I thought this was a strong speech. Strong on a few different fronts. Biden got into it a few times with House Republicans which he and his advisors clearly wanted to happen. He also got some good applause lines and clippable moments where he called out things like Republicans killing the border bill. He hit a number of policy points where Biden’s policies are just much more popular than Republican ones. State of the Unions can play a big role because they allow a President to make a key point that maybe just hasn’t broken through before. Here everyone’s watching. So a President can force the matter. There are probably ten other boxes they checked more or less well.
But a political speech is only really good or bad judged against a specific, contextual need. Bill Clinton’s SOTUs were often plodding and, for political insiders, boring. But they usually accomplished his specific political goals. In this case, Democrats have been worried. Worried about the stakes of this election. Worried about the poll numbers. They’ve been worried about whether Biden has the energy and whatever else to really do this. Can he be vigorous? Can he show up and deliver? Does he have the energy to get this done? Answering that question in the affirmative was in many ways the first, second and third goal of this speech. And on that measure he did very well.
As he had the confidence to dwell on towards the end of the speech, Biden is an old man. He’s over 80 years old. But I think people who’ve had these doubts, Democrats who have been worried … I think they will see this speech and think, “Ok, I think we can do this.”
9:47 PM: In the pre-Trump era I might have thought, hey we shouldn’t have political slogans on a State of the Union night. But, that’s a bygone era. We’re in a call and response era now.
9:34 PM: Johnson’s facial expressions through the J6 stuff was remarkable. He didn’t know how to play it. He ended up shaking his head through a lot of it.
9:30 PM: Biden is clearly going to use this speech in part to try to taunt Republicas to have outbursts at completely uncontroversial things.
See our Live Blog over to the right (if you’re on the desktop site). I’ll be sharing my thoughts here in the Ed Blog.
Like a movie villain pausing to explain in detail his evil plan just before lowering the hero into the shark tank, election truthers keep talking and talking about their efforts to make sure they are happy with the results of the 2024 election. The scheme, in short: They want to be the ones counting the votes.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss Kyrsten Sinema’s self-imposed exile from politics, Super Tuesday results and the end of Nikki Haley’s campaign.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
The whole Alabama/IVF situation is an example of the number of absurd logical culs-de-sac you get into when you start with premises that are, at least to many of us, not only absurd but which at least a number of these premises supporters don’t even entirely believe. As noted below, Alabama has now passed a law which leaves in place the idea that embryos are full people in the state but gives people immunity from prosecution or civil liability if you kill one of these people.
No, really. That’s pretty much what the Alabama legislature just did with a new law, hastily passed and now signed by the state’s governor.
As you know, Alabama created a firestorm last month when the state’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos in IVF clinics are the legal equivalent of minor children. This ruling sent shockwaves through the United States, pushed a new dimension of the Dobbs/abortion debate to the top of the national election debate and temporarily shuttered the state’s IVF fertility clinics. In response Alabama has now passed a law which appears to have created enough legal assurance to allow the state’s clinics to reopen. This is not just a win for reproductive rights in the state. Numerous couples had their ongoing fertility treatment halted by the ruling.
But as in-state critics have made clear, the new legislation is at best a band-aid rather than a solution.
The cult of Donald Trump has swallowed the old Republican Party and nearly everyone with any significant power in it. Mitch McConnell, a remarkable national figure over the last 16 years, is no different than Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or any of the countless others whose personal dignity was sacrificed in service of fealty to Trump. All the way down to the racist and sexist screeds Trump launched against McConnell’s own wife.
McConnell will spend his twilight years trying to ensure that his epitaph will be free of Trump. It would be a travesty if it is. The excuse-making for McConnell will linger, but he’s no conservative, he’s no institutionalist, and he’s no evil genius.
Monuments in Kentucky will bear his name, Democrats and journalists will murmur niceties over his ability to wield power, and time as it does will soften the judgments of him. Hold firm against the erosion of memory. McConnell deserves the enmity of a generation.
Here are McConnell’s own words after the Jan. 6 attack:
The man who mustered indignation after his own personal safety was threatened in the coup attempt nonetheless voted to acquit Trump in his impeachment trial, so we knew the mettle of the man already. Yesterday’s endorsement of Trump confirmed it, but with the added twist that McConnell is now, unlike in 2021, a lame duck. He won’t be the Senate GOP leader next year, and he won’t run for re-election in 2026. But even the lack of real political risk wasn’t enough for McConnell to break from his tribe. He owns it now and for evermore. Let us not forget.
The guardrails are failing. They are failing not only to hold Trump accountable directly, but also, absent any serious legal and political consequences, to at least tell the people how exceptionally dangerous Trump and those who are fueling, enabling, and supporting him are. If someone assumes that this is still a country with functioning institutions, then it’s only logical for them to conclude that Trump walking free means his transgressions can’t be that bad. At some point, it becomes really hard to expect people to break through their routines and actively defend democracy, as is necessary in a situation of crisis, if the institutions we ask them to trust shy away from doing their part – if they instead continue to signal “normalcy,” that politics as usual is still an option or, at the very least, that exceptional, unprecedented measures would be “too extreme.”
Take Your Time …
The Supreme Court announced that oral arguments in the Trump immunity case will be held on the very last day of its argument calendar: April 25.
New reporting from Politico suggests state Attorney General Kris Mayes is nearing a charging decision in her probe of Trump’s 2020 fake electors scheme in the state.
ICYMI
NYT: “A network of right-wing activists and allies of Donald J. Trump is quietly challenging thousands of voter registrations in critical presidential battleground states, an all-but-unnoticed effort that could have an impact in a close or contentious election.”
Remembering Bloody Sunday
Heather Cox Richardson with a reminder on the straight line that runs from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
WaPo: The hard-right wing of House GOP poised to grow even larger next year
WaPo: Bernie Sanders’s private warning to Biden about the 2024 campaign
House GOP Abandons Gov’t Shutdowns For Now
It’s too early and it oversimplifies things to say that the House is working normally again, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has now used Democratic votes twice to get the two spending bills through that will avoid a government shutdown — and he has kept his job, as tenuous as that may be.
State Of The Union Tonight
Morning Memo hates the rote State of the Union coverage with a white-hot fury, so just one word on tonight’s tired spectacle: It marks a pretty dramatic turn in our underlying politics over the past few years that a Democratic president would front tax increases of any kind in an election-year State of the Union address.
Alabama Enacts New Protections For IVF
Alabama has quickly enacted a new law protecting IVF practitioners from civil and criminal liability in the aftermath of the state Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos have the legal rights of children.
Ziegler Won’t Face Criminal Charges
Former Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler will not face charges for illegally videotaping a woman who accused him of rape. Prosecutors had already decided not to pursue sex assault charges.
Congrats To Hunter And Luppe!
Morning Memo stopped by a book event in DC last evening moderated by TPM alum Brian Beutler for the new book The Truce by TPM’s Hunter Walker and Luppe Luppen. A great discussion of the book and progressive politics in 2024 and beyond. Proud of those guys.
Woot!
Cole Brauer completed the Global Solo Challenge overnight in Spain, becoming the first American woman to sail solo around the world. She finished in second place in the race, arriving some four months after she set sail in October.
In a normal election year, election workers would be focused on recruiting and training poll workers, securing polling sites, preparing voting technology, and providing voters with the information they need to cast a ballot in the months leading up to November. But after the chaos, threats and violence of 2020, election officials across the country are adding mental health training for election workers to their election prep to-do lists.
Texas is battling an ongoing and record-breaking set of wildfires that has already burned over 1 million acres and killed two people. The most destructive of them, the Smokehouse Creek fire, has seriously damaged communities and cattle ranches in northeastern Texas and western Oklahoma. After a week of battling flames, there are still several active wildfires in the Texas Panhandle and they remain largely uncontained.
Smoke from the Smokehouse Creek fire billowing over a road
Smoke billows over a road during the Smokehouse Creek fire on February 27, 2024 in the Texas panhandle. (Photo by Texas A&M Forest Service via Getty Images)
Fire crosses a road in the Texas Panhandle
Fire crosses a road in the Smokehouse Creek fire on the evening of February 27, 2024 in the Texas panhandle. (Photo by Texas A&M Forest Service via Getty Images)
Smoke rises as workers try to contain a fire in Armstrong County
Smoke rises as heavy equipment works to contain the Juliet Pass fire in Armstrong County, Texas on February 27, 2024. (Photo by Texas A&M Forest Service/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A fire truck driving towards the Smokehouse Creek fire
A fire truck driving towards the Smokehouse Creek fire in the Texas panhandle region on February 29, 2024. Texas issued a disaster declaration as massive wildfires continued to burn out of control, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate their homes. Many roads and highways in the region have been shut down due to smoke, which is causing close to zero visibility. (Photo by Greenville Firefighter Association/ Handout /Anadolu via Getty Images)
A fast-moving wildfire in the Texas Panhandle
A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle region on February 29, 2024. (Photo by Greenville Firefighter Association/ Handout /Anadolu via Getty Images)
Flames approaching structures near Sanford, Texas
Firefighters battle flames from the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 3, 2024 near Sanford, Texas. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Firefighters battle the Smokehouse Creek fire
Firefighters battle flames from the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 3, 2024 near Sanford, Texas. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
A small island of grass for grazing in the aftermath of a fire
An aerial view shows cattle grazing on a small island of grass surrounded by a burned landscape in the aftermath of the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 3, 2024 near Pampa, Texas. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Cattle grazing on small islands of hay in a burned pasture
An aerial view shows cattle grazing on small islands of hay surrounded by pastureland burned by the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 4, 2024 near Canadian, Texas. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Remains of a burnt residence in Stinnett, Texas
A view of burnt area after a wildfire in Stinnett, Texas on March 1, 2024. (Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Looking through debris of a garage destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek fire
Vernon Jones helps his wife Melissa clean debris from her father’s property after a garage and carport were destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 3, 2024 near Stinnett, Texas. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Residents search for items in the remains of their home
Tia Champion and her husband Tim help Angie Hodges (L) search for items in the remains of her home after it was destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 3, 2024 in Stinnett, Texas. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Charred landscape as far as the eye can see near Fritch, Texas
A charred landscape stretches out for thousands of acres in the aftermath of the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 2, 2024 near Fritch, Texas. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
