The White House has been unusually public (and repetitive) with its stance on the debt ceiling: that it simply will not negotiate with Republicans on future cost cutting while those same Republicans have a gun to the head of the global economy.
Continue reading “Cajoling Biden To Negotiate With Hostage-Taking Republicans Is Latest Bad Take On Looming Debt Default”Marjorie Taylor Greene Gives the (Unofficial) GOP Response
Speaker Kevin McCarthy told his members to be on their best behavior at the 2023 State of the Union address. But Republican House members didn’t follow his lead any more than they did during the fifteen votes it took him to become speaker in early January. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was a stand-out, repeatedly heckling the President, hooting and hollering and thumbs-downing him with abandon. Some Twitter commenters compared her performance to iconic moments from Bravo’s ‘Real Housewives’ franchise.
Here are some of her greatest moments.
Standing Out in a Crowd
Rep. Greene Not Having It
Sitting But Still Feral
Jeering the President to His Face
Screaming and Hollering
Making a Point of Order
Dressed to Stand Out and Living Her Best Life
Biden Uses Republican Heckling To Publicly Strong-Arm Them Into Dropping Demands For Medicare, Social Security Cuts
In the strongest moment of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the President used Republican boos and jeers to veer off script and push members of the opposing party into backing off their long-discussed desire to cut Medicare and Social Security.
Continue reading “Biden Uses Republican Heckling To Publicly Strong-Arm Them Into Dropping Demands For Medicare, Social Security Cuts”Biden Delivers 2023 State Of The Union To Divided Congress
President Joe Biden is delivering the 2023 State of the Union — his first without a Democratic trifecta. Follow along.
Quick Take on Biden’s Speech
Watching State of the Union addresses is one of my least favorite parts of what I do at TPM. I find them a mix of tedious and stressful to watch. By and large they don’t matter. I’d prefer not to watch them. But it’s part of the job. This was very different from any of the State of the Union addresses I’ve seen in 40-plus years of watching them.
Joe Biden isn’t a particularly rousing public speaker normally. The first 10 or 15 minutes of his address were fairly boilerplate, occasionally halting. The substance was pitched toward mid-sized and small towns in post-industrial America. This was unsurprising but well-executed. But then it went somewhere entirely different, not in substance but in presentation, energy and tone.
I don’t need to describe the speech to you because you presumably saw it. Here are the two points that stood out to me.
Continue reading “Quick Take on Biden’s Speech”Sanders Blogging
10:50 PM: I’m not sure what else to say about this response. Dark, growling, over the top. Republicans not doing themselves any favors here. Especially after the speech everyone just saw.
10:47 PM: Sanders starting off SOUR. Eeesh.
Well
I just have to say
Quick Take, More Soon
I’ll have a few more thoughts in a moment. I want to take in the official response from Huckabee Sanders. But that was much much livelier and better than I’d expected. I was surprised.
SOTU Blogging Second Thread
10:18 PM: We may try to put some of this together later. But there seem to be a lot of prestige reporters tonight not quite willing to say what happened on the floor in that exchange about Social Security and Medicare, with Republicans hooting and hollering. We all saw what happened.
10:05 PM: There were some feral Republicans there yelling about the border.
10:00 PM: “Equal protection under the law is a covenant we have with each other in America.”
Okay, Let’s Do This
9:47 PM: He’s doing considerably better than I’d anticipated. I didn’t have low expectations. I just find most of these speeches by most Presidents kind of meh. He’s enjoying himself and skewering the opposition with a bear hug.
9:45 PM: Joe, Medicare and Social Security saver …
9:43 PM: A lot of Republicans really don’t like the facts.
9:37 PM: Oy …
9:34 PM: He seems jazzed.
9:29 PM: ‘Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back.’
9:23 PM: “We came together” seems to be the theme.
9:20 PM: McCarthy is trying to follow the GOP vow never to clap but he seems to kind of give in toward the end. Can’t quite manage it.
9:11 PM: I guess we’re charm offensive-ing. I always have equivocal feelings about this. On the one hand, don’t bring a noodle to a knife fight. On the other, the audience isn’t the members in the building. It’s the public at home. That’s what’s important to remember.
9:08 PM: Apparently Biden and Santos made locked eye contact but didn’t say anything or shake hands. The news has been delivered.