to have the Sergeant-at-Arms tell her to remove it because...

Well, if he did, they'd probably remove him from speaker tomorrow. Right. She she filed a motion. Although the sergeant at arms is busy right now, basically trying to yank President Biden a few more inches down the aisle. Since he's nowhere near the dais, as far as I can tell. He's enjoying his time. Yeah. Senator Gillibrand there. Senator is going to talk to every single person in that room. And he's like he's fired up about it. He's enjoying it.

The hat is an incredibly tacky

choice by a somebody who it shouldn't be surprising at this point. There's nothing that she does that's surprising, but it's so beneath the dignity of the office that she holds, regardless of, you know, the QAnon stuff and all of it. She's a member of the United States Congress. At some point, one would think you would aspire to have a minimal amount of dignity in your presentation. And she has no such aspiration. And

And it's a Trump 2020 hat. I'm just saying, you're going to break the rules. Go for it. Be for it. Thank you. Just he's now taking the pictures for them. We've moved from selfies. Can you take selfies? Yeah, it's sometimes easier, you think, right? Because people get nervous when they see you and he's like, I'll do it. I got long arms. He loves to call people's family members. So if I was just waiting for him to make a call, I was thinking that that

It might be next. Maybe on the way out. I feel like Nicole, you, and Jenner, former staffers, are having PTSD about the speed with which he's just like getting the principal to where he needs to be just feels like it's removing molasses seems fast. See the president interacting with a number of Supreme Court justices. Katonji Brown-Jackson is pointing first. Almost there now. Get around the corner and up the dock there. Speaking with some of the, there you go, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Speaking with both the liberal and conservative justices on his way up to the podium now.

I'm guessing, I mean, Jen, you know the answer. I'm guessing this pumps him up. Yes, this pumps him up. And if you're sitting in the White House right now, you're thrilled by this because we're all here watching it and talking about it. And this shows him a person who's been caricatured as somebody that nobody in the Democratic Party wants to run for president. People are trying to touch him and do selfies with him. So it paints a very different picture. He seems joyful. He probably is having a good time.

Claire, did you just say Tom? Because that was Tom Carper. Yeah, yeah. And obviously they go way back. Yeah. And Tom is not running again.

has been there not as long as Joe Biden has been there, but been there an awfully long time. He's almost there now, guys. He's rounding the corner. He's now over in front of the Senate section. And once he gets another few paces, he'll be up on the dais. Claire, does this make you does this make you miss it? Were these fun nights for you or were these were these work?

The first time, the first couple of times, it was really interesting. And, you know, I kept pinching myself that I was where I was. When Barack Obama was elected president and while he was running, they were very interesting. We had an interesting vignette, you might remember, about whether or not Barack Obama snubbed Hillary Clinton that night. But...

After you've gone to about six or seven or eight, then you really think it'll take too long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, it's what, like, the junior prom is exciting, the senior prom slightly less, although you know it's the last one. But if you had to go to, like, post-grad and then post-doc prom, it's still... Post-grad prom is very sad, and it happens at 4 o'clock on a Tuesday. I don't know what that is! Because everybody has childbirth. Yeah.

All right, let's watch this. Let's settle in. President Biden delivering State of the Union for 2024 as prescribed in our Constitution. We do this every year. It is never the same and it is always important. An apex moment in American democracy.

What we are doing here is technically called "beefstropping." It's not easy to hear what's being exchanged between President Biden and mostly members of Congress and some senators.

You're catching a few words here and there. I'm not sure if you guys, other than mostly what most of what I've been able to hear that's been loud has been just some compliments. Yeah, that was that was a sermon. By the way, Raphael Warnock, who actually is a Baptist preacher, was one of the people who said you were preaching tonight. You gave us a Baptist sermon. When you get that from the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Dr. King's church in Atlanta, you might have done a good job.

We've seen Senator Mazie Hirono, who's there with the president. We've seen her tonight crack Bernie Sanders up to the point where Bernie Sanders doubled over. I would kill or die to know what it was that she said to him in that moment. And she appears to be the first senator who's been kissed by the president. So Mazie Hirono is having a singular night, I think, as she often does.

in Washington. Let's talk about this speech. Structurally, it was about the same length as his previous speeches. It started a little bit late. He was late getting to the chamber. He took a very long time, just as much time, if not more, getting down the aisle to the podium as he did as he is taking, leaving the podium and getting back to the door.

I think that at least my first impression was that it was an incredibly pugnacious speech where he came out with both proverbial barrels blazing right at the top.

talking about democracy being threatened at home and abroad, talking about needing to stand up for Ukraine, talking about needing to never let lies take over the truth when it comes to what happened on January 6th and the threat to our own democracy, talking about reproductive rights very, very early on, really not shying away from talking about the former president. He kept calling my predecessor, who, of course, is his opponent in the general election campaign this year,

A lot of policy, like you always get from presidents in the State of the Union. That was sort of the maybe the second third of the speech. But that whole first third and then a rip roaring finish. He was yelled at a few different times. There were some outbursts from Republicans. I don't think any of that will be substantively memorable. I think what would be memorable about those outbursts was the president headlining.

handling them, seeming energized by them and sort of almost looking forward to them. Lawrence O'Donnell, what are your impressions? You know, there's so many things in this speech that we've never seen before in the State of the Union Address. One of them is the 13 times he referred to the candidate he's going to be running against for president. That's normally impossible to do in the State of the Union Address.

But this time, when you get to say my predecessor, that makes it a presidential issue that that now you are comparing your governing to what came before you and what you're correcting. And he said my predecessor 13 times, beginning very early on every single subject. It was extraordinary. And there was at that moment that I think we all remember.

of the way he attacked, I guess is the word for it, the Supreme Court. Two there faces, where the camera then goes to this shot of the six Supreme Court Justices, three of whom he was very specifically attacking.

That's never been done before. To the extent that a president has a disagreement with the Supreme Court expressed in a State of the Union address, they always try to find the most polite possible language for doing that. This was not the night for that. So that was just astonishing. And

This enthusiasm that you're seeing after the fact, by my reading, is real. Because the thing that isn't really known about this, and it doesn't seem obvious, is it's a tough crowd. If you've actually sat in among the senators and House members, as I have many times when I was working there,

The general feeling is boredom. It is very, very hard to ignite them, to capture them. And he had them every step of the way in a very well-written speech that really flowed in a very smooth way, was everything they wanted to hear, had surprises in it, had an energy level that I think...

I mean, listen, I've never brought that much energy to the 10 p.m. aisle. I'm just telling you. And he lifted that crowd, the Democratic crowd, really did. Nicole? This was his how about them Apple speech for me. I mean, we've sat this is what the fourth. I mean, you know, we've watched this before.

I think that grabbing the room by, you know, he started with World War II and the Civil War and rooted the threat facing our country from my predecessor in those two, you know, epic battles. And then he quoted Ronald Reagan. It was like a

punch in the face to every Republican in the room, and that's how it started. This is the first 90, you know, first 120 seconds. Every Republican, he's rooted tonight's address in the Civil War, World War II, and then quoted Reagan, it is a punch in the nose. It's why by the end, Lindsey Graham was slouched in his seat with his arm folded, chuckling like it was John McCain up there. I mean, the sort of, you know, waving of the white flag by the, I mean, Mike Johnson's face, I think, told the whole story. And I think that, I mean,

They will be attacking him by, you know, I'm sure they are right now. They will by 1115 on Fox News. But everybody knows that this was a great speech. And everybody knows that if this is the message going into, you know, the next eight months that, you know,

polls will soon reflect that. And this will be a real, real fight. I think taking on his own age three times in the end shows not just Republicans, but Democrats. He's not afraid of defending his stature. He said, I've been in my career. I've been called too young and I've been called too old. He makes three references by the end of his age. And then I think the...

The Orson debate has already been won, and I agree. By taking on the Supreme Court, he's ready to take it to the next level. I thought this was a really remarkable State of the Union. I thought the...

far, it surpassed my expectations and it transcended my expectations. I did not think this would be as aggressive, as sharp, as much of a just full campaign speech. We know what's happening here. I'm running against the last guy. Everyone in the room knows there was no sort of false, I don't

I don't know, sort of papering that over. It was like this kind of bracing electricity of naming that fact so openly from such a beginning standpoint. And the second thing I would say is like,

The caricature of the president of the United States has gotten so over the top in the conservative media and I even think out in the public, in the outer perimeter and the largest concentric circles of Americans who do not pay very careful attention to politics, that this guy is just like ludicrously doddering and incapable. And like that was you don't want to set super low expectations for your opponent, right?

as a political matter. Like, we see this before debates. So going around being like, man, this guy can't even tie his own shoes. He can't even get up. He can't do anything. And then you see that. You're like, wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. That was not what I was told. Maybe this age thing has been oversold. That was not what I was told about

this individual. And that was so striking tonight. Joy. Yeah. I mean, I thought the speech was very high caffeine. I think Joe Biden woke up this morning, had a cup of coffee and had his Wheaties. He was definitely there to fight. This is someone who I was just talking about it in the seven o'clock hour about whether or not he is small C constitutionally capable of essentially being

nasty, being aggressive, being harsh. But he came in there tonight ready to fight for the presidency, to fight for the White House in a way that I think I did not expect. The speech was incredibly aggressive. He opened, as Nicole said, with World War II, Hitler, appeasement. And then he went right for the people in front of him. He said, my predecessor and some of you

Some of you have sought to bury the truth about January 6th. He accused the members sitting right in front of him of seeking to bury that. Then he kept punching. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th. Then he said, I will.

will not do that. He shouted that out. Yes. Room iraq. Room iraq. You can't love your country only when you win. As Lawrence said, he kept referring to my predecessor. He said my predecessor came into office to see reproductive freedom overturned. He is the reason that it was overturned. He vows, if you give me a Congress, this is something that I

think as a rhetorical flourish in campaigns is very smart to do when you are in the executive because you actually cannot pass laws in the executive. When people say, it's sort of annoying, people say, well, this president passed X, Y, and Z. No, it's the Congress who does it. So he went out and he asked for the Senate. He asked for the House to come back to the Democrats. He said, if you give me a Congress that will allow reproductive freedom to come back, then I promise you I will give you Roe versus Wade back as the law of the land. I thought

the aggressiveness of it was important, particularly when it got to the parts where we knew he was going to be attacked. On the border, we saw this ridiculous stunt that Marjorie Taylor Greene pulled when he walked in the room. She had a campaign hat on in violation of Senate rules, of the rules of the chamber. And she hands him this button to try to play him on the border. But he goes off script and has his own moment, which I think a lot of people in the progressive world may question the language.

But you cannot question the aggressiveness of his willingness to lean into that attack and say, you handed me this button about a woman who was killed by a migrant, and I'm going to throw that back at you and say, let's solve this problem. I, too, have concerns about the border, but I'm not afraid of your attack. He met Marjorie Taylor Greene, not on her level, but actually.

president in a way that kind of embarrassed her for the stunt. So I thought the aggressiveness was smart. And then the last thing I'll say is that he also had to deal with the issue of the Middle East and of Israel. I think that he did a good job in actually using Biden-y compassion and using the language of compassion when it came to the issue of people who are starving and who are suffering and also of talking

about his fiduciary duty to bring home those hostages some of whom are dual citizens americans i mean it does have a duty to as well so i thought he balanced that really well overall i have to say surprisingly aggressive i thought smart in the way it was constructed and bookended with foreign policy we were googling i was asking jen how often is foreign policy the lead it was a smart lead and then he closed um with foreign policy as well and with that

sort of rousing sort of Biden optimism. It's integrated with the aggression. I mean, within the first couple of minutes of the speech, my message to President Putin is simple. We will not walk away. Crowd goes wild. We will not bow down. I

I will not bow down. And it's I mean, he's the coming out of his corner throwing roundhouse. Yes. From the very beginning was on Trump and on January 6th and on democracy and on Putin and abortion and on abortion. And he intertwined it with our fight here, as we were talking about before. I was very struck because I've been a part of, I don't know, maybe nine, 10 of these. I'm not sure.

They almost always start on the economy because that's what you're trying to speak to your audience about, people who are sitting at home. And it's rare for it to start on something else. This was intertwined democracy, intertwined with kind of the power and speaking against authoritarian dictators like Putin. That's a choice. And that's a choice the president makes. It's not like they just give him a speech and he says, sounds great, I'll deliver this. He made the choice to bookend this, unend this on democracy. The moment that

that we're in. That is rare. I don't know. Lawrence may know. Someone may know. Historically, when democracy has been such a prevalent part of this. After 9-11. After 9-11. I was also struck by, Lawrence mentioned this, the Supreme Court moment. I mean, Joe Biden is an institutionalist. And the fact that he ad-libbed, I think, because we had the excerpt, with all due respect, justices, tell me.

tells you that... Tells you what? I didn't know what Chris was going to say. I thought it was really smart. Maybe. Tells you that this is bothering him. He's mad at the Supreme Court. That was not written into the speech. He saw them in front of him and he said, with all due respect, justices, because he is mad about what they've been doing. That is not the Joe Biden who was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee not that long ago. So that was a very striking moment. The third thing I would say is

His evolution on how he talks about abortion, this is an important thing to remember. I mean, after Roe, a lot of the women's rights groups and pro-choice groups were upset that he wasn't being as vocal. He kind of was a little bit awkward in how he talked about it. He has a pro-choice record, but he is somebody who is very Catholic, not super comfortable talking about it. Others in the administration were talking about it.

He really made some strides. I mean, this is he had a pretty bold message here on abortion rights and abortion access and all of the issues around it, which I think is striking. And if you look back at his language two years ago, it was not as bold as this. It's also I mean, it's really striking when you look at those first four issues he starts with out of the gate. These are 60, 40, 70, 30 issues, right? Like Putin, good or bad. Jan, you like was Putin good or bad? Should we bow down to Putin?

Was January 6th a good or bad thing? Was it good to overturn Roe v. Wade? Should we protect IVF? Political violence. Political violence. Is political violence good or bad? Just like taking things that your side believes in, that you personally believe in, that your coalition believes in, and that most people...

Outsider coalition, but that they can't agree to because there's a sociopath waiting in the wings who doesn't abide by these things that 80 to 90 percent of Americans actually do abide, which is like political violence is bad and Putin is bad and January 6th is bad. And NATO is good.

I ask all of you, without regard to party, to join together and defend democracy. Remember your oath of office to defend against all threats, foreign and domestic, respect free and fair elections, restore trust in our institutions, make clear political violence has absolutely no place, no place in America. Zero place. It is not hyperbole to suggest history is watching.

He is calling on Republicans in that moment. You're supposed to applaud for no political violence. In fact, perhaps you should stand up and applaud for no political violence. Can you do that? He is calling the question that is a very easy question for everybody in normal politics, knowing that it is a crisis for any Republican to do so. All right. We are about 20 seconds out from the Republican response to

To President Biden, State of the Union. Again, as we were discussing earlier, this Republican response will be given by Alabama freshman Senator Katie Britt. She's speaking tonight from Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama Republican U.S. Senator Katie Britt speaking from Montgomery.

Montgomery, a very long response in terms of the Republican response this evening. I should say, just as a matter of context here, I think Alabama has been on everybody's mind in terms of the debate around reproductive rights, in particular because of the Alabama Supreme Court and their recent ruling on IVF. Senator Britt ran as a strongly anti-abortion rights candidate. So that does sort of implicitly spotlight that issue. Obviously, the most

I would say the portion of her response that took up the most word count, at least, was her talk on the border. And just to contextualize that, she was one of the U.S. senators who was involved in the bipartisan negotiations to create a border bill. And

And she helped create the bill and then voted against it when Donald Trump called on Republicans to pull the plug on the bill that they themselves had negotiated. We have a little piece of sound from President Biden's remarks tonight that got a very interesting response in the room from the lead Republican senator with whom Katie Britt worked to write the border bill. Go ahead. In November...

My team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators. The result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we've ever seen. Oh, you don't think so? Oh, you don't like that bill, huh? That conservatives got together and said it was a good bill? I'll be darned. That's amazing.

That bipartisan bill would hire 1,500 more security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle the backload of two million cases, 4,300 more asylum officers, and new policies so they can resolve cases in six months instead of six years now. What are you against?

He says, what are you against? But you saw just before that, Senator Lankford from Oklahoma. That's true. He was the lead Republican negotiator, along with senators like Katie Britt, who just gave that long, lurid speech about the, for the most part, about the border. And you saw Senator Lankford there saying, that's true. He said, that's true, after President Biden described what was in that bill. Again, that bill negotiated by Republicans, by conservative Republicans.

They got everything they wanted. And it was Donald Trump who then called on Republicans to pull the plug on it because as President Biden made the point in his speech tonight, he thought it would be better politics to not fix the border and instead to just remember that Senator Lankford then also went on the floor and said that he was threatened with being destroyed by an unnamed media person. He didn't say what it was, but he, you know, was he received threats for daring to negotiate a

bill that conservatives asked for. One of the Democrats who was a prime negotiator on that was Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. He's a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. And he joins us now. Senator Murphy, we know you were there. We saw you on the feed responding to President Biden's speech tonight. What's your reaction to how things went?

Well, the president laid it out there on the question of the border. The fact of the matter is we did come to a bipartisan agreement negotiated by a very conservative Republican senator, James Lankford, that would have been the toughest set of measures on the border in generations. And the secret is out. Republicans voted against it because Donald Trump told them to. Why? Because Donald Trump wants chaos at the border. So I like Katie Britt a lot.

But you didn't hear her say in her speech one thing about what Republicans are for, because many of the ideas that Republicans actually think would work, like putting more Border Patrol officers on the border, like giving the president the power to shut down the border when crossings get too high, were in that bill. And they all voted against it because they don't want to fix the problem. They are addicted to talking about

the problem, but they don't want to do anything to fix it. And I thought the president did a great job of calling out the emperor as having no clothes tonight. On that issue, I thought he hit it square on the head. He did say, and it was one of his biggest applause lines of the night, he said, look, folks, we have a simple choice. We can fight about fixing the border or we can fix it. I am ready to fix it. Send me the border bill now.

Senator, there was one other moment when the president was talking about this issue and this bill that you worked on where he was addressing Republican criticism, not just around this issue, but Republicans criticizing, yelling out, sort of heckling in the room. I want to get your response to this moment. The Border Patrol Union has endorsed this bill. The Federal Chamber of Commerce isn't... Yeah, yeah. You're saying, oh, look at the facts. I know...

I know you know how to read. There is both style and substance there to comment in terms of the president anticipating and seeming to be enjoying some of the criticism, even some of the catcalling from Republicans in the room. At least that's how it appeared through the mediation of the cameras. What was it like in the room? Well, it was actually pretty amazing in the room because the president comes out and just knocks on

everybody over with the first 10 minutes of that speech, right? You know, normally the beginning of the State of the Union has a little bit of rhetoric, a little bit of flourish. The president just comes right out and says, we are not bowing down to Putin. We are not banning abortion. We are not giving up on democracy. And Republicans in the chamber, who I think were ready to battle with him, were on their back foot from the beginning. And that exchange also shows you that they were, that the president was ready. He knew that they were going to come after him. He knew there were going to be catcalls, but he's right.

Did they read the bill? They didn't because they all opposed the border bill within hours of its release simply because Donald Trump gave them political instructions to keep the border a mess. So I thought from the very beginning when the president just kept on punching them

in the mouth to the middle where he dealt, I think, very adeptly with them trying to rattle him to the end where he said, listen, this is a choice between civility and unity or boorishness and division. I just thought it was the best speech I've seen him give in person.

In terms of that punching in the proverbial mouth idea, in terms of just the aggression with which he came out, there's one other little piece of sound from the president's speech I'd like to play for you again and get your response to. The president made a number of remarks right off the bat talking about 1941 and FDR addressing that chamber, talking about Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War, talking about Ronald Reagan telling Mikhail Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

He then talked about the fact that the Swedish prime minister was in attendance and that Sweden has, as of today, become the newest member of NATO, something that would not have had to happen had Vladimir Putin not started the largest land war in Europe since World War II. And on that point, he said this. I'd like to get your response to this on the other side. My message to President Putin, who I've known for a long time, is simple. We will not walk away from

We will not bow down. I will not bow down. In a literal sense, history is watching. History is watching. Senator Murphy, in that moment, he's talking about not bowing down to Putin, but by substantively, what he means there is that we're not going to abandon our ally that's in a war with Putin right now. Is he, can he say that with Mike Johnson sitting over his shoulder?

Well, listen, that's just a really muscular part of the speech, right? I mean, this country still believes in the might of American leadership. The middle of this country does not want Putin to roll over one of our allies. They certainly don't want Americans to then be at war directly with Russia in NATO. And so I just thought that

that part of the speech hit. But yes, he's talking to Mike Johnson in that part of the speech because he's looking out at that chamber and he knows that there are the votes in the House of Representatives right now for the Senate bill to fund Ukraine.

And all he needs to do is convince Mike Johnson to stand up to Donald Trump and call that bill for a vote. The only thing right now standing in the way of our protection of NATO and Ukraine is Speaker Mike Johnson. The minute he calls that vote is the minute that we have funds delivered to Ukraine and Putin is pushed back. And I thought it was an incredibly powerful moment of the speech. He's speaking to the nation, but he's clearly really speaking to the Speaker of the House.

Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. Sir, it's fortuitous for us that you were able to be here with us tonight on such a big evening. Thank you so much. Thanks. All right. We have everybody is bursting at the seams. I know we have to take one quick break, but then we come back. Everybody will get to say everything they want to say. I have a lot to say.

We are going to take a quick break. I do want to tell you one announcement. This Saturday, our beloved colleague Jonathan Capehart is going to sit down with President Biden for President Biden's first interview after the State of the Union. That interview is going to air this Saturday here on MSNBC at 6 p.m. Eastern time. You will not want to miss that. State of the Union tonight, remarkable in many, many ways. We have a lot more to talk about. Stay with us. ♪

My predecessor came to office determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned. He's the reason it was overturned, and he brags about it. Look at the chaos that has resulted. Those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women. But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot. We won in 2022 and 2020, and we'll win again in 2024. If you, the American people...

Send me a Congress that supports the right to choose. I promise you I'll restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again. All those remarks from President Biden tonight very early on in his State of the Union, pugnacious on that point and repeating it, speaking directly to the Supreme Court justices at one point when he was on that topic. I thought it was an interesting choice, I mean, politically a strong choice, but it also meant, Steph, that the top of the speech was

really had a lot of hard punches right at the very beginning. It sure did. But it also goes directly to Mike Johnson, who's representing family values voters. When the president goes on to say, I'd like to see teachers get raises. We'd like every child to be able to read when they're in the third grade and we should expand tutoring. And Mike Johnson's response, he sat on his hands. So it's extraordinary when you think about what pro-life means. When the president goes on to talk

about family life in America and things that are important to families, those Republicans are saying nothing. Yeah. Lawrence, what did you make of it? You know, on Mike Johnson, we need to get, there's a camera that they have up in the corner of the chamber that shoots down from the side. It's really important tonight because there was one shot when they got to it, what you saw was

was he was doing a sitting ovation and the hands were clapping under the desk. Yeah. Now there were several times when I saw it. Yeah. Yeah. The hands were clapping under the desk. So to get the official count of how many times he clapped, you can only use that camera. Uh, but there was a fair amount of time when his hands were clapping, the sitting ovation hands were clapping on top, including by the way, uh,

when Joe Biden said political violence has no place in America, that got one of these from him. And there was this tortured condition he was in. You could tell where it's like, OK, rationally, people would applaud for that. What am I supposed to do? I'm not I've never sat here before. What exactly am I supposed to do here? But but, you know, another hugely important point here, this

State of the Union address had more ad libs than any state of the union address in history, like by far. The normal count is zero. A high count is two. This was constant. He was constantly departing from it. And as soon as he I can't believe it.

that they walked into the same trap again when he mentioned Social Security. I just can't believe that they screamed their way into the same thing where Joe Biden then, you know, once again made fun of them and engaged with them. He has turned this, the State of the Union, into an interactive speech. He really has. He went out there

ready to do it. And I think determined to do it and literally looking for the spots. Oh, did they just say something? Okay, here, you know, and the infrastructure thing, he ad-libbed this thing about if you don't want the money in your district, just tell me that wasn't written. You know, I was constantly when it looked like an ad-lib, I was constantly checking the text and going, yeah, it was that was not in there. And this is the guy who

who's supposed to be least able to do this. This is the oldest person who's ever done this. He's not supposed to, according to, you know, a kind of dominant theme in the punditocracy these days. He's not supposed to be quick enough. It turns out he's the quickest you've ever had at that microphone. It's an interesting thing because I think people forget how long Joe Biden's been a politician. I mean, this guy comes in, I think, at 29. So he said, I've been too young and I've been too old. He

He's not lost a whole lot of races. I mean, he did run for president a couple of times and didn't get all the way there. But there's a reason that he made it all the way to the top. He's actually a good politician. He knows how to get elected and reelected, which means by default he knows how to do this. And that's his home. So now he's actually speaking from his home court. Right. He's actually playing. He's the home team because he is a lifelong senator. I mean, when Katie Britt called him a lifelong politician. Yeah, he is.

That's why he's good at it. It's why he's good at the governing piece. He knows how to, and he knows those people. And I think that's an important piece too. He could say, Lindsay, he could talk, Hey, Nancy, he actually knows them and has known these people in some cases for decades. And so even the ones who are on paper against him and that he's fighting with and wrestling with and tussling with to get legislation through, he knows them enough to give them the business by name. And it's actually effective. And the last thing I'll say is if you had,

only heard about Joe Biden. I think it's something you said it earlier, Chris. If you only knew about Joe Biden, what Fox says about him.

And what Newsmax says about him. And you think that he's practically dead. He's so old and doddering. And this was the first time you'd ever seen him. You would have no idea how they could possibly think that about Joe Biden. And the only other person I can say that about politically is Barack Obama, who they represented as this madman, you know, who hates white people. And they cried to make him sound like this insane person. And then what he would do is stay to the union.

and do his thing, and talk like this. They were like, oh, that's Barack Obama? Okay. Joe Biden's a radical progressive who in the first two minutes referenced Ronald Reagan. He was speaking to Nikki Haley's voters. You know who wasn't speaking to Nikki Haley's voters? I'm a capitalist. I'm a capitalist. Exactly. Alex, I know you've got... He was not talking to Nikki Haley's voters. Not at all. Yeah.

You've got a guest to bring in. You sure do. Minnie Timuraju, the president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, was there in the room at the State of the Union as the president gave his address. She was a guest of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Minnie Timuraju joins us now. Minnie, it's great to see you. I wonder, we've been talking about the fact that President Biden just came out of the gate swinging and in particular focused on the justices of the Supreme Court at one point when he was really...

sharply criticizing the decision in Dobbs that, of course, overturned Roe v. Wade. What was that like? What was the reaction to Democrats as that was happening? You know, this is my first time being at a State of the Union live. It was pretty electric. You know, I have to say I was sitting with Amanda Zyrowski.

And when the president looked at the Supreme Court and delivered those lines, it was exactly what we needed to hear, what women in America needed to hear. That is the fighting Joe Biden we need back in this race. And it felt powerful. It felt empowering. It's exactly the right tone and the right way to to start swinging out the gate, you know, for our fundamental freedoms.

I think that's the big, big win tonight for us with Joe Biden. I mean, when he is empathetic and when he is passionate about an issue like he was tonight about Kate Cox, it really shines through. And this was a state of the union that had a record number of abortion advocates, storytellers, patients and providers, 30 plus from the pro-choice caucus were in that room and

We met beforehand. We were there in the audience. And it was really—it was a really powerful night. Yeah, if you look at the president's guests or the first lady's guests as a signal of sort of campaign priorities, it seems clear that reproductive freedoms are maybe at the top of the list. I wonder what you think about the choice of the junior senator from Alabama, Katie Britt, to give the Republican response. What did you think about the choice, and how politically perilous is this moment for the Republican Party?

I mean, I think they are just scrambling. They have no idea how to respond to this moment. Look, Katie Britt is a perfectly lovely person, I'm sure, but she was utterly unequipped to respond. I mean, they are clearly trying to put a feminine face on the GOP. But again, they are not willing to address the underlying, deeply problematic extremist policies that led to the disaster in Alabama with IVF.

So, you know, look, she did her best. I mean, as she said, bless his heart, well, bless her heart. It was pretty, pretty awful. And it didn't speak to any of the core issues that American women and men care about when it comes to reproductive freedom. She didn't address any of the fundamental issues. She didn't talk about

Dobbs. She didn't talk about equal pay. She didn't talk about the economy. She didn't talk about education, a total missed opportunity. And no matter how much they want to try to appeal to Nikki Haley voters, the only person who actually did that tonight was Joe Biden.

Last question for you, just in terms of Mike Johnson, our colleague Jen Psaki was reminding us all that Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, said that IVF is new technology and that the Republicans sort of the get out of jail card they're playing is to just

avoid the conversation entirely, try and make an end run legislatively if they can in the states like Alabama. But really on the central sort of, quote unquote, moral question around whether an embryo is a child, they don't they don't have a response other than this sort of theocracy that they've injected into the political realm. How how what do you think the road ahead looks like in terms of how they grapple with this issue?

I mean, they fundamentally can't. Mike Johnson believes that life begins at conception. The majority of his party in his caucus in Congress signed on to that legislation. And as long as they truly believe and they truly believe it, that life begins at conception, they are on the road to banning birth control.

not just IVF. And this is the point that Democrats have to hammer home. It's not just, although it's plenty, that Donald Trump bragged about overturning Roe. It's that this Congress wants to pass a national abortion ban, and their fundamental belief system means they will not stop with abortion. They logically have to go to IVF. Their consequences have to go to birth control. That is the case that has to be made very clearly.

they do not have a response, not only because they believe it, but they're beholden to the extremists in their party. Next stop, contraception. Minnie Timuraju, thank you so much for your time and thoughts, Minnie. It's great to see you. Rachel? One other piece from President Biden's speech that we haven't, we've referenced, but we haven't replayed that clip. And I'd love to hear what you guys have to think about it. Do we guys have, do we have sound number five ready to go? Play this. I'd love to hear what you guys had to think about this moment.

We must be honest. The threat to democracy must be defended. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th. I will not do that. This is the moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies. Here's the simple truth. You can't love your country only when you win. It's very early on. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th, whereupon Mike Johnson turns to stone. I thought it was one of those.

It was one of his claps. If you go back to that, you're going to see his hands doing this. Yeah, at the very end where he said, you know, you can't love your country only when you win. And that got this. And I'm not sure he knew he was doing it. That's what I'd really like to know. Because he was one of the architects of trying to overturn the election, which is, I guess, the principal architect on the floor. But it is I thought it was one of Biden's strongest moments, because, again, this was his willingness to take it to the people in the audience.

And the audience, he's hitting the audience and saying some of you, some of you were not willing to admit the truth. It was one of the earliest signs that he was like, I am here to bother you about some of the things you need to be bothered about. I'm not going to pretend I'm talking to a television camera. I'm going to talk to you about some of your problems. That's right. It was amazing. I think it also enunciates something profound and important about what we're doing here as a democracy. I mean, like that actually is the point.

It's that you respect the will of voters, that you share power, that power moves between different parties and different people over periods of time, that you peacefully transition power. Like, that's kind of the whole ballgame. Like, we love the country. The country is not in any given moment

one particular party or one particular set of leaders. It endures past that. It is actually us collectively choosing who governs us. And you can't just love it when you win. It's like, that is the Donald Trump motto. I love it. I love America when Donald Trump is running America and kind of hate it otherwise. The problem is Donald Trump always wants to play grievance media and plays to emotion. Katie Britt also trying to play to emotion. But the facts aren't on their side, right? The whole

are you better off than you were, whether it's three years ago or four years ago? Across the board, the answer is no, because four years ago, thousands of people were dying of COVID, right? We're now at a 50-year low in terms of unemployment. The stock market has doubled under President Biden. The list goes on and on. So this failed experiment of

Are you better off? The answer is yes, Katie Britt. Americans are. President Biden came into the speech tonight needing to make a case for defending American democracy. He did that with an exclamation point on it. We'll take we'll talk more about that part of the State of the Union and much more to get to. So stay with us. Thanks to our bipartisan infrastructure law, 46000 new projects have been announced all across your communities.

By the way, I noticed some of you strongly voted against it or they're cheering on that money coming in. I'm with you. I'm with you. If any of you don't want that money in your district, just let me know. We're the only nation in the world with a heart and soul that draws from old and new home to Native Americans and ancestors have been here for thousands of years.

Home to people from every place on earth. They came freely. Some came in chains. Some came when famine struck like my ancestral family in Ireland. Some to flee persecution. To chase dreams that are impossible anywhere but here in America. That's America. And we all come from somewhere. But we're all Americans. My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn't how old we are.

It's how old are 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. You lead America, the land of possibilities. You need a vision for the future and what can and should be done.

The oldest of ideas that take us back. President Biden speaking tonight at the State of the Union. Stephanie Ruhl with a guest standing by. Joining us now, Anthea Butler. She's a religious studies professor and graduate chair at the University of Pennsylvania. She's also an MSNBC columnist.

Thanks for being with us. The president tonight forced lawmakers to remember what happened to them three years ago when violent insurrectionists tried to block the peaceful transfer of power. His goal seemed to be to drive home the idea that our democracy is in danger. Was he successful in doing so?

Yes, I really do think so, Stephanie. He really pushed the point home. And I think it was very smart of him to start off with 1941, because he linked this to Hitler. And I thought it was very interesting how he made a historical arc about what happened, if you were listening very carefully, about this is a crucial time. He wanted to put out that we, too, are facing something in this nation about losing democracy.

And that it's very important for people to pay attention, because there are people in that room who don't want democracy, even though they are elected officials. And I think that was really a very strong point that he made tonight. He also declared that there was no place for political violence in this country, yet it kind of got a tepid response. Shouldn't that be the easiest line that the whole room should be standing up for?

Well, it should be. But when you have people in the room who have been advocating violence, then I think it's a problem. Obviously, we have some people on the Republican side who, you know, don't mind violence, who were there, who were supportive of people. When he said that these people were not patriots, I think that was very important about January 6th, when you have, you know, a presidential candidate who has a January 6th choir singing, you know, the Star-Spangled Banner and

I'm just thinking, what are they thinking about? How can they continue to support this when this is going to take away the very democracy that they claim to want to run and do a good job at, but they really aren't?

We played the soundbite just a moment ago where the president said hate, anger, revenge and retribution were among the oldest of ideas. How is it that while the country is doing as well as it is, especially when you think about where we've come from, COVID, how has anger become such a powerful motivator for so many voters?

I think it has because it's displaced, first of all. They may be angry about personal things, but the anger has been ginned up. And this politics of grievance has gone on for a long time. We saw this back with the Obama campaign and McCain back in 2008. Sarah Palin was great at airing grievances, and it has just been a grievance factor.

since then about how people think that the anger is going to solve anything. And when you have people angry, coupled with guns, coupled with saying vindictive things like, you know, we hope that these people are wiped off the face of the earth or we're going to go down and march to the border with our guns and defend the border, then you have to start to think about anger has taken a very big place in terms of a talking point for some of our politicians and some of the people who follow them.

Anthea, thank you so much for being with us tonight. We appreciate it. You're welcome. You know, that point on anger, it's interesting because I feel like, I mean, I think Professor Butler is wise on these matters.

But I think that issue of anger, the president is playing with that a little bit tonight, right? Because let me play one other little clip. This is shot number 18. I think we've got this ready. Where the president is using emotion in a way that he's trying to say is a constructive thing, not a destructive thing. He's working the room as if he's working a rally, which is sort of an amazing thing to do with members of Congress. But I think he's trying to address that emotion issue in an important way. Let's watch.

Folks at home, does anybody really think the tax code is fair? Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another $2 trillion tax break? I sure don't. I'm going to keep fighting like hell to make it fair. Folks at home, maybe people were yelling through their TV screens or whatever, but he's doing that to the assembled members of Congress in the room and then swearing when he's talking about how he's going to fight for it. I think he's trying to show there's a way to use

even anger, to be fired up in a way that is constructive and not destructive. But he's, I think that's his effort to kind of read the room in terms of how much so many other people in politics are playing with anger. But to read America, because there are people that are frustrated and angry. You just heard it right there from Anthea. There's people that are

aren't that happy about their lives. And so a move like that, he's not coming from an elite place in Washington saying, you don't really have problems. Look at the data. He's saying, it's OK. You don't feel great. There's lots of things not to feel great about. It's also, I mean, he spent so many months or years of his presidency, including when I was there, being constrained, right? You know, he went from running against Trump to really trying to be a uniter that's still part of who he is.

And remember, there was a story a couple of weeks or months ago about how he privately talked about Trump, like using all sorts of curse words and things. You sort of saw a hint of that tonight, which is what he really thinks of Trump and the threat. And in a very aggressive way, I thought it was very interesting. Well, while I left, I went on Twitter a little, which is a cesspool sometimes. But like, it's interesting to see how people are reacting.

Ari Fleischer, Trump, their whole thing now is that he is angry and speaking too fast, which

Which, you know, if you're sitting... Wait a minute. Wait a second. I thought he was asleep. I thought he was sleepy and tired. So if you're sitting in the White House, that's kind of a win. I mean, that they had to kind of overcome this hurdle of this perception that has been a huge problem. But I think what people saw in that playing back and forth that Rachel mentioned is that's kind of...

of who he is. I mean, he has this funny sense of humor that people don't get to always see. And he does like to kind of play, especially if it's a new member of the staff in a meeting. So I think you kind of saw that a little bit. It was simply the best tax speech ever given by a Democrat. It's as simple as that. There's very little competition because Democrats...

hate to talk about taxes because they always find themselves on the raising taxes side of the argument, especially after Republican administrations that have bankrupted the Treasury by cutting taxes at absurd levels. But they found the language and turning it into that interactive thing is, does anyone think it's fair? The tax code is fair. No.

It's just perfect because that's the every Republican says it's not fair. Right. And now Democrats taking it on the way he did. There's just never been a more solid, better delivered tax speech by a Democrat. There was one other interactive moment on the tax thing that I thought was great. I think we've got that here. There are one thousand billionaires in America. You know what the average federal tax is for those billionaires?

No. They're making great sacrifices. 8.2%. That's far less than the vast majority of Americans pay. No billionaire should pay a lower federal tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse. Thank you.

Yeah, that's like there's Scranton Joe. But also, I hate to say the wise old man saying, you guys, this is just it's crazy what's happening here. You know, and I also saw flashes of that when he's ribbing, really ribbing Republicans over their resistance on anything from the infrastructure bill to any number of, you know,

Legislations that have passed that they are going back to their districts and sort of promoting while papering over. If you don't want the money for your district, let me know. It is a testament to his faith in the system and the fact that I think he enjoys the politicking of it, that there is not more rage in that. Because for a lot of other presidents, the behavior, the treatment of this president by the Republican majority in Congress has been awful.

And a lot of other folks would be mad about it. He ribs them. He teases them. And it's a way of, I think, in some ways, keeping the door open to maybe doing something down the road. But he can do it from a place of victory because he's gotten a ton done from a policy perspective. Even as the Republican majority has narrowed, the president has gotten more

a ton done as Kevin McCarthy has lost his position and it took four times around the dance for Mike Johnson to get that position. The president's got stuff done so he can laugh at them and poke fun. And he actually is having fun, which is like the key to winning an election. Gold. Gold. Yes. And you can't fake it. Yeah. Much more to come tonight in our State of the Union coverage. Stay with us. Top to nine. Another core value of America. Our diversity.

across American life. Banning books. It's wrong. Instead of erasing history, let's make history. Look, it's a decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court majority wrote the following, 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've arrived at.

the justices of the United States Supreme Court as pillars of salt in an important moment from tonight's State of the Union. That was a moment. In my mind, I just felt like the three liberal justices were just trying to hold their face because they knew they were probably on camera, but they were probably thinking, hell yeah. And would that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were in the room? That was the only thing missing from that shade. I thought it was important because it's the most important message, I think, that the

president has to convey to voters is that if you're terrified about Roe v. Wade, it is you who can change it. You can simply give him a second term and make sure that there is a United States Senate that can change the composition. Yeah. And I thought I

That's actually very unusual language. And you highlighted this earlier, Joy, when he said, "If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe versus Wade as the law of the land again." That's not unheard of as a State of the Union construct.

But it is rare. And to put it in that context, send me a pro-choice Congress. It's a civic reminder of this is the way it works. Yes, exactly. You have to send me the Congress that can affirm the decision to replace Roe. Because with this Congress, with Mike Johnson here, can't happen. That's the message. I also thought,

This week, we've gotten two really big data points about just how little or just how dismayed this president is with this court. Right. That moment. But then also he gave an interview to The New Yorker where he openly suggested that some of these justices, Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas, were waiting for retirement and referenced the guy who likes to vacation on yachts.

That's Clarence Thomas from all we know in terms of his, well, his interest in vacationing with very wealthy people who pay for his vacations. But for him to come out and I think directly address this court gives you insight into just how a

abominable he thinks their decision making has been of late. And a huge evolution for him, which I think is an important thing to remember. I mean, he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He is quite a traditionalist when it comes to the Supreme Court. He is very careful to the frustration of many in the Democratic base and how he's talked about the court. He did a whole study, remember, on what changes should be made, which had people from all sides

on this. The blue ribbon commission, which means I'm going to commission a report that will then go on a shelf to make the issue go away. So for the first time, I think, to echo what you said, Alex, he's kind of like, I'm sick of this. I'm tired of this. And that is significant because of his history on

And not just chairman of the Judiciary Committee at any old time when Clarence Thomas and chaired those hearings in which Anita Hill made those very credible allegations. Our coverage of the State of the Union continues now with our colleagues, Simone Sanders Townsend, Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele. Don't go anywhere. Stay right here.

MSNBC Live Democracy 2024 Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premier live audience event. Visit msnbc.com slash democracy 2024 to buy your tickets today.