Biden gave a State of the Union Address

The Blue State, in the Blue, That Is Where Biden Came: The 2020 Oregon Governor’s Candidate Wins

At the Portland, Ore., Union Hall, the volunteers for the state’s Democratic Party sat shoulder to shoulder at long tables while calling voters from their cellphones when in walked President Biden holding a pink and white box of doughnuts.

Biden’s longest campaign trip to date was his Western swing, but it was low key. There were no rallies, just small audience speeches about his accomplishments thus far, and a couple of fundraisers.

Nor is Biden’s own standing, even as White House officials point to approval ratings that have him running slightly ahead of where then-Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump were at this stage of their first term.

The history books show the incumbent president is not a boost to their party. “If Jesus Christ were an incumbent president, his political party would probably stiff-arm him in the next election,” said Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist.

But Oregon is a very blue state that Biden carried handily in the 2020 presidential election. “It was nice, it was 16 points and we won,” Biden told the group of volunteers who were gathered on a Friday night.

Democrats are concerned about a three-way race for governor. There’s an independent candidate — a former Democrat — who could peel off enough Democratic votes to open the door for the first Republican governor of Oregon in more than a generation.

The Political Impact of Michael Biden on Campaigning in Colorado and the Battle for reelection: Camp Hale as a Case Study

Biden and Kotek donors stopped at a Baskin Robbins store for some ice cream after Biden attended a grassroots fundraiser the next day. Biden waited for his double scoop of chocolate chip in a waffle cone and said he was confident Ko Ken would win.

He is a different sort of president from his predecessors, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who held more traditional rallies ahead of the mid-terms.

Advisers say that the President’s political message was sharpened in order to ramp up the stakes of the last days before the election.

He’s also been in high demand at events to raise cash for his party. At a Friday night fundraiser in a private home in Los Angeles, Biden helped raise $5 million, money that will help congressional candidates all over the country, including those in swing districts who at the moment wouldn’t want to be seen in public with Biden.

Biden coming to town conflicts with other Democratic candidates not making joint appearances. Republicans have roundly mocked Biden and his party for this. But Democratic strategist Lis Smith, author of campaign memoir Any Given Tuesday, said Biden and Democrats are just being smart.

But despite his rhetorical impact, the question is now how effective Obama will be in driving out the vote. While in office the former President struggled with his stardust being translated into other candidates and lesser talents. The question in this election is whether he is actually making the sale to independents and republicans who need to cast their vote for Biden, or if he’s preaching to the converted in trying to get Democrats to vote for him.

But there are places where Biden can help the Democrats on the ballot: places where Democrats have a strong advantage in voter registration. In Colorado, Biden designated an important World War II training site, Camp Hale, as a new national monument. He made sure to show his support for Bennet, who is running for reelection in a tougher than expected race.

Biden told the crowd that he wanted Michael to come back up here and that he had been trying to get him to designate the monument.

LA Mayor Karen Bass: The Road Towards Affordable Healthcare for Families, Children and the Cost of Medicine, and Other Prescription Drugs

In Los Angeles, local officials lined up on a blue tape line on the tarmac to greet the president after he walked down the stairs of Air Force One. Karen Bass, the Democratic congresswoman running for LA mayor, got a well-documented hug with the signature robin’s egg blue plane in the background.

The next day, Biden touted the infrastructure law at a construction site for a new metro line, calling Bass the “soon-to-be Ms. Mayor” in a speech where he delivered the core of his midterm message.

We have an election in a month. Biden said that voters have to make a decision. “Democrats are working to bring down the cost of things … that are talked about around the kitchen table, from prescription drugs, to health insurance, to energy bills, and so much more.”

“We’re always getting incoming requests,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One. Of course. Of course. There are a lot of good things to talk about.

Biden’s Freedom Mission: How Do We Get There and How Will We Follow It? And What Will It Mean for the Future of the Democratic Party?

There is nothing more exciting than having a president attend a campaign rally. And Democrats in four cities — Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee and Las Vegas — will get that chance this month, in the final days of voting that will decide who controls Congress, governors’ offices and statehouses.

If the Republicans are able to take control of either the House or the Senate, this will be one of the biggest rebukes of his political life and will likely end hope that Democrats have of making progress in Washington.

Biden and his top aides view a path to victory if a few things can break the Democrats’ way.

Some in Biden’s own party have begun openly questioning the party’s message – and warning that any momentum that may have existed has given way to clear signs of Republicans regaining the upper hand.

Biden said Monday that the polls had been all over the place. Republicans ahead. The Democrats are ahead. Republicans ahead. I think it’s going to close, with Democrats ahead in the closing days.

It was a candid acknowledgment that there is a dilemma in where to send the message that the Democrats need to blunt the GOP momentum.

Two weeks from the day votes will be counted, one official said, “Democrats are still in the game.”

Whether that will hold, particularly in a home stretch in which the small universe of undecided voters historically breaks toward the party out of power, is the definitive outstanding question.

A Democratic campaign official said that they had sucked themselves back into their own firing squad. At the end of the summer people seemed to think that it was better than it is, but it is not as bad as people think. But it could be if we don’t pull it together.”

The weight of that history, not to mention economic unease that continues to rank first among voter concerns in poll after poll, are not lost on Biden or his advisers.

Biden reflected on his view of the mission handed to him in his speech. It was political because of the number of candidates supporting Trump and the fact that the elections are only five days away. And it came days after the latest shocking example of political violence – the attack on the 82-year-old husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was a statement of a mission unaccomplished, as well as a potential opening volley of a possible battle between the 45 and Biden in the White House, since it was announced that Biden would be running for the presidency.

The State of the State During the Biden Era: Where Are We Going? Where Do We Stand? Where Are we going? What are we going to do next?

That will start to change in the days ahead, advisers say, with continued insistence that he will hit the road for bigger campaign events after weeks of intentionally smaller scale official events designed to highlight legislative accomplishments.

They point to two factors specifically on that front: gas prices, which have been on a steady downward trajectory for the last two weeks, and the third quarter GDP report, which analysts expect to show robust growth after two quarters of contraction.

Officials acknowledge their deficit on the economy, despite cornerstone legislative achievements and a historically fast recovery from the pandemic-era downturn, isn’t going to flip over the course of 14 days.

With gas prices having a correlation with the Democratic electoral prospects over the last several months, they see an opportunity to at least make some gains or fight to a draw with undecided voters.

It is a principle that has been laid bare in a very acute manner by the Republicans in recent weeks, whether it is on abortion, popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, or proposals to overturn many of the individual provisions enacted by Biden that polls in the favor of Democrats.

Biden and his team believe a serious focus on governing contrasts favorably with House Republicans, who they accuse of threatening to send the nation into default and piling up distractions as they investigate the president and his family.

The surge of optimism among the Democrats was seen by many inside the West Wing as overly optimistic, as they were driven by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key abortion amendment.

The structural dynamics defining House races, in part due to redistricting, have long made holding onto an already exceedingly narrow majority a tall task. Republicans have grown increasingly aggressive in their spending targets in recent days, indicating they view an expanding map – and an environment that is growing more favorable by the day.

In battleground Senate races, Democratic candidates are polling with small leads or close to each other. The pathway to hold onto the Senate exists, even if a sharp break away from Democrats could imperil several of the party’s biggest new stars.

Voters might view the election as either a choice or a referendum. If it is the latter, Biden will face a Republican controlled House and Senate in the next two years.

While Biden may be talking at cross purposes with the electorate on these issues, they are linked, in a fateful way, that he did not mention in his speech at Union Station on Wednesday evening. Whether it is his fault or not, the president’s failed efforts to rein in inflation and the nation’s fears of a once-in-a-century epidemic created electoral conditions that look like they’ll return Trumpism to power.

While Biden grabbed the message of lost pride in America, he reflected it back onto his feelings of unmoored in recent years, not going backwards to a pre-civil rights era. He referred to the attack on the Capitol as an insurrection, saying it was the greatest threat to the democracy since the Civil War. But many members in the audience still support the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and are part of that threat to democracy.

Friday’s event at the White House was almost a coda in the week that saw a White House at work and a House of Republicans in chaos. It gave Biden the opportunity to highlight the extremist risk to the nation and its politics that he sees as still very real – even as signs that the fever driven by his predecessor has started to break in concrete ways. Some White House officials think that that risk will serve as a split screen for Biden’s remarks.

This was Biden’s night. I wish he was a different president. He talked to Americans as a collective force, whether they supported him or not, even though he is the president most Americans chose. Even someone who isn’t a huge fan can see why Americans love to hear that.

The election should be more than one thing. Voters can walk and chew gum at the same time. In Washington, where politicians and their media chroniclers always remind them of the January 6 horror, the threat to democracy feels close to home.

The idea of gut check in the heartlands of Pennsylvania and the suburbs of Arizona isn’t as old as it once was. It is the simplest way of feeding a family. The election is about the cost of a cart full of groceries or the cost of a gallon of gasoline than America’s founding truths.

When everything was better during Trump, and what will you do next year? An analysis by Joe Biden of the CNN/SSRS Demographic Survey

When it came to the price of everything, retiree Strong told CNN, “The price of everything was better during Trump,” and she was looking forward to retirement.

Declining stock markets have hurt retirement accounts and Americans with credit card debt took another blow Wednesday when the Federal Reserve raised its short-term borrowing rate by another 0.75%. There are fears the Fed’s strategy could pitch the economy into recession and ruin one of the best aspects of the Biden economy – the low unemployment rate.

Biden believes that while inflation will fall, and economic damage can be mended, the current election could cause political damage that is beyond mending.

But it’s a tough case to make in such a doom-laden political environment for Democrats. Millions of Republicans who think Trump cheated in last year’s election don’t listen to Biden’s call for national unity. His approval ratings are low. And in a new CNN/SSRS survey published on Wednesday, for instance, 51% of Americans said inflation and the economy was most driving their vote in the midterms. Abortion – the issue Democrats hoped would save them next Tuesday after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer – was the only other concern in double figures, polling at 15% of likely voters. Voting rights and election integrity, which were the focus of the president’s speech on Wednesday night, were only 9%.

“This year, I hope you’ll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote, and how you vote,” he said. Will the person accept the outcome of the election? At the end of a campaign in which many GOP nominees didn’t know if they would accept voters’ will.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/politics/joe-biden-plea-for-democracy-analysis/index.html

What Did Ashley Biden Tell Us About High-Pricing Real Estate? A Response to the President on a “Transitory Problem”

It’s not that Biden hasn’t been also talking about high prices. The pitch he made was that the billions of dollars of spending in his domestic agenda will lower health care costs, boost working families and create millions of jobs. Things that could happen in the future cannot ease the pain being felt at the moment.

Throughout history, inflation has often been a pernicious political force that breeds desperation in an electorate and seeds extremism as a potential response. That’s why politicians fear it so acutely and why it is so curious that the Biden White House initially didn’t take the surge of prices that seriously, repeatedly insisting that this was a “transitory” problem caused by Covid-19.

Thursday’s speech seemed to remind Americans that the ideals remain at the forefront of his vision for the country. The president was intent on speaking to the vast swath of Americans who are looking for something calmer, even as Biden was obscuring himself to get attention.

“He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution. Biden said he was careful not to insult every GOP voter as he did when he referred to “semi-fascist” views earlier in the year.

The president argued that Trump’s threat was not only limited to the 2020 election. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America: for governor, Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state who won’t commit – who will not commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re running in,” the president warned.

Biden also hinted at a lack of understanding of Trump’s MAGA supporters, who have embraced his anti-democratic, populist, nationalist appeal to mainly White voters, which grew out of a backlash to the first Black presidency of Barack Obama. The 44th president has been making his own searing defenses of democracy and repudiation of Trump on the midterm election campaign trail in recent days.

It’s not clear whether the new openness is part of a grander White House strategy, or if it signals a new attitude within the Biden family about their patriarch’s political plans. Ashley Biden’s public debut is unfolding without the usual tight choreography of a White House production, and she has appeared in public without political staffers in attendance or reaching out eagerly to reporters with the customary spin. The White House and Biden’s granddaughter didn’t comment on the story.

Now the normally private social worker, 41, is suddenly doing public appearances and making very personal statements, talking about everything from police reform and mental health to life as “a White woman with White privilege.” She’s also talking about the travails of her brother Hunter, an admitted longtime drug addict now in recovery.

But Biden is making it clear she’s ready to tell her own story, no small matter for a person whose personal diary was once stolen and peddled for sale to her father’s political detractors.

I finally feel like I know who I am, I know my worth, and I also know my family, who have given up their lives to help the American people.

The Flare of Anger: Ashley Biden at the White House, on October 24, 2008: Comments on her Personal Life and Her Misleading Phenomenology

The flare of anger is personal for Ashley Biden. She was exposed to her own personal life due to political opponents of her father. In August, two people pleaded guilty to stealing her belongings, including her journal, and selling them to a conservative media outlet.

Last week in Washington, Biden said he had a lot of resentment. It is dehumanizing to say the least. I have lots of anger around that.

On October 24, Biden joined her parents at the White House for a reception to celebrate the Indian holiday Diwali, standing beside the first lady as she made remarks. Both of the Bidens wore dress and saris, while Jill wore a green dress.

But she is not a ubiquitous West Wing presence like her presidential first daughter predecessor, nor is she consistent tabloid fodder, like her older brother, Hunter Biden.

One person who worked with the Bidens said that she had periods of being more vocal. “But she has also had times of being almost reclusive, and not participating.”

CNN has reported that prosecutors are considering charges for Hunter Biden related to tax violations as well as for making a false statement related to a gun purchase.

Ashley Biden: When the Biden Administration and Donald Trump Made Their Misleading Misleading Menagerie Awakened ‘Tilted’

She claimed the Biden administration was interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day, and that her party didn’t start and never wanted to fight.

Ashley Biden said the brouhaha over the Hunter Biden allegations of wrongdoing and influence peddling has become little more than a family inside joke. I look at my brother and I wonder if he ever impeached Donald Trump.

“Growing up, I lived a very normal, down-to-earth life,” she said last week. She was an athlete, excelling at both field hockey and lacrosse during her Wilmington, Delaware, school years.

She took an interest in her father’s grassroots-style of politicking, often accompanying him at campaign events, parades and on the door-to-door visits that were once a hallmark of gathering votes.

Biden talked about police brutality as a matter of helping parents protect their children, acknowledging the reality that the majority of people in the room never have to have “the talk” or worry about their sons on the road the way Black and rown families do. Biden said everyone is responsible for the wish of the mother of a man who was killed by a cop. Congress and the white community should join in the fight for police reform.

Biden became a social worker, working hands-on with cases, mostly in underserved areas of Delaware and parts of Philadelphia. She attended the University of Pennsylvania and received a master’s degree in social work. She worked as an executive director of the Delaware Center for Justice.

In 2016, Biden launched a hooded sweatshirt line dubbed “Livelihood,” and marketed as a socially conscious fashion label. The profits from the hoodies were given to charities in support of social justice and minority entrepreneurship, according to Biden.

Biden’s late-term absence from the East Wing, and her father’s upcoming run for the White House: I’m glad she didn’t go that way

She had been to travel on two foreign trips with the first lady, in May to Croatia and Ukraine, but pulled out in the last minute. The East Wing said that the issues that caused the cancellation were Covid-19 related.

During the last presidential campaign, opponents made a lot of comments about Biden and her brother, which she admits caused her to stay out of the spotlight.

With the elections just a week away, a second run for the White House by her father remains unknown, while the president’s age, approval ratings and performance are being hammered by critics.

She spoke about her father’s dedication during an interview from San Francisco. If we don’t win the House and Senate, there will be some real issues. I mean, it’s over, right? It’s over in the sense of what’s to come. Our rights. Mental health care. All of it.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/politics/ashley-biden-white-house/index.html

The Making America Great Again Movement: Addressing the Trump-Biden Anomalies with a First-In-the-Nation Warmup

On the dais last week in Washington, answering the handful of questions with responses that went on for several minutes, Biden sounded almost like a certain politician.

“I believe we can come to the same results, we can work together, but I think it’s the how we kind of go about it. I am not saying not to scream from the mountaintops of injustice, but I do believe that if you really want we should work with the other side.

Barack and Donald have differing visions of the meaning of America and are now at odds as they wrestle with the future of US democracy.

But his rallies this year have rocked with the pulsating energy and enthusiasm that is often lacking at appearances by the incumbent president, an older, more conventional politician. Obama has also come up with far more relatable and focused economic messages than Biden has managed – ironically performing the same role for the current president as another ex-president, Bill Clinton, performed for him in the 2012 campaign – a service that led Obama to dub the 42nd president “the explainer-in-chief.”

The Make America Great Again movement was born out of the idea that cultural values of a largely White, working-class nation are under attack from political correctness, immigrants, and the establishment.

Obama is angry about politicians and celebrities who promote conspiracy theories, fear and social media “garbage” of which Donald Trump is most prominent. He is delivering brutal, take- downs of those that are running on the platform of the 45th president’s false promises in 2020.

Why would you vote for someone who is not telling the truth? I mean, on something that important, I don’t care how nicely they say it. I don’t care if they’re poised or well-lit, as long as they’re good at what they do.

“What happens when truth doesn’t matter anymore?” Obama said something. If your side says something over and over again, and you just repeat it, it is okay.

Trump adopted exactly that tactic in his return to the campaign trail in Iowa on Thursday night, in what was ostensibly an appearance for veteran GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, but felt like a first-in-the-nation caucus warmup for 2024.

In a speech during his recent visit to Iowa, President Donald Trump claimed that the president’s campaign had been spied on by the then president, Barack Obama.

Obama’s humor is typically warmer, although no less cutting, but he uses it effectively to ridicule Republicans before delivering a devastating political hit. For instance, in Wisconsin last weekend, he branded Republicans as the party of the rich when he accused Sen. Ron Johnson of voting for a tax break for private plane owners.

He was fighting for this. His adult children bought three private planes because they were not willing to share one of them. Now you need more than one? Obama joked.

It’s easy to tell when the 44th president doesn’t have his heart in his task. In the early rallies of his 2012 election race, for instance, he was lethargic and weary, and he didn’t approach top form in his events last year in an off-year election in Virginia.

Former Obama political strategist David Axelrod, who is now a CNN commentator, said that this onetime boss is being used by his party on a specific electoral mission.

The reason incumbent parties don’t win in the mid-terms is because their base isn’t as motivating as the out-of-office party, which tends to vote its grievances. “There is an enthusiasm gap, at least in the polls, between Republicans and Democrats.”

The most recent ex-president has shown his commitment to the Republican Party by endorsing and promoting candidates who don’t agree with him. There is a question as to whether Trump could cost the party control of the Senate by orchestrating inexperienced or extreme nominees like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia.

The former president put his own political ambitions ahead of his party and Republican officials have been worried all election cycle. Many still blame his false claims of voter fraud for helping two Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, win Senate seats in Georgia runoffs, which enabled their party to control the 50-50 chamber with the help of the tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump is not done yet: Predicting America’s destruction by delivering a giant red wave in the final weekend of the midterm elections

Trump’s weekend travels were part of a late blitz that will also take him to Ohio. He’s hoping a strong GOP showing on Tuesday will generate momentum for the 2024 run that he’s expected to launch in the days or weeks after polls close.

But there are increasing signs that Trump may not wait much longer to announce a 2024 bid, not least because he has already signaled he would use a presidential campaign to brand legal investigations he faces related to his hoarding of classified documents in his home in Mar-a-Lago and his conduct leading up to the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, as proof of political persecution.

At his rally Thursday, Trump said Democrats were weaponizing the Justice Department and he was guilty of something when he was in the White House.

Kellyanne Conway, who was a senior counselor to Trump, praised the president for keeping the focus off of the GOP’s message and giving him an excuse to weaken Biden with a Republican House majority in the run-up to the election.

He would love to have done it already. You can expect him to announce it soon, I think, and I think you will too. “He’s being urged by some people to still have a November surprise.”

Donald Trump is not done yet. At the Christian Science Monitor breakfast, Conway said that she thinks you should keep your cellphone on.

Latrote, Pa. is located in Pennsylvania. Former President Donald Trump is predicting America’s destruction if his fellow Republicans don’t deliver a massive electoral wave on Tuesday. Democrats, led by President Joe Biden and two other former presidents, are warning that abortion rights, Social Security and even democracy itself are at stake.

In Pennsylvania, three of the six living presidents delivered dire closing messages that echoed throughout the country as millions of Americans voted in the final weekend of the election for Congress and governor. Polls across America will close on Tuesday, but more than 39 million people have already voted.

“If you want to save our country from destruction, you must vote Republican in a giant red wave,” Trump told thousands of cheering supporters at a Saturday rally.

Biden’s First Address to Congress in Philadelphia, Fla., on Nov. 8, 2020: An Unfinished White House Campaign Against Election Fraud

In Philadelphia, Biden was on stage with Barack Obama for the first time since Biden took office. In neighboring New York, even former President Bill Clinton, largely absent from national politics in recent years, was out defending his party.

After upsetting some members of his party for promoting plans to shutter fossil fuel plants, Biden was dealing with a fresh political mess before he arrived in Pennsylvania. He made comments in California on the same day that the fossil fuel industry is a major employer in Pennsylvania.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the president owed coal workers across the country an apology. He called Biden’s comments “offensive and disgusting.”

The White House said Biden’s words were “twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense” and that he was “commenting on a fact of economics and technology.”

The House and Senate have narrow Democratic majority’s as voters are less enthusiastic about Biden’s leadership in a time of high inflation, crime, and pessimism about the country. Democrats are expected to suffer significant losses in the mid-year elections, according to history.

Trump looked towards Florida as he was campaigning in Pennsylvania. Trump called Ron DeSanctimonious after viewing recent presidential poll numbers on the big screens.

Trump raised the possibility of election fraud this week, after he claimed that he lost the 2020 election because Democrats cheated. In part, because of such rhetoric, federal intelligence agencies have warned of the possibility of political violence from far-right extremists in the coming days.

“Everybody, I promise you, in the very next — very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be happy,” Trump said of another White House bid. Republicans will win an historic victory on Nov. 8.

It was his first address to Congress since Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives in the November midterms. With newly-elected GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sitting over his shoulder, Biden urged Congress to pass a lengthy list of his unfinished priorities.

The president highlighted the Inflation Reduction Action, passed by the Congress, which included health care provisions popular among older adults and the less well-off and included a cap on out-of-pocket medical expenses. The new law also requires companies that raise prices faster than overall inflation to pay Medicare a rebate.

The First Two Years of Biden’s Reionization as a Test of the Strength of American Democracy : A Dialogue with G-20 Summit Leader David Trone

The aide gave the phone to the President after he got home from the dinner with Asian leaders.

David Trone, the millionaire wine retailer from Maryland who lives thousands of miles away and just won another term in Congress, was on the other end of the line.

The call wasn’t long, a person familiar with it said, but reflected the warmth and enthusiasm Biden had deployed dozens of times in calls to winning candidates over the last week – each one further solidifying a midterm election that dramatically reshaped the prevailing view of his presidency.

But Biden powered through. Biden gave what was seen as a test run for his reelection announcement and claimed credit for some progress made during his first two years in office.

On the other side of the world, Biden’s advisers say there was a direct correlation between election results and the effect on his standing in the most important meeting of his first two years.

Sullivan pointed out that many leaders took notice of the results of the elections and came up to the president to say that they were following them closely.

“I would say one theme that emerged over the course of the two days was the theme about the strength of American democracy and what this election said about American democracy,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden traveled from Phnom Penh to Bali, Indonesia, for the Group of 20 Summit.

The White House officials who had braced for losses prior to election day have been willing to speak up on TV and in public, even if they were not entirely sure of the outcome.

It’s a reflection – abroad and back in Washington – of a team that officials acknowledge feels constantly underestimated and has long coveted unambiguous success after a relentless and crisis-infused first 21 months in office.

White House officials had been circling the G-20 as the likely sit-down with Xi for months. There were intensive preparations between the two sides in the lead up to announcing the engagement publicly. The tenuous state of the relationship necessitated a sit down, regardless of domestic politics.

In the weeks leading up to the election, White House advisers downplayed the effect sweeping midterm losses would have on the weight of Biden’s presence and message abroad, citing the same historical trends they would later buck.

Multiple people familiar with the matter said there was an awareness that a US president facing a political defeat in his own party would arrive in Indonesia at the peak of his power, in the wake of the Community Party Congress.

“Perception matters and so does political standing,” one US official said. The focus was never on the end of the game, but everyone was watching the election around the world.

Far from a liability, however, each of the congratulatory calls back home have underscored the driving wind at the back of a president who entered the meeting with Xi at a moment where US-China relations appear to be inching away from great power competition toward inevitable conflict.

“I know I’m stronger,” Biden said, before noting that given his long-standing relationship with Xi formed during their times as their nations’ vice president that the results weren’t a necessity for the meeting to achieve its goals. US officials are also careful not to overstate the effect on a trip – and in a region – where the layers of complexity and challenges far exceed what voters decide in a congressional district or swing state.

The leading autocracy of the strategy and policy across nearly every corner of his administration is China, according to Biden, who made that clear to his advisers.

China was included in Biden’s speech before the balloon flew into American airspace. The incursion, which generated a diplomatic backlash from China and drew second-guessing from Republicans, added new urgency to Biden’s message about competing with Beijing.

“What I find is that they want to know: Is the United States stable? Do we know what we’re about? Are we the same democracy that we have been? At his post election news conference, Biden talked about his conversations with world leaders.

The Rise of Donald Trump in the 21st Century: When a Biden’s Influence on the World Stage became a Factor for his Popularity

Donald Trump, whose election lies had driven the assault on the US Capitol, remained the most powerful figure inside the Republican Party.

Biden had navigated the narrowest of congressional majorities to enact a sweeping domestic agenda, a chunk of which was done on a bipartisan basis. His approval rating was below average because of four-decade high inflation, and the population was exhausted from crisis to crisis.

The possibility that Biden would face the same harsh judgment of his first two years in office as nearly all his recent predecessors wasn’t just likely. It was expected.

Biden’s politically vindicated approach to life on the world stage served as a factor for his approach on the world stage.

Sullivan told reporters that Biden felt like it established a strong position for him on the global stage and that he believed it played out in living color today. “I think we’ll see that equally when we head into both the G20 and to his bilateral engagements in Bali.”

Nevada Rep. Dina Titus got another term in office despite facing a tough reelection battle. Biden needed to wave his hand in the air.

Sen. Mark McCarthy and the House Select Committee: A Plethora of Congressional Campaigns to Protect the U.S. Capitol and the Issues of Speakership

McCarthy has been involved in extensive preparations with allies on and off the Hill including former Speaker Newt Gingrich as well as his relevant committee chairs who he has been leaning on for their policy expertise, such as the Ways and Means Chairman.

Mr. Norman declined to discuss his call with Mr. Trump, stating it was a private conversation. He said he was still undecided about whom he would support for speaker. Mr. Crane did not respond to requests for comment.

Nancy Pelosi quietly picked off defectors to get the votes she needed to get the speaker’s gavel. Ms. Pelosi, known for her ability to twist and turn as well as her ability to get along with others, won over her sole would- be challenger by agreeing to limit her time in Congress, and winning another eight votes by promising to implement bipartisan rules for legislating.

The California Republican has already made a series of pledges in an effort to appease the right flank of his party. He traveled to the southern border and called on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. He promised her a spot on the Oversight Committee, which was stripped from her before she was elected because she made violent and conspiratorial social media posts.

He has threatened to investigate the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, promising to hold public hearings scrutinizing the security breakdowns that occurred. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.

Andy Biggs wrote that Mr. McCarthy had said before the elections that he didn’t see grounds for impeaching any Biden administration officials. Mr. McCarthy had a threat against the homeland security secretary.

The risk that McCarthy could have a weak speakership is highlighted by the question over whether the words of the supposedly most powerful Republican to be in Washington or a maverick member carry more currency.

The tiny GOP House majority that takes over in January, after a disappointing midterm performance, would mean a fragile governing mandate for any party at any point in American history. And the ideological struggle being waged by pro-Donald Trump extremists inside the party would have made even a more comfortable majority volatile.

But it also reflected Greene’s growing personal power, after she broke with some radical GOP members and lined up to support McCarthy’s speakership. After coming to Congress as a fringe figure, and quickly losing her committee assignments over her past retweets of violent rhetoric against Democrats, Greene now promises to be one of the most prominent faces of the new GOP majority. She knows she can say what she wants without fear of being rebuked from her party’s leader. It shows that despite Trump missing out on the presidential election, his influence over his followers in the House is strong.

The shushing motion McCarthy used during his speech was symbolic of his troubled road as speaker. Will he continue to “shush” the extremist, conspiratorial and “Never Biden” wing of his party — whom he has empowered and elevated — as they act out and get in the way of his agenda, which might even include working with Biden from time to time?

Why is McCarthy the VP? Why is Congress interested in spending cuts for the government? The case of Biden, Ye, Mayorkas

This is the reason why the current year-end fight over funding the government for a full year or just a few months is so important since it could easily lead to a fiscal crisis and be manipulated into doing so.

McCarthy is likely to try and stand up to the most extreme members of the conference. The GOP’s path to a majority was circumscribed through moderate seats in places like New York that will be less safe in the election of 2024. And pro-Trump election-denying extremists, like those who are tormenting him now, were mostly rejected by swing-state voters in the midterm elections. The anti-Trump vote was decisive when Republicans lost the House and in 2020, when they lost the presidency.

So showing voters in 2024 that GOP governance addressed key problems like inflation and the economy will be important. McCarthy has announced he will create a select committee that will examine China’s growing threat, which could unite the two parties, but his recent statements have been focused on investigations of the Biden administration and conservatives’ interest in impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

When asked if McCarthy was the Republican leader, Biden said he hadn’t had much time to talk to him.

When McCarthy declined to criticize the ex-president for meeting with a white supremacist, the same dynamic happened, because he didn’t criticize Ye, who recently made antisemitic remarks. In a histrionic performance at the White House after meeting Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the House Republican leader falsely claimed that Trump had condemned Fuentes four times, when he hadn’t done so once.

Following his first White House meeting since he won the speakership, McCarthy said he believes that a funding agreement could be reached for the next two years and that “you won’t see omnibuses anymore.”

House Republicans had been hoping to strengthen their negotiating hand with the White House by uniting around a proposal, but finding conference-wide consensus on spending cuts has proved challenging.

One thing the California Republican does have going for his dreams of the top job is the fact that there so far is not a strong alternative to his candidacy. The former leader of the Freedom Caucus launched a long-shot bid.

At Biden’s direction, White House officials have been quietly engaged in early-stage preparations for a new reality on Capitol Hill, homing in on two key groups as they search for issues to draw bipartisan support: moderate Republicans with a proven track record of working across the aisle and the incoming

The Republican House brings a new degree of difficulty that will cause them to implement some new approaches in order to get substantive legislation passed next year.

First, however, a president and a speaker must navigate a June deadline to raise the debt ceiling with a potentially catastrophic economic crisis looming if they fail – and little in the form of tangible common ground presenting an obvious a path forward.

Clues to that nascent strategy for dealing with a Republican House next year are plastered all over the walls of White House legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell’s office, which are adorned with the names of House Republicans who voted for key pieces of bipartisan legislation in Biden’s first two years in office: the 24 who supported the CHIPS and Science Act, the 13 who voted for the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and the nine who backed reforms to the Electoral Count Act.

When you have Republicans representing Biden districts in a presidential election, it adds a different element to their approach, according to a senior administration official.

The preparations for the months ahead are in the beginning stages. The central focus remains on closing out the final days of unified power in Washington, DC, by securing the passage of the annual defense policy bill and a sweeping bipartisan spending agreement that includes significant new funding to assist Ukraine’s war effort, as well as a bipartisan measure to close loopholes in the Electoral Count Act that brought the country to the brink on January 6, 2021.

Getting the word out about biden during his first two years as a senator: The work of the White House and the New York Representatives

McCarthy, after the meeting, told reporters he “can work with anyone,” but noted the new Republican majority clinched in the midterms signaled “America likes a check and balance.”

The view from Republicans heading into Wednesday’s meeting was that it is still early and there are still months of negotiations ahead – meaning there’s plenty of time for McCarthy to lay out specifics. Nevertheless, they have understood that they have to lay the groundwork with their members now.

After two years of seeking out ways to connect Biden, a 36-year Senate veteran with a keen awareness of the importance of even the smallest of priorities back home for elected officials, to rank-and-file members from both parties, the effort will to some degree track and expand on what officials leaned on in their first two years.

After a landscape forced officials to close the door on the Democrat-only pathway that led to two of Biden’s most consequential legislative wins, those efforts take on a new level of salience.

A House Democrat told CNN that the best option was get absolutely nothing done or find a way to make this work. It can be difficult to separate the inevitable, partisan warfare from the areas we can get things done, but I can see a future for Biden.

Outreach from the White House to the newly elected members is sure to follow the preparation currently under way. The legislative affairs team is charged with coordinating the activities of individual members and committees, according to a senior White House official.

“We’re content to let them shoot at one another at the moment,” a senior administration official said. We have a record and a clear approach to these relationships, driven by the president. That will be reflected in the next Congress.

At a time when Democrats ruled the White House and both houses of Congress, aides said that the role of the House minority leader was a factor. Democrats could move bills through the chamber without Republicans, unlike the Senate, where Biden’s major bipartisan legislative proposals required GOP votes.

Two incoming New York Republicans said they hope to work with the White House on legislation, but have yet to hear from them.

There are times where Long Island members of the House will have to put their vote in favor of things that are going to deliver for Long Island in order to hold onto the majority.

The man who defeated the House Democrats campaign chief said that when there was a small majority, everyone was able to make their own decisions. “The objective should be to make sure that we are working as a conference to pass legislation that the conference can get behind and that has the best chance of passing the Senate and being signed by the White House.”

One House Republican told CNN that they both get the attention of the former president as well as the hard right members of the conference. While I don’t know if they will use it, the absence of our freshman creates real leverage.

Despite a fractured incoming majority, the White House still doesn’t have enough support to lock up the Speakership, there are major limitations on Legislative Efforts Ahead in the House

A senior White House official wouldn’t say if the White House would attempt to strike a bipartisan deal with Republican leadership, or if it would peel off moderate Republicans through the use of discharge petitions.

What can we learn from President Joe Biden in his Christmas speech to the nation? “We are all better than broken chairs, but we are not going to be like enemies”

President Joe Biden attempted to strike a unifying message in a Christmas speech to the nation that came as he moves into the second half of his term in office.

“That’s a million empty chairs, breaking hearts and homes all across the country,” he continued. “Our politics has gotten so angry, so mean, so partisan, and too often we see each other as enemies, not as neighbors, as Democrats or Republicans, not as fellow Americans. We’ve become too divided.”

In an era of isolation brought on by technology and the pandemic, Biden encouraged reaching out to connect. He wished for the “poison” to be drained from politics in favor of bipartisan cooperation. He used the tenets of his Catholic faith to encourage Americans to be more compassionate.

But the president on Thursday struck an optimistic tone about the state of the nation, saying that among tough moments, “We see bright spots all across the country – the strength, the determination, the resilience that has long defined America.”

Covid can no longer control our lives. Our kids are back in school. People are back to work. He said that more people are working. “Americans are reinventing themselves and dreaming again.”

Joe Biden: The U.S. Capitol Hero of the Darkest Period of Our Nation’s History, Every Day After the Capitol Insurrection

He was aware that Christmas can be a time of great pain and terrible loneliness for some, and that it was his experience with the deaths of his first wife and daughter 50 years earlier that made him realize how sad Christmas can be.

“I know how hard this time of year can be … no one can ever know what someone else is going through, what’s really going on in their life, what they’re struggling with, what to try and overcome. That’s why sometimes the smallest act of kindness can mean so much,” Biden remarked.

President Joe Biden on Friday commemorated two years since the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol – a day he’s called “one of the darkest periods of our nation’s history” – seeking to elevate the law enforcement and election officials who held firm against the most serious effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in American history.

More than a dozen individuals, including law enforcement officers who were injured defending the Capitol, as well as Capitol Police officers who died the day after rioters stormed the building, were awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by the president.

More than 140 law enforcement officials suffered physical injuries and untold numbers are suffering from psychological toll of the ceremony as well, he acknowledged.

History will remember your names. They’ll remember your courage. They’ll remember you for your bravery. They’ll remember your extraordinary commitment to your fellow Americans,” the president added.

What do you think it looks like to the rest of the world? Coming out of, you know – the first time we’re really getting through the whole history related to January 6, things are settling out, and now, for the first time in 100 years?… That look is not a good one. This is the United States of America and I hope they get their act together,” Biden told reporters on the South Lawn earlier this week as he departed the White House for a trip to Kentucky.

The Capitol Hill Players of the 2018 January 6 Insurrection: A Private View of Biden’s Past, and What he Means about the 2020 Election

The election denial that led to the January 6 riot was played out by some of the Capitol Hill players. The new majority in the House of Representatives has been frozen by 20 House Republicans who served in Congress on January 6, 2021. Fourteen of those objected to electoral count. Five members of the group are freshmen. All were endorsed by Trump and ran as 2020 election deniers.

After a string of impressive legislative victories, impactful leadership in stiffening allied resolve against Russian aggression in Ukraine and a surprisingly strong showing for Democrats in the midterm elections, Biden has been dogged lately by a classified documents imbroglio that, at the very least, has been a distraction.

The list of honorees bestowed the medal included individuals who testified before Congress about their actions surrounding the 2020 vote certification and insurrection – to a House panel rejected by McCarthy and other Republicans as illegitimate. And despite his steadfast insistence on staying far from the Justice Department’s January 6 investigations and his general reluctance to weigh in on the work of the House committee that investigated the riot, Biden has privately paid very close attention to how things have played out.

The completion of the committee’s work was viewed privately by Biden as a critical step for a country that has appeared to edge away from the precipice in recent months, people familiar with the matter say. The GOP was rebuked in the elections after a strain of election denialism overtook large swaths of the party.

One official explained that as Biden watched the results of the Senate and House, he also made sure to notify aides of the secretary of state contests that were going to be rigged against Democrats in the 2020 election.

Democrats won all of the races, one of which was in Michigan, where a woman was reelected. Benson was one of the officials honored for her efforts to maintain a fair election in 2020.

But Biden gave a window into his view when he was asked about Trump at a news conference after the midterm elections, with the contention that the former president’s political movement remained very strong.

The man who was responsible for the insurrection inside the Capitol, and who Biden holds personally responsible, is still a part of this same group that drives the cold inside the country.

You’ve likely heard that the repeated failed votes for Speaker have not happened in a century. But is this a new level of dysfunction for Congress?

John Farrell is one of the authors that answered that question. He has covered Congress as a journalist and also written biographies of former House Speaker Tip O’Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy.

I think it’s part of a continuing deterioration of order on Capitol Hill that really dates back to the Berlin Wall coming down and the end of the Cold War. There was no reason to stop fighting when we were freed of that common enemy. We remember the golden era that began in World War II, through the 1950s and 1960s, but now it’s gone. And we’re back to where we were in the 1920s, or the 1880s, or the 1850s.

The huge Speaker battles were occurring in the 4 or 5 years before the Civil War, when America was struggling with a lot of economic and regional issues. This could be a sign of things to come because it has been rare in the 20th century and so far in this century.

From Nixon to Gingrich: When politics was meant to be spectacle and when you were the founding fathers of the United States, I know you had a high, low, but you weren’t golden

It may be a new low, but there weren’t any golden days. You had Richard Nixon coming to power as a young congressman because he joined red hunters in the McCarthy era. You had Newt Gingrich in the 1990s convincing the Republicans that they needed to be nastier. Jim Jordan, a regular member, started as a member of the Freedom Caucus as a bomb thrower.

So over time, these guys see that there’s a path in the institution and they become institutionalists. One can always make their name by being the louder member of the group.

I don’t think you should ever underestimate individual careerism. The different wrinkle this time around is that the social media and the cable news atmosphere seems to be providing almost a reward in itself. You go on the cable TV shows, you write on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, and all of a sudden you are, by yourself, popular. You are, by yourself, without having to rely on the Republican Party to get donations. And you’re sort of free of the restraints that somebody even in a Gingrich era, for example, had to feel because the big party donors would call you and say, “Get in line.”

If you are a bar proprietor in Rifle, Colorado, and you have a life of solitude and obscurity, then you should be embarrassed to be known as a national media person by Sean Hannity on Fox News. And you don’t really care if there’s an ideological payback down the line.

I don’t think they tell us a lot. I think they tell us that you can expect more chaos in the short term. But we just came away from a presidency in which the president was impeached twice. So it’s a spectacle, politics was always meant to be a spectacle. Politics in this country is always meant to be mud wrestling game and without a clear preeminence of power. Yes, we fought a revolution against King George. But in the early days, the founding fathers were just as suspicious and worried about the parliament having too much power. It is supposed to be a balance. And balance means that there’s going to be lots of stalemates, and there’s going to be times of chaos.

The senator developed his political skills in the Senate. The other in the brisk and often bare-knuckle House. Both overcame setbacks and doubts to reach the peak of their careers where they are now looking at each other like boxers in a ring, assessing the dynamics of their relationship to help define the next two years.

And, after weeks of both sides attempting to set the conditions for a battle between two diametrically opposed pathways to raising the debt ceiling, expectations for the meeting are low.

“This is the first round of about 20,” one House Democrat told CNN of the months leading up to the June deadline to raise the debt ceiling. Settle in.

Dick Durbin, the Senate majority whip, told CNN that Biden should not negotiate on raising the nation’s borrowing limit because of the fear that a default could wreak havoc on the economy. He reiterated his support for Biden’s position, while leaving the door open for spending cuts during future negotiations.

White House officials are aware that a House GOP proposal would carry significant political value for Democrats and have the potential to divide the Republican conference.

It is unacceptable that the leader of the free world would say he is not going to negotiate. I hope that’s just staff and not him,” McCarthy said. “I think the most responsible thing to do is that we sit down – we’ve got the time period between now and June – and we find places that we could find savings for the American public.”

Biden would not ignore McCarthy’s decision to back Donald Trump after the insurrection at the US Capitol, as White House officials acknowledge his close ties to the former President.

The White House believes that the period of self-destruction was a sign that there should be no negotiation at all. They’re happy to list off the times McCarthy voted to raise or suspend the debt ceiling when a Republican was in the White House as well.

“He’s a man of his word,” Biden said of McConnell at the event. You can depend on him to give you his word and take it to the bank. He is willing to find common ground to get things done.

“But I will be talking to him,” he added, making clear what officials stress: That he will, as is Biden’s way, work with McCarthy where there are areas of common ground.

White House Negotiations in the Age of the War: How the US Debt Limit Becomes More Trouble than It Did Under President Donald Trump

To the extent White House officials experienced a level of schadenfreude in the initial stages of McCarthy’s marathon effort to secure the Republican votes to be speaker, it shifted sharply to a palpable sense of bewilderment by the time McCarthy had suffered through 14 failed votes.

White House officials, though they went to great lengths not to weigh in on the matter, took the opposite view – one that is reflected in their approach to the debt limit where there are clear questions as to whether McCarthy can secure the votes of 218 Republicans for anything at all.

It’s a position that runs headlong into Biden’s refusal to talk about anything but a clean increase – a position White House officials maintain is not a bluff or posturing. They’ve been deeply engaged behind the scenes in preparation for the long battle ahead, keeping a close eye on House GOP legislative proposals both present and past.

The Treasury Department had to take extraordinary measures to keep the government functioning after the US hit its debt ceiling.

The White House has consistently said lifting the ceiling is not up for negotiation. Biden said earlier this month that a US default would be worse than any other in history.

Democrats point out that Republican lawmakers voted to lift the debt ceiling three times under former President Donald Trump — and argue that the health of the economy should not be used as a bargaining chip.

McCarthy wants to see if we can reach a deal before the deadline so we can start working on other things.

Senate Republicans have indicated they will sit back and see how the House GOP maneuvers a way to raise the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit – before deciding if they need to insert themselves into the process.

Republicans face a political risk as they push to cut spending: If they propose cuts to popular government programs and services, they could face a public backlash.

The Second State of the Union (Summary of the Joint White House and Senate Committee on Budget and Axiomology)

While McCarthy had not settled on any individual proposal ahead of the Biden meeting and was unlikely to make a specific offer, he had heard suggestions from key players in his conference.

McCarthy and his allies are working on the initial demands, but steering clear of Medicare and Social Security in order to avoid a backlash from voters.

They added, “President Biden will ask Speaker McCarthy to publicly assure the American people and the rest of the world that the United States will, as always, honor all of its financial obligations.”

The president suggested that McCarthy was entering the talks from a weakened position because of his agreements with the unruly GOP conference.

The House GOP Whip, Tom Emmer, said that there wouldn’t be a deal on Wednesday, but that everything is on the table.

He expected McCarthy to assure the president that there wouldn’t be a default and that spending cuts for Social Security and Medicare wouldn’t be considered.

The State of the Union speech is not a magic elixir or cure-all for political ills. Generally, presidents get a slight bump in polling following the speech, but that fades over time.

The report to Congress is crucial because it almost guarantees that the president will have the largest audience for his message in the entire year.

A chance for President Joe Biden to talk about the Philadelphia Eagles may come from the traditional pre-game interview before the Super Bowl. A president can’t entirely control interviews. People like to watch football, not politicians.

The Buck stops Here: Harry Truman During the Greatest Disaster of the Last Ten-Year U.S. Presider’s Era

Despite eight interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, the economy is in a stronger position than when Biden took office.

The steps he and Congress took during the worst of the Pandemic were important. Major public works improvements across the country are currently being made because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed. The steps he has taken will make health care more accessible for millions of people.

Yet Americans have weathered wrenching loss and jarring dislocations during the pandemic, many of which are still reverberating. The war in Ukraine contributed to rising energy costs and supply chain shortages that resulted in high inflation.

The rest of the world has been rocked by the same forces but, as Harry Truman said, when you’re President of the United States, “the buck stops here.” You can’t jawbone people into feeling better.

What Has Been Done in President Biden’s 82th Birthday? Where We Are Going, How Do We Live, and What Does He Want to Do?

As he reports on how things have been accomplished, Biden should remember that this is not the time for grandiose claims like “Not since Lyndon Johnson!” It’s the biggest since FDR. Don’t leave that stuff to historians.

Mention how you tried to alleviate stress but don’t tell them how great things are. Or worse, how great YOU are. It is not possible to convince people of what they don’t like, and they will lose them.

The presidents want to see such a vision. When you turn 80 and are already the oldest president in history, people don’t connect you with the word “future.”

Biden desperately needs to tell a larger story about where we’re going and how these major initiatives are laying the groundwork for something better if he wants to claim credit for what he has done.

But there is a much larger point: The ongoing struggle in Ukraine underscores his argument for the importance of continued American leadership and global alliances in a dangerous world. His former – and perhaps future — Republican challenger’s “America First” mentality is a disastrous path if it means America alone.

I’m sure the President will speak about gun violence and abortion rights and the crying imperative for more steps to prevent unspeakable horrors such as the savage beating of Tyre Nichols.

On immigration, the president urged his fellow lawmakers to “come together… and make it a bipartisan issue like it was before.” He noted that immigration problems won’t be fixed until Congress acts, despite his administration’s new efforts at the border. The president can only make temporary fixes to our immigration system. It was clear from the speaker’s speech that there were some people in the House who were against building the border. This illustrates the president’s dilemma: Like many Americans, he supports reasonable immigration reform. Republican legislators are focused on generating chaos around the issue.

The future in our country is being addressed by these issues. The popular position of Biden is one reason the Republican House majority is on the losing side.

Biden not only extended an olive branch to Republicans, but also said he was more than willing to fight against the GOP. Time and again, Biden gave as good as he got from a rowdy GOP caucus, maintaining greater control of the room in the face of heckling than Kevin McCarthy has since the 15 rounds it took for him to become House speaker.

Let me tell those of you who are in the new House majority that we all have a choice. We can spend the next two years trying to destroy each other for politics. Or we can try to work together wherever we can to solve problems facing families and communities across our country. I am pretty sure that American people hope we make a choice. I know which choice I’m prepared to make. I hope you’ll join me.”

Although no president enters the State of the Union wanting to recite a laundry list of achievements, the speech often strays in that direction. Biden’s was no different, even as the president sought to tie everything together with a refrain of “finish the job” – a phrase that appeared 12 times in his prepared text.

McCarthy will be faced with an impossible choice: either give Biden a popular accomplishment to run on or give him an appealing issue to run on. It is a win-WIN proposition for Biden.

Benny Biden, the CNN Spotlight on the Problems of Democracy, Politics, and Government: The Case for a Successful Presidency

Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992 and served as a counselor to Clinton in the White House.

But voters are used to politicians making these promises. The things that voters may not have heard in the past, and the things that make clips the next day, are the things that will stand out the most.

Kristen Soltis Anderson, a CNN political commentator, is a Republican strategist and pollster and author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”

Everyone should pay their fair share of taxes, as well as corporations that make record profits while paying zero in taxes, was the basic statement of the entire chamber, even if Biden had pointed out that oil and gas companies pay 15% tax.

He got down the issue of resorts that are not even a resort and airlines that force parents to pay to seat children, when families can finally afford a vacation.

It’s part of the narrative that government is a force for good. Biden took the idea of democracy and made it concrete by showing what good it can do in our lives. Congress is operating in an alternate reality.

But for middle-of-the-road voters, neither the southern border nor inflation received much attention from the President — despite both issues being of importance to voters. Neither did the Chinese spy balloon, whose coast-to-coast journey undermines Biden’s tough talk toward Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The speech, from a man who is not known for his eloquence, was surprisingly effective. Biden was not just confident and humorous; he also made a powerful case for how successful his presidency has been on many fronts.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/08/opinions/highlights-lowlights-biden-sotu-roundup/index.html

Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign: Did she move the needle? A glimpse into the future of the tech sector with Finney’s expertise and expertise

Georgia had a Lieutenant Governor from the year of 2020 onward. He is a former professional baseball player and the author of “GOP 2.0: How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America’s Conservative Party.”

The spectacle of Biden smiling and offering a pointed riposte through multiple rounds of heckling from some House Republicans was, in many ways, an apt illustration of his presidency and a useful preview of his likely 2024 candidacy.

Karen Finney has worked at the intersection of politics, media and cultural change for over 25 years. She has been a communications strategist, political commentator, television and radio show host, leader, and advocate for social justice and civil rights in her career.

He faces a sterner test now: did he actually move the needle? Among presidents of the recent past, a public appearance as powerful as this one could shake up politics. Clinton and Reagan had the capacity to change minds when they held a microphone.

Perhaps Biden, on Tuesday, began getting through to prospective or wavering voters, persuading some — maybe even many — of them to join up for his reelection campaign. If so, Democratic strategists will become much more confident about his prospects for reelection. They may leave the reservation if he does not pick up steam after a night like this.

An Address to the President’s Cornerstone: policing reform in the 21st century, and the urgency for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

David Gergen has been a White House adviser to four presidents of both parties and is a senior political analyst at CNN. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-founded its Center for Public Leadership.

The most moving part of the speech was Joe Biden’s discussion of “the talk” that Black parents give their children about interacting with police officers.

Biden also stressed the urgency for Congress to pass the George Floyd Policing Act after 29-year-old Tyre Nichols was beaten to death last month by Memphis police.

The interracial, intergenerational coalition of voters that got Biden elected needed to hear it. It may seem that a long time ago, America witnessed the largest protest movement in its history following the murder of Floyd, as Black and brown communities bear the brunt of police brutality.

Fast forward to 2023, and even after two years of controlling the executive and legislative branches of government, Democrats were unable to pass a comprehensive police reform bill. Such is the nature of the filibuster and GOP opposition to the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. If Congress doesn’t pass meaningful policing reform, it’s important for Biden to remind key constituencies. 2024 is around the corner, and the voters who backed him last time will want to know this issue is still a priority for the president.

The First State of the Union: What Biden and Filipovic said during a campaign for civil liberation (and how she ended up staying in the US)

Mondaire Jones is a CNN political commentator and former Representative for New York’s 17th Congressional District. He is a member of the US Commission on Civil Rights.

The speech carried a strain of populism rooted in strengthening the middle class – vintage Biden, but delivered at a pivotal moment for his political future.

The trick, though, comes in standing up for what’s right even while speaking to the masses. It was the first State of the Union since the Supreme Court decided that American women do not have a fundamental right to abortion. But abortion didn’t merit a mention until well into the speech — despite the fact that, for women, the right to decide when and whether to have children is as fundamental a concern as outsourced jobs or federal contracts.

And some members of the Republican caucus seemed keen to highlight the distinctions between the thoughtful, unity-emphasizing Biden and their own party’s shameful descent. After the speech, when he introduced the parents of the man who was beaten to death by Memphis police officers, and the Ukrainian ambassador, she stayed seated. That perhaps says more than Biden ever could.

Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” Follow her on the social networking site.

The California Shooting that killed 11: The Story of a Brave American, a Soldier, and a Protector of the Law

As a native of Monterey Park, California, it is still surreal to me that my hometown experienced a mass shooting last month that claimed the lives of 11 people. So it was incredibly moving when the president thanked Brandon Tsay for his heroism disarming the suspected gunman in the attack. It was a poignant reminder of our continuing need for gun reform – as well as deserved recognition of a brave American.

Whether you like it or not, this speech made it clear that Biden is running for a second term. And he seems like he is ready to fight for the American people and for every American’s vote.

The CEO of Turner Conoly Group is a consultant for the women’s health organization. She was an aide to the Biden-Harris campaign while she was senior adviser to Barack Obama.

These goals, the White House is calculating, are ideal for a period when it expects Congress to pass few bills and for House Republicans to focus on investigations of Biden’s family and his administration. The “Unity Agenda” isn’t an outreach to his opponents but a package of uncontroversial proposals that he is daring Republicans to resist.

But it hasn’t done much to unify the country. Recent polls suggest Americans are just as divided as they were before the midterms, and a solid majority expect little more than partisan gridlock from Washington the next two years.

A State of the Union for the 21st Century: Joe Biden and the Rise of the Left as a Wake-Mob

Gest is an associate professor in the school of policy and government at George Mason University. He wrote six books including “Majority Minority” about immigration and demographic change.

A correspondent for CNN and a producer, Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review.

In a scathing rebuke of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it’s time for a new generation of Republican leadership.

For the third year in a row, Biden set the record for the oldest president to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress. No one older has ever served in his presidency.

The left’s radical agenda doesn’t meet the realities Americans face every day, and that’s what Biden and the liberals were fighting for. She stated Biden is “surrender[ing] his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.”

He is disliked by most Republicans, many Democrats don’t like the idea of him running for reelection, and a majority of Americans say that he has not accomplished much.

Biden wanted to address the national mood of downbeat even as the economy improves and the country tries to get back to normal, rather than tout any single accomplishment.

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In a room full of elected officials it is easy to identify an adult. The Republican leaders and Biden team telegraphed a desire to act as an adult in the room to lower the temperature when they heard the speech on Tuesday.

The official said that he got energy from his audience. It’s not a new view on how Biden operates – his advisers constantly talk about how he finds his energy from engaging with people.

When Biden was discussing the debt ceiling and the spending on Social Security and Medicare with most Republicans, he was given a standing ovation, even though he had been heckled.

As Biden prepares to ask voters to keep him in office until he is 86, it was critical he look and sound like someone who is able to keep doing the job.

Even though he stumbled over a few of his prepared lines, his delivery was still energetic. When Republicans interrupted him, he responded quickly, deftly turning their heckles back around into challenges.

Over the weekends at Camp David, aides set up a podium, microphone, lights and a t-shirt in a conference room for Biden to practice his speech with his team. The potential for hecklers was something White House officials had in mind as they prepared for the speech.

The Tuesday speech he gave was a mixture of riffs and lines that are common when he speaks: his views of the middle class, his inherited wisdoms from his father, and his views of inequality.

“So many of you feel like you have been forgotten” he said, appealing to a demographic that used to vote for Democrats but has recently turned to the GOP.

The economic upheaval of the past four decades has left a lot of people behind. Maybe that’s you, watching at home,” he said. “You wonder whether a path even exists anymore for you and your children to get ahead without moving away.”

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Both Biden and McCarthy had hopes that a mature showing would set the stage for the next two years of divided government.

“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this Congress as well,” he said.

The White House believes that his focus on specific issues, such as eliminating junk fees for consumers, and reining in tech companies, will appeal to Americans who don’t pay much attention to Washington.

At moments, his speech seemed tailor-made for a nation of annoyed consumers, down to annoyances about baggage fees on airlines and fine print on hotel bills.

But Biden and his team are acutely aware that simply telling people their lives are improving won’t cut it – they have to actually feel it. Many accomplishments Biden helped pass are still in the implementation phase, making their effect difficult to see right now.

“Make no mistake: As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did,” Biden said in his speech.

Her speech was more boring than the State of the Union because she lacked an audience and she was provoked by the Republicans in Biden’s address. Delivered solemnly from the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, the speech was instead a somewhat dark warning against Democratic policies she deemed “crazy,” a descriptor she used three times.

The appeal for change she made was similar to one that could be made to Democrats and Biden as well as to Republicans.

Reading rapidly through his prepared remarks and occasionally sparring with his congressional adversaries in real time, Mr. Biden — at 80 the oldest president in history — used the biggest platform of his office to frame his argument for an expected re-election bid by portraying Republican policy proposals as out of step with most Americans even as he offered to work across the aisle.

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Absent from the chamber, though, was Marty Walsh, the labor secretary who was chosen to stay away as a designated survivor in case of a catastrophe at the Capitol and is reported to be stepping down soon.

In his speech, Mr. Biden called on Congress to extend a new $35 price cap on insulin for Medicare beneficiaries to all Americans; to make premium savings on Affordable Care Act health plans permanent; to impose a minimum tax on billionaires; and to quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks.

The president was under pressure to make sure his show was perfect for what was likely to be the greatest television audience of the year. If he were to run for re-elected, he would be asking people to give the White House to him until he is 86. Polls show that even many Democrats are concerned about his age and eager to see a younger generation rise to leadership of the party.

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden touted the economic progress and legislative achievements made under his watch, repeatedly saying “Let’s finish the job” – a refrain likely to be heard as his unofficial pitch for reelection.

“There’s so much more to do,” he said, calling on lawmakers to pass policing reform and immigration legislation; codify abortion rights, and cap the price of insulin for all at $35 a month.

The State of the Union address is likely to be Biden’s largest television audience of the year, and he used it in part to draw a contrast with Republicans on a number of issues – including raising the debt ceiling.

“Let’s commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never be questioned, no matter what happens with the debt ceiling,” the president said.

“Folks – as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? He said that they were not to be touched. “We have unanimity!”

What happened to Tyre in Memphis, we’ve done it, we have to do better, and we’re going to keep doing what we can

Biden nodded to the mother and stepfather who were in the chamber, as he said “What happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often, we have to do better.”

He said that they had funded over 20,000 projects, including major airports from Boston to Atlanta. “And folks, we’re just getting started.”

He also reiterated his optimism in finding issues where members of both parties could find common ground, such as supporting veterans, ending cancer, and beating the opioid epidemic.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin strongly criticized the representatives who heckled Biden, saying it was “awful childish,” “distasteful” and adding that it “might be acceptable in a third world country.” Democratic Whip Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois called it “really unbefitting.”

“How did Congress respond to all that debt?” Biden asked. They did the right thing, they lifted the debt ceiling three times.

Republicans stayed quiet while Democrats cheered. Protests erupted again when the president accused Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Biden had to raise his voice over loud boos, saying, “Anybody who doubts it, call my office, I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.” He was likely referring to a proposal from GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, last year’s chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which called for all federal legislation to be renewed every five years.

Staff watching in various offices in the West Wing cheered and high-fived at the moment, especially the way the president leaned into Republicans’ response. When the president returned to the White House, staff gathered in the Diplomatic Room to receive him. As he walked in, they applauded when he talked about how he believes in reasons to be optimistic about the country.

Biden recognized the departing chief of staff. Klain spoke briefly, saying not only was the speech strong on the whole but the president made everyone incredibly proud in the back-and-forth with Republicans over Medicare and Social Security.

Klain called the back-and-forth an “all-time great State of the Union moment that people would look back on for years.” That got a big ovation as well.

Virginia GOP Rep. Bob Good told CNN that he was one of the hecklers who called Biden a “liar,” saying the president deserved it for his comments about Republicans saying they want cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

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“For him to stand there with a straight face, and tell us that he has a solution, when with a stroke of a pen he could have shut down the border … that offends me,” Ogles said, linking overdose deaths to drug trafficking at the US border with Mexico. He didn’t do a damn thing about it.

After Tuesday night’s address, McCarthy wouldn’t comment to CNN when asked about the heckling. The House Majority Leader wouldn’t criticize his members, but he called on the president to stop talking about cutting entitlements.

When South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” In 2009, he was condemned by members of his party after giving a health care speech. He later apologized.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, tore up a copy of then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address when he wrapped up his remarks.