State of the Union analysis and key moments: Biden aggressively makes his case for a second term

The former president’s attempt to react to the State of the Union was interrupted when his TruthSocial site suffered an outage.

The Biden campaign offered a one-word statement: “Sad.”

Stephanie Ruhle speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

We saw Mike Johnson, who is representing family values voters, when the president says, “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.”

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.

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Lawrence O’Donnell just made a great point on air with his praise of Biden’s ad-libs tonight, saying that the president had turned the State of the Union into an interactive experience.

That stuck out to me, too. After the speech, I noticed Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., each praising Biden for delivering a speech that sounded like a sermon. And I think the ad-libs are a major part of what gave this speech preacher vibes. Biden had Republicans laughing at his jokes, he and Democrats had a little call-and-response portion, he let the audience cut in, and he improvised retorts on the fly. Very ministerial at times.

Ultimately, Biden was very skilled with his improvisation tonight. He certainly dispensed with the idea pushed on the right that he’s some senile dullard who can’t put sentences together.

Jen Psaki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

I was very struck, because I’ve been a part of maybe nine, 10 of these — they almost always start on the economy because that’s what you’re trying to speak to your audience about, to people who are sitting at home. It’s rare for it to start on something else.

This was intertwined democracy, intertwined with the power in 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 book this on democracy, which speaks to the moment that we’re in. That is rare.

I was also struck by the Supreme Court moment. Joe Biden is an institutionalist, and the fact that he ad-libbed — “With all due respect, justices” — tells you that this is bothering him. He’s mad at the Supreme Court. That was not written into the speech.

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 was very Catholic and not super comfortable talking about it. He really made some strides. 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 if you look back at his language two years ago.

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Only three months after his fellow members of Congress booted him from office, and with a federal trial looming, George Santos announced tonight that he’s running for office again. 

It is hard to tell who he thinks his base is, given that he allegedly bilked many of them during his last campaign, spending their donations on Sephora and OnlyFans. But if he wants to try to beat the clock to get elected to Congress before a potential conviction forces his colleagues to vote to expel him again, well, that’s between him and the fine people of New York’s 1st Congressional District.

Lawrence O’Donnell speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

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. Now you are comparing your governing to what came before you and what you’re correcting. It was extraordinary.

A moment that I think we all remember was the way he attacked the Supreme Court to their faces. The camera goes to this shot of the six Supreme Court Justice, three of whom he was very specifically attacking. That’s never been done before. The president always tries to find the most polite possible language for doing that. This was not the night for that.

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. It really flowed in a very smooth way. It was what they wanted to hear, had surprises in it, had an energy level. I think I’ve never brought that much energy to the 10 p.m. hour.

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As Rachel Maddow just mentioned on air, Britt spent much of her State of the Union response on immigration. “President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis,” she told viewers from her kitchen. “He invited it.”

To help construct that case, she omitted the legislative history that Biden mentioned in his address. After the White House and a bipartisan group of senators negotiated a border bill, Britt joined with other congressional Republicans to oppose that deal.

Agree or disagree with the president’s immigration policies, passing a border security bill sure is an odd way to “invite” a border crisis.

Rachel Maddow speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

My first impression is that it was an incredibly pugnacious speech. Biden 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 Jan. 6, and the threat to our own democracy, talking about reproductive rights very early on.

He really was not shying away from talking about the former president, who he kept calling “my predecessor,” and who of course is his opponent in the general election campaign this year.

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 will be memorable about those outbursts is the way the president handled them, how he was seemingly energized by them and sort of almost looked forward to them.

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From nearly the first word, the president came out swinging. From Jan. 6 to IVF to Medicare to taxes, he hammered “my predecessor” and the GOP. Republicans on social media and Fox News are already complaining that this address was too angry — a campaign speech, not a State of the Union. But Biden and his team understood that a campaign speech is precisely what was needed. 

This speech was almost laser-targeted at voters who backed him in 2020 but might be wavering. In most polls, especially those showing him behind, Biden is losing a chunk of those voters, while Trump maintains his high floor but low ceiling. The fury, the energy and the callbacks to Trump’s record addressed these concerns head-on. 

The great irony is that Biden’s predecessor, in fact, made his job easier. By fanning concerns about Biden’s age — concerns that credulous reporters have also amplified — the former president lowered the bar for the current president right to the floor. But Biden would have easily cleared expectations without Trump’s unintentional assistance. There was the occasional error in the ad-libs — the use of the label “illegal” was especially objectionable. But Biden, his team and Democrats can feel very, very good about tonight.