The Breaking Points team reacts to Biden's 2024 State of the Union speech.
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So, we, of course have been listening to Joe Biden delivered the twenty twenty four State of the Union. We've pulled a few of the notable, most notable moments. I guess we would say Ryan is joined us at the table now. And since we haven't heard from you yet, Ryan, I'm chillous. In any case, what were your sort of top line takeaways? Do you think he met the moment?
I mean, I'm so sick of these things. I mean, okay, so he looked like less old than he normally loved books.
True for a while, sort of flagged there at the end.
It's like, okay, good, and the press is going to talk about that for a couple of days. But it's like, so, what so so he looked less old than he normally looks like on one night. The American people are not stupid, like they know, ninety percent of them thought he was too old before the speech.
Ninety percent of.
Them still think he's too old and think that he like gave a decent speech and was like hopped up on the right stuff. And wait another day and there's going to be another video clip of him looking just insanely too old. So just from a just if we're going to do the optics horse race at of bit, yeah, I think everybody on CNN and MSNBC was going to be talking about how great a job that he did it delivering like sentences off of the teleprompter are missing the fact that the American people are not idiots.
Larry already said it was a quote home run.
It's going to get good reviews when you're down by thirty runs and it's.
A ninth And he tweets so Larry Saba said that about halfway through the speech, and I actually think that's an important kind of dividing line. It did seem Donald Trump tweeted that the meds were wearing off. That's an actual Trump social post. It did though, seem like Joe Biden, as he got more comfortable behind the podium, was trying to mix it up. As you had sort of Marjorie Taylor Green and other Freedom Caucus people yelling back at him. He had some exchanges that if he weren't as old as he is, might have gone better for him.
But it was horrible.
I mean, it was like he had built up this momentum and then he lost it because he spent his capital like trying to go back and forth with Marjor Taylor Green, and like, actually the perfect symbol of that is Marjor Taylor Green gave him the Lake and Riley button. That's the name of the girl who was killed in Georgia recently, and Biden had it on the podium with him, and then he said her name wrong, and he had his name right.
And for her name, and there were crazy coughs and other things, and then he said illegal.
Yeah.
Actually, I mean it was probably politically.
Okay, So I did see.
Jonathan Martin made a good point on ty was like imagine watching the Democratic debates in twenty nineteen and the way that the entire party, including Joe Biden, was talking about immigration and then hearing him in the State of the Union saying not even a llegal immigrant in.
Illegalwise but otherwise that part was actually pretty pro immigration, and generally it was just that one rhetorical slip.
So, I mean, I just think that there.
First of all, I think the policy on immigration and the like, hey, Donald Trump, we want to argue to the American people that you're literally a fascist on the border, But also why don't you work with me on implementing your fascism at the border.
Border is a poorlish, foolish.
Insane strategy, and I think the foolishness of that strategy was reflected in that moment where he's trying to on the one hand, act like he's as much of a hard ass as the Republicans, like I will be just as cool at the border as you, and on the other hand, still trying to do the liberal like but we want to welcome him. It doesn't make any freaking sense. And then when you he goes off the prompter and does this trying to.
Mix it up.
First of all, it was a hot mess on every level. Right You're you're holding your breath the whole time.
Like, oh, where this going?
It is?
Hard to watch because you know, he's going off the rails. It doesn't really totally make sense. He's using the wrong name, he's using this sort of like you know, antiquated pejorative that is completely verboda and you know, left of center.
Yeah, and so it's it's a mess.
But I mean, listen, if this was Obama delivering this speech at this level tonight, everyone would be going that was an utter catat like there's something wrong with Barack Obama?
What has happened to him?
Because this Joe Biden, like, yes, the Sandon people are going to make him sound like he was amazing, and it was perfect and it was like FDR.
And Reagan and whoever rolled up into one.
But he did do better than the expectations that were set for him. And I think for him tonight, that was all he really needed to do. When we're just talking about the horse racing and opt.
Let me zoom out a little bit just from the structure of the speech, because we kind of skipped ahead to immigration. And I actually think that's a key point is I actually have a time code here in front of me. So Biden began speaking somewhere between like nine to fifteen nine to twenty five. He did not mention immigration until ten oh eight pm, and that was well within some forty.
Five fifty minutes into the speech.
The vast majority of the people who watched the State of the Union only watched the first fifteen to thirty minutes.
So the construction of.
The speech was basically to front load the issues where he has the best approval rating on, from Ukraine to the economy, a lot of the drug racing struction.
Yeah, that's right, So I have actually had the list in front of me.
It was Ukraine January sixth ivf Row versus weighed making fun of Republicans for cheering on infrastructure money, then drug price, then then tax cuts for the reach, then immigration. Right, so now we're ten pm, we're well passed time where a lot of folks have turned the television off, and then Israel comes after that.
So he saved and we've consistent polling.
We've reflected here on our Tuesday show the number one issue that Biden is underwater. Immigration, Number two is Gaza Ukraine. Somehow, don't ask me why people haven't been watching enough. Breaking points is his top issue. So that's what he decided to lead with and we actually have a clip of that.
I believe that we can show you.
I will just say I am personally offended and stunded, genuinely that the State of the Union about the United States of America began with a tie rade about Ukraine and why we should fund a foreign war, which is I personally think is insane, and he tried to capture some reaganesque tear down that wall energy and craft himself with Trump.
That's right, we have a clip of that. So guys, if we can go ahead and play it, let's take a listen.
But now.
Assistance Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership. Was a long ago Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, mister Garbachoffs, tear down this wall. Now, now my treasudent a session, a former Republican president tells pudent, quote, do whatever the hell you want. That's a quote a former president actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. I think it's outrageous, it's dangerous, and it's unacceptable.
Take a note of Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney's standing up for that one. But again, I mean, I really wondering what you guys think.
I understand that, yes, he has a forty six percent of approval rating on Ukraine, but I mean starting off the State of the Union on why we must fund more aid to Ukraine just seems completely crazy to me. The actual political hit that he had IVF, which we'll get to in a little bit, and on Roe versus Wade did not come some seventeen minutes crystal into the speech. So we had Ukraine and then we had January sixth.
January sixth.
Look, I think it's annoying to litigate whatever January sixth, three and a half some years later, but politically it has played for him in his contrast with Trump.
But he was really trying to stretch that into the top and I thought, I mean, look, I'll just put it this way. It was a choice. It was a choice to start on Ukraine.
Normally, I feel like I'm pretty decent at taking my own personal view of situations out of my political horse race analysis. But I cannot abide this man at this point, given the facilitation of genocide that is going on as we speak, trying to speak in moral language about Ukraine, like I just can't. It's always been hypocritical. We've always known that that was a farce and covering for a lot of other things that are going on. But given the you know, full full pass and the unconditional support and the hey, Natan yahoo, do whatever you want that he's given, I cannot take that context away from that moment in him now trying to use this flowery pro democracy bullshit language about Ukraine.
Well, that's a good point. Actually, it's very discontinent with the policy and the.
Through line of the Biden administration has been not understanding what's going on with their base and with people who are just livid and shocked.
And appalled at what he's doing.
And so for them, I don't think they understand how when you start talking about, like, how dare you give a foreign leader unconditional support in its invasion of a helpless people like that's outraged that so many people would hear that, Yes, exactly, how dare you like why.
He knows he knows that Gose.
Israel's terrible for him, That's why he has it at the very back end of the speech, right, But he doesn't understand how it connects to that.
Well, and here's what's been interesting too.
Is actually, you know, they have stopped using a lot of the language, like a lot of his you know, State Department goruls and whoever, have stopped using a lot of that international rules based order language because they know how blatantly hypocritical it is, right, I mean, how many clips have we played for members of Congress or whatever that's like, Oh, you knew it was a war crime then, but now suddenly you need a lawyer, you need fifteen independent experts in thirteen years to figure out whether it's a freaking war crime when it's right there in front of your face every single day on TikTok. So there is some awareness in the administration that they have lost the ability.
To talk in those terms.
So that was why I did find it sort of shocking that they started with that and tried to re embrace those terms.
I mean, remember on his way here, he had to go the long route around to.
Avoid hundreds of protesters who are outside saying your legacy is genocide. So that is the This speech didn't just fall out of a coconut tree.
There's a context.
Are so thank you for that.
This is an interesting This is an interesting point about even their media strategy. Because going into this, they were like not leaking, but they were doing a lot of interviews Jeff Science and other people about how this was going to be Biden's reset, that people have quote Trump amnesia, they don't remember how bad things were under Trump because Biden is still sort of purportedly digging out of the COVID hole, and so people just don't understand that Joe Biden has you know, made this recovery go up, even though of course what they're not telling you is that up is relative to what it came down from when COVID happened. And what's interesting again is that this is not how it works anymore. That if you frontload a speech and you're hoping to, you know, minimize the damage with voters who are upset about your policy in Israel, or you're hoping to minimize your damage with people who are upset with your policy at the border. Because he also saved that way for life. Asked, as you mentioned two things that he's pulling the worst on, it doesn't matter anymore because to your point, Crystal, these clips, we play, these clips, these clips go.
Of our own.
I was just say the first half of his speech for Joe Biden. He didn't seem like he was half asleep.
So low bar, but he cleared it.
Good for him on that. And then as it started to you know, start, speech keeps going. Obviously is slipping a little bit, but his I think some of his really sloppy exchanges, he made a personal decision. We were following the transcript of the speech. He made a personal decision to engage constantly with his hecklers. I don't know what you guys saying on this. I don't really have a problem with hecklers. I think it. I like the Yeah, I think, and I think actually a lot of I think the American.
Well, they both seem to like it. Yeah, yeah, that's clearly feedback.
Personally, my number one issue is to chorus. That's what I want. Looks random, decorous.
But not he was so upset about but he loves the heck like you you're a hypocrite.
But anyway, that's not how this works anymore. All of those clips, you know, if he was hoping to save the border for last and stave off some problems with different voters, those clips are going to be viral as hell. The Goza clips are going to be viral as hell it it doesn't.
Work like yeah, that's right. In the Internet era, everything is forever, whether he puts me at the end or not.
I mean, I still think it was obviously a political choice because some the twenty seven million people tuned in last year to this, it was the only political event talk to break the top one hundred broadcasts. Very likely we'll get very similar ratings this time around, especially since it is an election. Yeer, you know, kind of going back to the political hits quote unquote, you know, if we have at least play the parts where I think that he definitely scored himself good points. Is he was cogent, I would say relatively, because he was sticking completely to the script.
He didn't seem as off.
He wasn't coughing as much and losing his place and slurring his speech in the first forty five minutes, and he actually stuck it a little bit on Roe versus Wad and on IVF. So we do have, guys, if we can play the next clip here where he directly addresses the Supreme Court on Roe versus Wade, which I thought was a smart strategy given the way that his bass feels about it and how it has animated so many voters.
So guys, why don't we go ahead and play that next one?
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 variety about.
And Ryan, he also that was delivered super cleanly. But you know it's a good line.
Listen as you said, what did you say in the beginning, we're grading on a curve, right, like we're grading on the silent generation curve. The long one line I still can't believe from the speech is I was born during World War Two. I'm like, you should probably just never remind people we are literally I am watching documentaries on Netflix of World War II in color, which is so amazing, by the way, new One is.
It's awesome.
But when we have to colorize footage from whatever the president of the United States is born today, little bit nuts. But Ryan, we were talking, we were like, wow.
That was his real hit was on I v F and on rooms Wade.
So again, you know, saving in a little bit for the middle part of the speech, but calling directly, He's like, let's legalize IVF right now, and pointing to one of the women.
In the ballot.
You had a idea of how.
It's half joke, but not really, because at this point, what do you have to lose. If I were his speech writer, I would have give him a one page speech and it's iv F and Roe v Wade. You get in there, you talk about those two things, and you're like, bye, that's it.
Just talk about how did that not even anti?
Just because once you start doing anti trust a shrunken candle words.
Those worms just keep coming.
You do iv F and row and then and then you just lay it on the table that it's like, look, I am running for reelection. You you think I'm way too old for this job. You think I'm doing a genocide. But the Republicans are crazy and they do the They're gonna be yeah and Trump right and be like that's it. Don't pretend like you're offering anything.
He didn't say Trump's name.
By the way.
Well, I wanted to make the point though that, especially the early part of the speech, and this was obviously a very intentional choice to try to make Biden look feisty and vigorous and all that.
It was very aggressive. Yeah, I mean it was, it was very.
You know, I'm coming after you didn't say Trump's name, but he said, you know, the former president, my.
Prodecessor, et cetera, et cetera. It was especially the first portion was.
A campaign speech, and you know, so he hits him on Putin and he's gonna let Putin do whatever he wants.
And then he hits him on January sixth, hits.
Him on abortion and you're the one that put these justices on the court, And you know, it was really taking trying to take it to him and show that he still has the ability to credibly do that. So I think it was, you know, very conscious to try to demonstrate that he had this fight and this level of aggressiveness that he's able to bring to the table, at least when it's scripted in a teleprompter, and he has had a whole cocktail of whatever director.
They even before he stepp down there, they already have.
Joe Scarborough wing and he says it's Biden's best speech. Underestimated Again.
I mean, that is the direct audience I say for this.
Yeah, that's interesting because I've seen among the sort of commentariat reactions that are like this and reactions that are like Amy Walter, who said this feels more like something one would hear at the DNC than a state of the Union. He has already mentioned his quote unquote predecessor in negative terms two times in first in the first few minutes. Danny Pletka, American Enterprise Institute.
She's voting on the Yeah, that was the problem for her.
Conservative says like literally the Israeli and Ukraine flags in her bio. She said, what Biden doesn't realize is how much he now reflects Trump's legacy angry, hate, field, partisan, without hope, just vengeance and some random untries about the economy. So I've seen a sort of bifurcated reaction from the chattering class.
I think that's so stupid. This is the state of the Union before the election. It is a candidate. What are we all doing? Do we remember Trump' speach? I remember Obama's as well, Obamas twenty twelve. That's the thing that was a huge campaign kickoff. Roe is you know the deciding read. That's the main thing that's getting you know, even also to crawl.
Out and the Amy Walters of the world are this like centrists, like DC class that used to kind of squat comfortably between the two parties, and now it's more difficult for them because the MAGA wing they don't have a they don't have a spot there, So it's hard for them to pretend to both sides it that they.
Can't both side it as well.
So they have to like figure out ways to like not look like they're Democrats because they have just become Democrats, whether they want to admit it or not.
So one way to say that I'm not a Democratic.
This guy he's.
The president, he's the top federal figure in the country, he's running for re election. He'd be an idiot not to do that. I mean, this is always gets back to this. Stratton's very shot. Look he was Yeah, he was shouting. I mean, look, that's what it takes for him to be able to speak clearly.
So but that's that. I mean again, that's very intentional.
Listen with the floor, the bar is as low as it could possibly be. Okay, but the whole thing, I'm sure they coached him up, like be loud, be energetic, and so that's why he comes out there and he's screaming.
At us, but rift too much.
Yeah, well that part wandered off the rails at the end. But I mean in a.
Way too, the fact that you bury your toughest issues at.
The end, when the meds are wearing off and you're starting to it is not actually a great strategy.
Since we're talking about decorum, it's as good of a time as any to show this little Marjorie Taylor Green Joe Biden interaction. This is as he's walking in, you know, he's doing the grip and grin with all the gathered members or whatever. Marjorie's there, she's in her red Maga hat and she has the Lincoln Riley is abating that's right pin that she's trying to put in his face. We've got a reaction from the president that caught a lot of people's attention. Let's take a look at that, so that that face is what everybody well, Chris, I.
Guess we don't have the clip of this, but what it was, and there was a noteworthy part where he held it up and this is what we referenced in the beginning. And he because she was shouting his name, she was interrupting him whenever he was calling for the pastors, the Byparson border Bill, and he was like, say her name, and he actually took out the pen. He said, yes, it's like and Riley as you said he referred to. He said, yes, she was killed by an illegal. Where I did see some some gasps, I mean even me, I was wow, I can't believe the Democratic president just said that. Yeah, yeah, what did you say? Was it hasn't it hasn't been Cannon, I think in the lexicon fact.
We do actually have a portion of that. But the Internet was reacting to that face.
Okay, so that's why we wanted to see the.
Face that was there's a lot of Internet reaction to that. But we do have a portion of the immigration ad lib that we can show you. Guys, this is D four control him if you could run.
That Lincoln Lincoln Riley, a thenocent young woman who was killed?
Why and illegal? That's right?
But how many of thousands of people being killed by legal?
Wow? Yeah, I mean again it went on genuinely.
Crazy and it went on from there uncomfortably.
But yeah, it was the reason why I was uncomfortable.
As Emily noted, is he didn't know the name properly, and then he was like stumbling kind of through it, didn't know what he was doing.
I mean electorally, and I know the point he is trying to make there, which is that the native born population has a higher crime rate than the immigrant population. Yeah so, but then when you're in the position of being like, yeah, well, how many people to regular Americans murder, it's like this wasn't made in Williams the most artful way possible. And that's when I started, you know, getting nervous. And then he's like, this killed by an illegal and.
You think, you think we're so innocent, but yeah, wait, he was right.
We're both right.
That is going to be mega viral, though undermined any attempt that his administration made, and it's because he went off script. He didn't have to.
Go off but Emily, we know that. I mean, those attempts were already of course done. And the other thing that happened there is James Langford, Senator, who worked on that bipartisan bill, which was, you know, legitimately very hard line in which Trump came out and was like, no, I don't want this to pass because I want to use this as an issue in the election. Langford was the sort of lead Republican negotiator on that and so when Biden is there saying this is the toughest border security bill that any president has ever you know, tried to push through. Langford actually mouths that's true, as his Republican colleagues are booing.
And you know, no, that's a lie. Marjorie Taylor Green and doing her thing and whatever.
I think it's a thing from like I personally, if people want, we did an hour and a half long debate die about this bill.
People could watch. I mean, relative, what's what's what?
You know?
What is a bill that has been tougher?
Well?
Okay, what what I would come back to is just is really this is on the politics of it. I've always agreed with Crystal is if you care about the border.
I care about the border. Emily you do too.
It's one of those things where just like, yeah, we don't trust you Biden, period, and the story like even with all this other shenanigans because of the people who work for you and all the other things that've happened in the last in term three years, you actually I think at this point, if you're a border voter, like you're just a Republican one hundred percent, like you're going to vote for him or you're going to vote for Trump or you're just.
Not going to vote for Biden on this issue period.
Now, can he move some like independent vote or anything on this I genuinely don't think so.
I think his best his best thing.
You wouldn't say that there was another bill that was tougher. You're just saying, I don't trust Biden to implement.
About this, is what I'm saying about the bill, like what we've had legislation introduced in twenty seventeen that was much tougher under Trump, there was one that HR two is what the Republicans have.
No. Well, no, it did representative right.
But it wasn't mean in a lot right. I mean this last either undelighted that it was blocked.
I'm just saying, but you can't say, wait billion other bail out there.
The point is HR two, Combot.
Think about this.
You know there's no way and how Democrats would vote for this ship under Trump.
Not a chance, not a chance that they would have backed this bill with no path, nothing even for doc for the.
None of that. Under the next Trump. I'm not maybe.
Look, I mean that's why I would have Under Bush the Democratic Party. The New York Times had an amazing poll on this, So how Democrats have moved way more than Republicans in the last like just the average name in the last twenty thirty or just on immigrations I'm talking about, And I think that's what's for Republicans. That's what to me was interesting about Biden actually being willing to take the pen for Marjorie Taylor Green and then go back and forth.
I just thought it, so, you guys are also acting like this is some like open borders him him the most honest like positioning that you get from him when he blur sounds something like and illegal killed her.
I mean, this is who he's been throughout. He has not sound lib on this issue.
But that's like the whiplash that people get with like democrats genuinely disaffective. People will look at this or people who care about the border and they don't feel like Democrats have could have have dedicated enough time to it and haven't been willing to take tough steps to it. That's why I thought the moment was so emblematic, Like Biden took the pen from Marjorie Tayler Green, he tried to interact with her. He thought he was interacting with her in good faith, which is in and of itself a weird thing.
I think he was trying to flip it is what. I think he was trying to get the political one on us.
But it's sort of all of it in a nutshell that Biden wants to try to please these two unpleasable blocks and he thinks he's the only one who can do it, like like I alone.
Can just think about Okay, So the two areas where Biden has the worst approval.
Writing right now, immigration and gods.
Immigration and gassa right.
And in order to try to appease a group of people who you're writer, Republicans are not voting.
For him, it's not going to happen.
People who for immigrant you know that the border and quote unquote immigration crisis is their number one issue.
They're not voting for him.
He is willing to abandon everything he said on the campaign trail and literally reach out his hand and say.
Donald Trump, work with me on this issue. On Gaza.
He's willing to pretend like he cares and do literally nothing to change the policy because it's the pressure from the left. I mean, it's so illustrative of the contempt with which the Democratic Party holds anything that they see as coming from the left, they just hold it in complete and utter contempt, and they delight in screwing on there. It's a total opposite on the Republican Party side. I think they go to great lengths to try to like, well that pleasen't cater to their base.
But Pulican base would say the Langford negotiations was the biggest little finger they ever got from But they didn't.
But then they backed away from it when they got pressure from the base. They backed said, hey, you need to and here's the thing is, I just don't think you can deny. I am delighted that they killed this bill. Now, I don't think anything's going to happen. The things that are more likely to happen or is Trump gets in again, whatever he does through executive orders, which is quite significant, what he could do, that's what's likely to happen. But in terms of you know, actual legislation passing, no, they're not going to get another bite at the South.
It was purely political.
Because why would Democrats help him because at that point it's Trump's problem.
Exactly.
That's exactly right that Republicans were like sorry, Biden, this is your problem.
And at the same time, Democrats have completely abandoned any sort of moral high ground that they had on this issue, and they've just like accepted the Republican argue, which why I think it's, you know, both a moral and political disaster.
I will stick with what you said, you know, immigration debates and all that aside. I think that a point that you're making is important about political constituencies, ability to exercise power and the border because it's interesting because if you look in the past, the Republican base was basically they were all going bases want immigration restriction for like seventy years or whatever, like for as long as as the modern.
Coalition has existed, screwed, screw screwed Gang of Eight over and over again.
They're finally able to extract actually some blood on Eric Cantor. And then with the Freedom Caucus from there, plus the rise of Trump, you have Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and all these other people can disavow their previous immigration policies and basically meet Trump where he is, and then you get to the status quo of today where the base is able to kill a border bill. The problem and I mean there's a myriad reasons why it's maybe what this is, I actually want to know what you guys think. It's for some reason we haven't seen the ability for the left to exercise that same level of political power until Look, maybe today is the breaking point, right, because we have uncommitted that actually is a genuine political force. And I mean I think that the calculus and this is where I probably defend the two of you and have stuck up for you. Also when my Centris Biden fends get very upset and the things that you say is they're like, you say Trump, it's.
Not just Marshall is there?
Like yeah, but but Trump would be so much worse. I'm like, yeah, but they're trying to extract a pound of flesh to show that they can. And it's like that just hasn't really happened a lot with the political left in this.
There is a knee jerk assumption that really started with Bill Clinton.
Yeah, right, that the way.
To win is to kick the left in posture, like you you know, to adopt a lot of the Republican position like on welfare and on NAFTA and all kinds of.
Other is the symbol and the poster Canada that is his ideological bearing.
I mean, you know, I keep Mark Lamont Hill said this with regards to Israel and how they were have been so clueless about what a problem this is for them electorally, which has been obvious from the very beginning. But if you've been in Washington fifty years, in that fifty years, it has never been a political problem to be too pro Israel. And so him and the you know, his little bubble of people who have similar like fifty year careers in Washington, d C. And all of these things in they're just not able to adjust to any other assumption. They're not able to realize that there are certain areas where actually the left wing position is incredibly popular and you would benefit from adopting that position. Now, I do want to give some credit to the economic portion of this speech, which I thought was well crafted.
I thought it emphasized. I thought it was good. I mean, it was very like made in America.
It was very sort of like economic nationalists in a way that I think lands in a real populist way. He spent a lot of time talking about specific proposals to help make housing more affordable, both for homeowners, aspiring homeowners, and renters. He talked about using anti trust to go after these big landlord companies that are basically rigging the markets and use it. He didn't get into the whole algorithm situation, but we actually talked about on the shows using the Anti Trust division to try to crack down on price fixing in the rental market, which is increased a huge issue. Yeah, I thought there were some genuinely good things there. It's hard for me, though, you know, it's just hard for me to really give him credit on any of this when Gaza and what's happening there just loom so large over all of them.
What do you think, Ryan about Look what I think about.
This pound of flesh, like the ability for the left exercise port.
I think fundamentally one problem is that the hard right is so much bigger in the United States than the hard left, like the or whatever you want to call them. Like, just the structural and the material conditions that exist here in the United States are do not, like, do not set up a situation where you're going to have a big left like you had one in the New Deal, because you just came out of a great depression in the US was not yet like the global empire, like riding astride across the whole planet like and the the success of the left out of the thirties and forties was their own undoing and so they just don't have the number. Like it's you know, you can do some tactical things here or there, but you're you're gonna be.
You're gonna be.
But yeah, despite that, you did the great tragedy of this genocide. Well not the great tragedy like it's many layers down, but one of the tragedies of the genocide that Biden is overseeing is that is is that it has just stained his entire legacy of economic populism, which, as Kyle was saying, like before, you know, before the speech, he would.
Be defending, I would be defending you know there, there's so much that you can say about it.
The the fact that prices jumped and are still high and rent is still a huge problem is itself kind of a cloud over everything else that he's done.
But everything else that he's done is not nothing.
Like low unemployment rate, you know, labor labor militancy, uh, you know, cash in people's pockets, like the economy overall in the last like three years a result of the you know, the the kinds of things that the left has been pushing for years. It is headed in the right direction, but you're not going to find anybody who's willing to like celebrate.
Yeah, I mean, how much would I have in another timeline without Gaza been talking about Sean Fain there and the union wins and it's getting a call out and you know all all of that.
But it's just like you know, it is.
It is an incredible tragedy because you know, before Gaza, I was out there saying, listen, it's not just a lesser to evils vote if you look just at the anti trust and you look just at labor, just.
At wages, like wages now are growing faster than prices, and they.
Have been like if you if you care about and especially at the lower.
End, if you care about checking corporate power.
The people he put in place in key you know, positions have done a great job, and they've been aggressive and it's been groundbreaking. It's been a real break from the Clinton Obama Democratic Party and obviously wildly better than you know, Trump out a bunch of union busters in at the NLRB and the antitrust was not doing anything different than what was being done before. So those pieces are undoubtedly better under Biden. You know, I don't think that they've done a great job selling it or whatever. It's long term, while you have a lot of pain for people that is very present and very real right now. And on the economic front, you know, I've long said that dropping the economic pieces of build back better and allowing all the COVID social safety net stuff to expire, I mean, that was a huge moral disaster. It was a huge political disaster, and it's a big and I think undersold part of why his economic approval ratings are so incredibly, incredibly low.
I just wanted to mention. Jeff Stein flagged some.
Of the economic policy that was in the State of the Union, highlighting manufacturing auto construction boom, which is real, reducing drug costs by taking on big farming me most kind of like they.
Did a little bit.
Two million new affordable homes five thousand dollars per year for first time home buyers, universal preschool pelgrans, cutting student dead expanding ACA subsidies. So, I mean, some of those things are very neo lib but it is this kind of like populist economic focus tips. Yeah, that would have given people something to focus on, hold on, to highlight, if not overshadowed by of course.
He started in Ukraine. I mean to your point, he started in Ukraine, I can't. When we were listening to him talk about housing, I was thinking to myself, like this, if you had written this for the beginning, if you had like really written this as an introductory part of your speech.
I mean, you know, I kind of doubt myself on this now though, Emily, because I would have said the same thing. But that message of just like January sixth and mag is a bunch of crazy weirdos.
It works, it works, Yeah, exactly.
People don't trust them on the economy. They're not going to take credit for it. They haven't done enough of the short term stuff. They don't trust them on that. They're not willing to give you long term you know, check boxes when you're getting screwed.
Do you think I think age hangs over the economy, because it's like, all right, yeah, okay, I do like that.
Wages are going faster than inflation, et cetera.
But like, I don't trust this guy over the next four or five years to like deliver more.
And I've talked about this before Kennedy.
I mean he had in terms of like the inexorables, like he had the vigor, Like that was the whole thing.
That was why he was always like in a cocktail of drug.
Yeah, that's right, but nobody knew it, Okay, Like people didn't know he basically had Lake stage Parkinson's and would have died if he made Presidence look sober.
So I do have to say this. We're going to be transitioning soon.
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So maybe last thoughts, I guess you've been saying any everybody's for later some jams.
Well love, we'll see it's up today. It depends on what they ask.
Should mentioned that Trump has been responding on.
Troops, truth, social that's right.
Presumptive nominee is of this week, he has been slamming Biden for coughing the entire.
I mean it was weird. Like yeah, so like Trump.
The sort of master of the aesthetic, that's what it's interesting.
Joe Coffin. Joe Coffin was yes, in coffee joke often Joe, I like.
Not bad, Ryan, that's not bad.
I might tweet that out. I might try. I may, I may try and socialize that well.
I thought he was trying to take Hillary's old the crooked Hillary thing. Give that to Joe, And I was like, really recycling nicknames, now, come on, that.
Only works for Hunter. It doesn't work. That you tried, it doesn't work as well. So okay, last thoughts from everybody, Ryan, what do you got? No, that's all I got that.
It wasn't a joke. It was a serious advice.
My last thought here is, you know, we had that moment with the report that came out that was talking about elderly gentleman for a memory when there was this moment of panic, and as Recline is writing a piece of The New York Times and Nate Silver is that going in and you're you know, getting kind of a little bit of a DC freak out goer and getting conspiracy theories about all maybe they're getting ready to slag Commelando his placed or something like that, all of those murmurings.
I think he did enough in.
This speech that I agree with you.
It's unfortunately, you know, I mean, listen again, We've talked a million times. The bar is really low, but I'm sure on CNN they are over there selling him is the greatest order of our time right now.
Alsina said, all questions are answered.
He's well, if I had a question and it would have been answered, Yeah.
That's Joe.
I completely agree with you, Crystal. This is it the Biden age discourse. They have enough. My prediction that I'll try and hear is that they are going to try and do as few debates with Trump as possible. We would be lucky if we get one. And I think this is exactly why he can have one shot, can have one thing where you can read off. You can have the note cards. Well, I've prepared, but three is just not going to cut it. Trump smart and trying to pressure him and highlight that. But the proof from this speech is the super Bowl strategy was correct. Don't put him on the super Bowl. You play him once you get you get get him pretty good thirty minutes or so, and that's it, and you cut his ass off, but let him out go out.
Does it works because people aren't stupid.
It doesn't work because people aren't stupid, but they're gonna look they work before you play the maggot, hann you play this, you play the row versus weight hits, and you just hope and pray in November. That's your only possible strategy in dragging you through election. So that's that's my prediction. My kind of closing thought on this, Emily.
My closing thought is I just I think there were some moments that were genuinely really I don't want to say unprecedent, because nothing is ever unprecedented in the United States Congress, but there were moments that were unusual to anyone who's watched The State of the Union on television, which I think started with Harry Truman, the sort of break into quorum, which again I don't have a problem with, but that was fine, going back and forth. I think all of that is going to overshadow the planned, scripted rhetoric that came out of the White House that had actually some real just from the perspective of political strategy, some real highlights. They did a good job with some of these lines. They did a good job talking about some things. But I think because of those places he went off script. He tried to interact with Marjorie Taylor Green, he tried to go back and forth, chop it up with people who were shouting in the audience, and in the course of that he made some He had some gaffes. He was coughing a lot. He said something about Moscow at one point, getting drugs from Moscow. I think, honestly, all of that is because we live in the viral clips economy, going to overshadow their best efforts not to not to have that happen, and because he decided to go off script.
Well, for my final thought, I'll tell my old man's story to your point. Back in twenty ten, I was in the gallery when Joe Wilson yells you Lie. I had just written a profile of Joe Wilson for Politico like a couple months you looked like and when he yelled, he's a total back then, right right, yes, and the whole press core it's like, who just yelled?
Who just yelled? Like? Because then you couldn't bring your devices.
I'm like Joe Wilson, and everyone in the gallery is like, who is Joe Wilson?
Read? Why did I profile him?
Uh?
I mean he had a whole bunch of kids serving in a rag. Okay, I don't go go Google Joe Wilson. I used to do feature profiles, all right. So here's what I'm being Premium guys. Premium Stream. There's a separate stream for premium subscribers. If you sign up in the interim, go and check we have emails and all of that.
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So it was pretty cool. Yeah, that's a lot of That was a lot. Yeah, I think that.
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