The Last Two Years: Predicting the Next Presidential Reionization: When Does The GOP Stop Talking About Abortion and the Election Integrity?
On the economy, the border and crime, the GOP is bombarding Democrats with the charge that excessively liberal policies under Biden have sent the country spiraling in the wrong direction. It’s the latest iteration of the straightforward “time-for-a-change” message that opposition parties have effectively employed throughout American history at moments of widespread public discontent. By Election Day, very few individual Democrats will escape the negative opinion of their party by the public over inflation, predicts Brabender. He thinks the economy is baked into the cake when people vote.
Nonetheless, the midterms make clear that Biden is a much stronger president than he is often given credit for. He was underestimated and criticized even though he had a great first two years. Republicans should be worried about the possibility of a bad earthquake in four years’ time. After two years of speculation about whether Biden should run for a second term, the outcome should also give Democrats reason to believe that a two-term, transformative presidency is already underway.
John Brabender, a consultant who works with the Republican Party, said that voters were incensed about the Supreme Court’s decision and that they wanted people to know what they were doing on abortion. More recently, though, he argues, “they realized they couldn’t afford to get the gas to get there.” That’s shifted the relative priority on the issue for many voters, he maintains: “Is there some intensity on abortion? Sure. But it’s not what it was weeks ago. It is putting some of the Democratic candidates under pressure because they had previously only said that they were in favor of abortion.
Over the past week, there has been a noticeable push and pull between the competing priorities in a flurry of Senate debates in several states. During last week’s televised Arizona encounter, for instance, Republican challenger Blake Masters came out of the gate very strong and kept Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly on the defensive by relentlessly linking him to Biden while the conversation initially focused on inflation and border security. But as the discussion shifted toward abortion and election integrity, Kelly clearly regained the momentum, as Masters struggled to explain his support during the GOP primary for a near total ban on abortion and his embrace of Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in 2020.
In CNN’s polling this summer only 25% of Democratic-aligned voters wanted Biden to be the nominee, but this has rebounded to where it is now. Still, fewer now say that they’d like Biden to be the nominee (40%) than felt that way in January (45%).
The results reflect the fact that our political divisions make it hard for voters to switch loyalties even when they are unhappy with current conditions. Particularly in Senate races, including the contests in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, Republicans have also been hurt by nominating Trump-aligned candidates that many voters view as unqualified, extreme or both.
The latest snapshot of the divergence was offered last week by the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll. Republicans said that immigration and inflation are the most important issues in the next decade. A comparable share of Democrats picked preserving democracy (32%), abortion (21%) and health care (15%). Independents split exactly in half between the priorities of the two parties: inflation and immigration on the one side, and democracy, abortion and health care on the other. Of the voters who had at least a four-year college degree, those without degrees tended to stress inflation more than voters with a college degree. (This survey did not include crime as an option, but it too has usually provoked the most concern from Republicans and non-college educated voters.)
Democrats everywhere are stressing issues of rights and values, particularly abortion, and warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement. Since June, as CNN recently reported, Democratic candidates have spent over $130 million on abortion-themed ads, vastly more than Republicans.
Piece of the Puzzle: Why Biden is a Democrat? What he can do about the economic crisis in the US and how to fight it
In the long run, the most important of these may be the argument that the incentives for domestic production embedded in the trio of central Biden legislative accomplishments – the bills to rebuild infrastructure, promote semiconductor manufacturing and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy – will produce a boom in US employment, particularly in manufacturing jobs that don’t require a college degree.
This year some Democrats are emphasizing the possibilities of plant openings, but mostly they’re still in the future.
With Republicans in control, Biden is free from the hassle of actually passing bills. Instead, as in tonight’s State of the Union Address, he can propose wildly popular programs and challenge Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his band of not-so-merry men and women to pass them — or not. Capping insulin for all Americans at $35 a month, providing free community college, restoring the Child Tax Credit — which lifted almost one in three poor children out of poverty — and raising taxes on corporate stock buybacks: all these Biden initiatives will have enormous appeal across the US and across party lines.
Democrats are attempting to build a sea wall against the swelling currents of economic discontent by Piece by pieceing together these arguments, which include the coming manufacturing boom and the cost-saving provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. There is a chance that the current is too high and will be reported in the final weeks of the campaign.
The GOP has considerable momentum in its bid to win back the House of Representatives while the destiny of the Democratic-run Senate will come down to a handful of knife-edge races. A Republican win in either chamber would cause Biden to be limited to domestic presidency and set up two years of political standoffs before the 2024 White House race.
Either give Biden a popular accomplishment to run on, or give him an appealing issue to run on, is what McCarthy will be faced with. For Biden, it’s a win-win proposition.
Four presidents took to the campaign trail over the weekend in a sign of the critical stakes and the growing angst among Democrats.
Donald Trump will run for President in 2024. He has started to roll out the same kind of anti-establishment vitriol, centered on the war against the world message that he deployed successfully in 2016 against a crowded field of Republican challengers. He comes to the trail with more baggage than the first time, so this may be more difficult for him. He is being investigated by a number of departments, and there is the possibility that the Department of Justice will move forward with criminal charges against him. (Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has diminished the investigations as politically motivated, calling them a “witch hunt.”)
Biden and the American Dream: The Last Days of the Pennsylvania Senate Insurrection Against Paul’s Husband, Nancy Pelosi
Biden, who spent Saturday getting out the vote in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race with Obama, warned that the nation’s core values are in peril from Republicans who denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and following the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
“Democracy is literally on the ballot. This is a defining moment for the nation. All of us need to speak with one voice. There’s no place in America for political violence,” Biden said.
The president will end his campaign to save his job at the Maryland Democratic event. The fact that he will be in a liberal bastion and not trying to boost an endangered lawmaker in a key race on the final night reflects his compromised standing in an election that has reverted to a referendum on his tattered credibility and low approval ratings.
Democrats are playing defense in blue-state strongholds like New York, Washington and Oregon and are waging a longshot struggle to cling to the House of Representatives. A net gain of five seats is needed by the Republicans. The fate of the Senate currently is decided in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Republicans are also showing renewed interest in the race in New Hampshire between Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, a pro-Trump candidate Democrats brand as an election-denying extremist.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party would win both the House and the Senate and accused Biden of being oblivious to the economic anxiety among Americans with his repeated warnings about democracy.
During one of the most heated moments of the night, he warned about Republicans who wanted to cut Medicare and Social Security in exchange for raising the debt limit. Republicans jeers could be heard through the chamber, as they protested the President’s characterization of their position. McCarthy has said those entitlement benefits aren’t on the chopping block, but he has insisted on cuts to future spending in exchange for raising the debt limit.
Biden emphasized both his administration’s pocketbook accomplishments and his agenda for shoring up the middle class. From gas prices to keeping working class jobs in America, Biden sang the song of his (perhaps imagined) base: the White working class man.
Trump will not face-to-face the challenge of his misdemeanoring of DeSantis during the midterms: Evidence from Brooklyn Senator Kathy Hochul
The midterms are the first national vote since the chaos and violence triggered by Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the last presidential election and there are already fears that some Republican candidates may follow his example and try to defy the will of voters if they don’t win. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has raised concerns about the vote.
The headquarters of the pro-Trump nominee in the Arizona gubernatorial contest opened a suspicious letter on Sunday. The incident is “incredibly concerning,” according to Lake’s opponent, the current Arizona Secretary of State.
The Democratic nominee in the Pennsylvania Senate race was the focus of final weekend of campaigning by Biden and Obama as they tried to get him over the line. But Democrats are under fierce pressure in states like Arizona and Nevada that could flip the chamber to the GOP. Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to win the majority.
While DeSantis, for instance, has impressed conservative voters by seizing on hot button culture war issues like immigration, transgender rights, anti-Covid 19 measures and supposed voter fraud, he has not yet come face-to-face with Trump. The Florida governor, who was re-elected last month, has not commented on whether or not he will run against Trump. If he faced a lot of primary debate fights with Trump, he’d be tested on his ability to take a hit, his willingness to counter-attack a former president who continues to benefit from a personality cult and his ability to think on his feet.
But the Florida governor chose not to engage, and instead called his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist a donkey and took credit for defiance of Washington officials and experts during the Pandemic.
As he rallied for Rubio, who is seeking reelection, Trump didn’t repeat his mockery of DeSantis on Sunday but again teased the likelihood of a presidential run. In another sign the next presidential race is getting more interested, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton announced he won’t run in the Republican primary.
Clinton was campaigning for New York Democrat Kathy Hochul in Brooklyn on Saturday. The Empire state should be safe territory for his party but Hochul’s closer-than-expected reelection race against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin underscores the toughness of the national environment for Democrats.
“I know the average election rally is just ‘whoop dee doo do vote for me,’ but your life is on the line. For young people in the audience, your life is on the line,” Clinton said.
This will impact voters’ feelings of the state of the union. Over the past year, rising prices have led to the economy being the central emerged as the central problem facing the Biden administration, with concerns about grocery bills and gas prices fueling anxiety in the electorate and causing turbulence in the stock market. As the Federal Reserve ramped up interest rates, the chances of recession increased. There are many signs that inflation is cooling, which could allow the Fed to pull back and create more pocketbook stability in family budgets. But should inflation continue to dog the economy – or should a recession set in – the administration will certainly struggle at the ballot box in 2024.
In a White House effort to get the bipartisan wins that Biden wants, the lawmakers will be essential, according to officials. They are crucial to the White House efforts of scuttling Republican bills in the House and squeezing House GOP leadership on key issues.
A GOP majority would be used to destroy the president ahead of a possible second fight with Trump in 2024, by packing lots of candidates with his extreme image. And a Republican Senate would frustrate Biden’s hopes of balancing out the judiciary after four years of Trump nominating conservative judges.
The Electoral Dilemma: Why Democrats Are Walloped in the First Four Years of the Senate and Senate Elections: An Analytical Analysis
There is a professor of history at Princeton University who is a CNN political analyst. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including his forthcoming co-edited work, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends About Our Past” (Basic Books). He has a account on the social media site, called “julianzelizer”. The views he expresses in this commentary are of his own. View more opinion on CNN.
But Biden also deserves credit. As Nate Cohn explained on the New York Times podcast “The Daily,” Democratic success came in regions of the country where concerns over the health of the democracy and reproductive rights helped drive turnout. In the closing days, Biden worked hard to emphasize these specific issues, closing the campaign with a high-profile speech about the need to protect democracy even as pollsters were saying that inflation would be the dominant concern.
Democrats did extremely well in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. Many of the election deniers running for secretary of state or governor lost. Even in states where Democrats were walloped, such as in New York, there were bright spots, including Gov. Kathy Hochul’s victory over the Trump-endorsed Republican Lee Zeldin.
The outcome was a surprise to both parties. In the first season of an administration, the party of the president has typically lost 26 seats in the House and four in the Senate. Under former President Donald Trump, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House in 2018. Democrats lost 63 in the House in 2010 and 52 in 1994.
Yet the red wave so many anticipated didn’t happen. Votes are still being counted in key states and districts, but even if Republicans end up with control of one or both chambers, their majority will be extremely narrow. It’s safe to say Democrats will not face the “shellacking” they experienced in 2010.
Reheating after the 2018 Midterms: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — Donald Trump’s Legacy Revisited
For Mr. Biden, the speech was a moment to demonstrate to his supporters that he still has the political skills to lead them to victory in 2024 even as polls show a large majority of Democrats want someone from a new generation (he would be 86 at the end of a second term). After a few stumbles at the beginning, the president turned energetic and combative, and even showed flashes of humor and effective off-the-cuff retorts to Republican hecklers in a setting not known for improvisation.
The 2020 elections came before the 2022 midterms. Republicans will likely win control of at least one chamber of Congress, but they will be frustrated if they don’t. By inserting himself into the race and endorsing a slate of candidates, Trump managed to make the midterms partly a mandate about him rather than the sitting president. Dr. Mehmet Oz was one of the hand-selected candidates that lost.
Trump isn’t anywhere close to done. He can use his fire and fury in service of his candidacy very effectively. He still commands intense support within the party and retains a keen sense of operating in the modern media environment. Meanwhile, DeSantis comes out of this week looking a bit like George W. Bush in 1998, when he won his gubernatorial reelection bid in a landslide two years before securing the presidency in 2000. Given his ability to appeal to the core of the Republican Party and potentially expand into new constituencies such as Latinos, he could pose a serious threat to Democrats in his ability to pull off a more polished version of Trumpism.
Do you think that Donald Trump will run the country again? An Empirical Analysis of Democrat Doubts from a Close Look at Biden
But “watch me” alone isn’t going to assuage voters’ doubts, which primarily center on Biden’s age. Two-thirds of voters don’t think that Biden should run again after watching him for two years. There is that.
Biden will turn 80 in nine days’ time and will be 82 years old shortly after the 2024 election. That would make him 86 years old at the end of a hypothetical second term. By comparison, Ronald Reagan was 77 years old when he left office in 1989.
But Republicans have zeroed in on Biden’s regular verbal gaffes to make the case that he isn’t up to the task of running the country. That drumbeat will only grow louder if and when he decides to run for another term.
There’s little appetite for a 2020 rematch in the coming presidential election, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, as majorities of registered voters within each party say they’d rather see someone new nominated in 2024.
Trump was regularly winning big primaries in 2016 with between 30% and 40% of the vote in a large field. In the CNN poll, 38% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they want Trump as the nominee again. (And even two-thirds of those said they’d prefer someone else said they’d definitely or probably back him in the general election if he were the nominee.)
Older Republican-aligned voters, as well as White voters with college degrees, had the strongest drops in support for a Trump candidacy.
About half of Republican-aligned voters (52%) say that Trump has had a good effect on the Republican Party, down from 69% who felt that way in March 2021. 32% of people think he has had a bad effect, and 12% think he hasn’t made a difference.
This CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS on December 1 through 7 among a random national sample of 1,208 adults drawn from a probability-based panel. The surveys were either done online or over the phone. The full sample has a margin of sampling error greater than 3.6 points.
The Early Game in the 2020 Midterm Election: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and the Anti-Semitism of the Trump Era
Voters who voted for President Joe Biden and ex-president Donald Trump are wishing for a break from the past, even as they wait for a repeat of the White House race.
It is early. And the 2022 midterms offer a still fresh reminder that in a volatile, partisan age shadowed by crises at home and abroad, logic, history, polls and pre-race predictions months ahead of time often don’t count for much.
The race is on regardless of whether voters approve or disapprove. The decision of donors and potential rivals in the early money chase is dependent on the perception of the contender’s strengths. Even though Donald Trump has already been declared as a candidate, he might need to use a re-launch since Biden is giving every sign that he will be in the race early in the new year.
Republican politics may, or may not, be at a moment of transition. How things shake out in the next few months will be critical to Trump’s prospects. Republicans are shifting their focus after many of the ex-presidents hand-picked candidates failed to win in the mid-terms.
The arguments that Trump’s general election viability is damaged beyond repair were strengthened by Trump’s dinner with extremists with a record of antisemitism. It looks like the campaign was meant to make it simpler for him to portray the criminal probes into his conduct as persecution.
White House Campaigns With the Greene Democrat Caucus: Prognosticating a Newly-Nominated Ex-President
With Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia emerging as a significant voice in the House Republican caucus, anything goes in 2023. But Democrats who lived through the partisan wars of the 1990s will remember how Republicans ultimately helped bolster embattled former President Bill Clinton’s standing, as his approval ratings skyrocketed. That’s because Americans felt that the House GOP, under the direction of Speaker Newt Gingrich, was too radical and extreme to govern. The current House Republican caucus makes the Gingrich era GOP leaders look like statesmen.
Another campaign will test whether there’s been any erosion in Trump’s base. But even if his mythical connection to those voters might not be enough to win him the presidency, it could still carry him to his third straight nomination. It seems like Republican lawmakers are under the influence of the ex president’s supporters at home because they refuse to repudiate Trump over his recent comments about the Constitution. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House, has found a way to not condemn Trump’s associations with extremists in order to win the speaker’s gavel.
GOP hopefuls will see that 38% – the lowest point of three CNN polls on the topic this year – as an opening for an anti-Trump candidate. There could be a field that splinters the opposition to the ex-president.
The president was expected to have his largest television audience of the year when he hosted a program in front of it. If he runs again, he will be asking voters to give his White House to him until he is 86. According to polls, many Democrats are concerned about his age and wish to see a younger generation become the party leader.
While the White House strategy and some of it targets are coming into view, officials are still determining the exact steps they will take to get there, and they are waiting to see what will happen in the House next year.
Officials acknowledged the sweeping legislative wins of President Joe Biden’s first two years, several of which were clinched with bipartisan support and significant work with a small number of Senate Republicans, will be near impossible to replicate given the control and ideological makeup of the Republican-led House.
High-stakes standoffs will be the hallmark of a functioning government. Spending battles will shift from arduous tight-rope walks to outright warfare. And the looming debt ceiling deadline next year and the potential for catastrophic debt default drew enough concern from White House officials that they weighed a push to address it in the current Congress to take it off the table entirely.
Getting Things Done: Biden’s Way to the White House on the Trail of a Nation Wide Shut: How Republicans Can Make the Most Out of Washington
“When you have Republicans representing Biden districts heading into a presidential election cycle, there’s no question it adds a different element in terms of their approach – and ours,” a senior administration official said.
Officials said that the preparations for the months ahead were still in the early 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.
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 uncertainty of McCarthy’s path to the speakership has created another reason for House Republicans to remain cautious with regards to engaging.
A senior White said that behind the scenes the White House legislative affairs team has begun deep dives on newly elected Republican lawmakers to better understand their district and issues at the heart of their winning campaigns. Lawmakers can be better understood by the White House as they look for areas of potential compromise.
The effort to connect Biden, a 36-year Senate veteran with a keen awareness of the importance of the smallest priorities back home for elected officials, to rank-and-file members from both parties, will to some degree track after two years of searching.
But as officials confront a landscape that has closed the door on the Democrat-only legislative pathway that led to two of Biden’s most consequential legislative wins – the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and his cornerstone $700 billion economic and climate law – those efforts take on a new level of salience.
“The option is get absolutely nothing done or find a way to make this work,” a House Democrat told CNN. “Separating the inevitable, and at times likely insane, partisan warfare from the areas we can get stuff done isn’t easy, but I can’t see two years of nothing appealing to someone like (Biden.)”
The preparation being done for the election of the new members will be followed by outreach from the White House. Each member of the White House’s legislative affairs team is charged with liaising with a list of individual members and at least one committee, a senior White House official said.
The senior administration official said they were content to let them shoot at each other. The president makes it very clear how we approach the importance of these relationships. It will be reflected in the next Congress.
Democrats are already eyeing those incoming lawmakers – four of whom represent districts in New York – as top targets for Democrats’ efforts to retake the House in 2024 and White House officials expect they will be under more pressure than other Republicans to reach bipartisan deals they can take back to their districts.
A couple of New York Republicans are interested in working with the White House to pass legislation, though they have yet to hear from the White House.
We have been a part of the majority in New York. “And to be honest, if we want to maintain that majority, if we want to keep the seats that we flipped, then we have no choice but then to work in a bipartisan fashion to deliver.”
“When you have a small majority, everybody is empowered to a degree,” said Lawler, who defeated House Democrats’ campaign chief in suburban New York. The objective should be to make sure we are working together as a conference to get the legislation passed and signed by the White House.
“I get the Trump focus and I get the Freedom Caucus focus,” one House Republican told CNN of the former president and the hard right group of House Republicans who hold significant sway inside the conference. We go nowhere without our freshman, and that creates very real leverage.
The speaker of the House has the final say on what legislation goes to a vote in the chamber. During times of crisis or need to pass legislation, the approach of the recent House GOP leaders was often to scrap the idea of a majority of the majority being in support of the measure.
A senior White House official declined to say whether the White House would focus on trying to strike bipartisan agreements with Republican leadership or try and peel off moderate Republicans through the use of discharge petitions, calling those decisions premature.
These days, even off-cycle years in American politics can be quite significant in shaping the future of the country. There are 10 major political questions that will determine what comes next in Washington, DC and beyond.
Even if the President makes a decision about Biden, he might have to contend with a challenge from within his own party. Should Biden decide to run, the odds of any major Democrat taking that step are low. There have been a number of high-profile Democrats in the race, including Michigan Gov., and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. A primary run by a formidable candidate could cause the kind of problems that then-President Jimmy Carter faced when Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts took him on in 1980, dividing the party and creating opportunities for the GOP.
It’s also possible that having control of the lower chamber could turn into a mixed blessing for the Democrats. Democrats may be able to show that their opponents can’t handle responsibilities of power by investigating people such as Hunter Biden, who could possibly be involved in impeaching the president.
In the 2022 midterms, it became clear that the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade played a huge role in the success of Democrats. Many Democratic voters were energized to elect officials who would support the right of women to determine their own reproductive decisions. There are many big decisions that SCOTUS is currently deliberating, including how it will rule on a radical legal doctrine of “independent state legislative theory” – which would hand state legislative bodies power to overturn the results of an election – and a case involving Harvard University that could undercut affirmative action. These and other decisions can have a big impact on the election process and the motivation of voters from both parties.
The United States has already been impacted by the Russian war against Ukraine. Russia lost its oil supplies and this has been a significant cost of inflation. In the US there are disagreements over how much support to give to Ukraine while the Department of Defense is watching Russia to see if it will try to attack a NATO country. And there may be more than Ukraine to consider. In international policy, we never know what is around the corner. A major crisis can flare up at any time to fundamentally reshape our national conversation.
The pandemic showed how public health crises can upend politics within the span of a few days. Covid-19 forced new issues to the top of the agenda, defining the litmus test by which our elected officials would be measured. The recent impact of Covid-19 has largely been stopped as a result of the successful vaccine program. And as we now see with the triple combination of Covid-19, the flu and RSV, we will not be out of the danger zone for a while. There is always the possibility of challenges being created by a new Pandemic.
In the GOP, election denialism remains a strength despite the results of the election being a blow to election deniers. And in certain states, there are individuals still ready to challenge results that don’t go their way. Red states insist on certain voting restrictions. The January 6 committee report exposed just how vulnerable our democracy remains. Even with the passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, there are many ways in which anti-democratic forces can exert influence in 2024. The results will be influenced by how the democratic system can resist these attacks.
Joe Biden and the State of the Union: The Real Story that Comes with a Heavy-Light, Long-Term Correspondence
There are always surprising questions that await us. A good list of what is to come should include all the things that aren’t even being imagined right now. Few predictive pieces in December 2019, after all, would have included a global pandemic.
We can know that there will be a political roller coaster, with terms that help determine who will be the next president of the United States.
President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech was the most Joe Biden that voters have seen from Joe Biden since the election — good for most Americans, but somewhat disappointing for abortion rights activists and other progressives.
Paul Begala served as a counselor to Clinton in the White House after being a political consultant for his 1992 presidential campaign.
Here’s the reality about the State of the Union these days: Most Americans are not watching. The speeches say some things that people have heard before. More taxes on the richest Americans, the importance of infrastructure, raising teacher pay, lowing health care costs — all stances that poll relatively well.
Anderson is a CNN political commentator and author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”
A statement as basic as everyone should pay their fair share of taxes and it’s wrong for corporations to make record profits while paying zero in taxes was met with stone-faced looks from half the chamber.
Joe Biden: Where Did We Go? How Did He Get His Elector’s Attention? What Did He Tell Us About His Day at the Supercongress?
Meanwhile, the interracial, intergenerational coalition of voters that got Biden elected needed to hear it. The murder of Floyd in 2020 caused the largest protest movement in American history, and it can seem that a long time has passed since.
He explained that when families feel pinched in the pocketbook, we get hit with resort fees at places that aren’t even a resort, and airlines force parents to pay to sit with their children.
It is part of Bidens narrative about the government being a force for good. Biden took the idea of democracy, the possibility of what good it can do in our lives and made it concrete again. Too bad this current Congress is operating in an alternate reality.
Neither the southern border nor inflation received the attention of the President that they were important to voters. Neither did the Chinese spy balloon, whose coast-to-coast journey undermines Biden’s tough talk toward Chinese President Xi Jinping.
It’s hard to think how Joe Biden could have delivered a better performance than he did tonight. He was very feisty, had lots of energy, and used humor to get the Republican’s attention. By the end of the evening, he looked like a boxer who can’t wait to get into the ring again.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/08/opinions/highlights-lowlights-biden-sotu-roundup/index.html
Geoff Duncan, a Political Contributor, Returned the Screw: How Biden Moved the Mice in Georgia’s 2020 Election
Geoff Duncan, a CNN political contributor, served as Georgia’s Lieutenant Governor from 2019-2023. 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.”
Biden tried to make a bigger point in the speech that he had made in his first two years in office.
Karen Finney has worked at the intersection of politics, media and cultural change for over 25 years. Her career includes roles as top Democratic communications strategist and spokesperson, political commentator, television and radio show host, White House staffer, business and communications adviser, leader and advocate for social justice and civil rights.
He now faces a sterner test, which is whether he actually moved the needle. Among presidents of the recent past, a public appearance as powerful as this one could shake up politics. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan were able to change their 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 doesn’t pick it up after a night like this.
The First State of the Union: Defending the Right During a Democratic Causal Debate on the First Amendment Rights to Women’s Rights
A senior political analyst at CNN, David Gergen is an adviser to four presidents of the other party. 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.
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.
Mondaire Jones is a CNN political commentator and former Representative for New York’s 17th Congressional District. He also serves as a member of the US Commission on Civil Rights.
The trick, though, comes in standing up for what’s right even while speaking to the masses. This was the first State of the Union since the Supreme Court stripped a fundamental right from American women in overturning Roe v. Wade. 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. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, among others, repeatedly booed and yelled throughout the speech; when he introduced the parents of Tyre Nichols, who was last month fatally beaten by Memphis police officers, and the Ukrainian ambassador, she stayed seated. Maybe more than Biden could.
Wanna Be Afraid of the News? – Jill Filipovic, the Founder and First Lady of the Black Hole Shooting
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.” Her bio says she can be followed on http://twitter.com/JillFilip.
It is still hard for me to believe that my hometown was the site of a mass shooting last month that killed 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.
McCarthy, who took 15 rounds to win his speakership because of far-right rejection and his small majority, could be seen shushing his conference at least three times. It’s the look Democrats wanted to show off for what will be the largest TV audience the president will speak to this year ahead of his expected reelection announcement.
His banter called for Republicans to make it clear where they stood on important issues like the debt ceiling or support for Medicaid and Social Security. Biden’s claim that some Republicans were prepared to allow the US to default on its debt was met with a backlash from members of the Republican caucus present. And he swiftly framed that raucous response as a consensus that wouldn’t be the case; in other words, any backtracking they do on the issue is now easily labeled as bad faith flip-flopping.
The State of the Union: Joe Biden’s Failure to Stand up for a New Generation of American Government and the Rise and Fall of the United States
Turner Conoly Group is headed by the head of the organization and a consultant for the action fund. She was an aide to the Biden-Harris campaign as well as a senior adviser to Obama.
This is consistent with the way the President has understood “the way of unity” the last two years. A creature of the Senate, Biden’s approach has focused on passing popular legislation most Americans will understand and appreciate, while drawing attention — and political energy — away from the divisive identity politics and culture wars that fueled the rise of Donald Trump.
But it has not done much to unify the country. Recent polls suggest Americans are still divided just as they were before the midterms, and a solid majority expect little more than partisan stalemate in Washington over the next two years.
Gest is a professor in George Mason University’s School of Policy and Government. He wrote “Majority Minority”, his sixth book on demographic change and the politics of immigration.
Former CNN producer and correspondent Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a columnist for World Politics Review and she is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN.
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.
Ms. Sanders directly went after him over his age. The governor at 40 is the youngest in the country. She said that he was the oldest president in American history. It is time for a new generation of Republican leadership, but she didn’t mention that her former boss, Donald Trump, should be nominated for a third time.
Biden has tried to walk it, but it’s a tough line. Republicans — like Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who delivered the GOP response — accuse Biden of being taken over by a “woke mob.”
Like it or not, Sanders spoke for many Republicans who believe that despite Biden’s claim that the State of the Union is great, his failure to “defend our border, defend our skies and defend our people,” puts the State of our Union in peril.
The State of the Union Address to the United States President, Marty Biden, in memory of his Capitol Survivor Marty Walsh, and whose inauguration he attended
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.
Mr. Biden called on Congress to increase the excise tax on cigarettes, to extend a $35 price cap for Medicare patients, to impose a minimum tax on billionaires and to triple the tax on corporate stock purchases.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden said that “Let’s finish the job”, a line he will likely use during his reelection campaign.
He called on lawmakers to pass immigration legislation, codify abortion rights and cap the price ofinsulin for all at $35 per month, if they wanted to do more.
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.
“We will never be questioned about our credit or our full faith and credit of the United States of America,” the president said.
“So, folks, as we all apparently agree, social security and Medicare is off the books now,” Biden said, after a feisty exchange with some Republicans in the audience. “We got unanimity” he said with glee.
“What happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often, we have to do better” Biden said, nodding to Tyre’s mother and stepfather, who were in the chamber as special guests.
He pointed out that he helped produce a historic number of legislation including 300 bipartisan laws related to issues such as improving infrastructure, boosting domestic Semiconductor manufacturing, and improving veterans benefits.
He said that they’ve funded 20,000 projects, including major airports from Boston to Atlanta to Portland. “And folks, we’re just getting started.”
The Rise and Fall of the Underdog Manifesto: The Case of Kevin Biden and the End of Medicare and Social Security in the House of Representatives
He was optimistic that both parties could find common ground on issues, such as supporting veterans and ending cancer, which were issues that both parties could agree on.
“To my Republican friends, there is no reason that we can’t work together in the Congress as well as in the last one, if we can get agreement,” Biden said.
And he showed a clear contrast between himself and right-wing House Republicans, who couldn’t help themselves, hectoring Biden repeatedly despite newly minted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy explicitly instructing them beforehand not to do so.
The president did not call for much new policies from the new Congress, including an end to junk fees on travel, entertainment and credit cards. It showed he’s gearing up for campaign mode and that he’s likely going to campaign on what he’s already done by drawing a big-picture distinction between his vision for America and Republicans’.
Some of what is likely to make Democrats comfortable is the pluck he showed — the willingness and ability to spar with Republicans and depict them not as normal, but extreme.
The best example was Medicare and Social Security. He deftly riled up House Republicans, accusing some of wanting to cut the popular entitlements. He noted that some Republicans would like to end Medicare and Social Security every five years.
Sen. Rick Scott, the National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman, opened the door to his “Rescue America Plan.” Even though McCarthy stated that cuts to Medicare and Social Security were not on the table, Democrats have still run with it. The House Republicans saw Biden’s accusation as false and too far.
The exchange took the lid off any comity that existed earlier in the evening. The Republicans shouted and heckled at each other, with some yelling “It’s your fault!” and others calling Biden a liar. When he decried the deaths of Fentanyl.
Americans love an underdog story, especially when mixed with a dose of nationalism. The hot ticket in politics right now is right- and left-wing populism. Both Biden and former President Donald Trump have populism at their core — the little guy vs. the people in power. They are modern day Howard Beales and they will not accept it anymore.
Biden went after wealthy tax cheat, Big pharma, oil and gas company profits, and billionaires.
It was a heavy dose of left-wing populism with policies that are actually quite popular. He even made news, saying that he is going to “require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America.”
The Biden Message on Social Security: Why America Needs to Make Sense of Its Threats, Why We Shouldn’t Let It Happen: What Do We Need to Do About It?
Biden won’t make an apology for investing to make America strong. China’s government is intent on dominating and there is a need to invest in American innovation.
There wasn’t much more than the 200 words of the speech devoted to what’s become one of America’s top geopolitical threats.
Biden spoke of the U.S. helping the country over the past 12 months with its war with Russia.
There wasn’t much to see in either country beyond that. It’s clear that Biden’s reelection campaign will be focused on domestic issues.
“After years of Democrat attacks on law enforcement and calls to ‘Defund the Police,’ violent criminals roam free, while law-abiding families live in fear,” she said.
Biden spoke to the group of union workers at the LiUNA training facility in Deforest, Wisconsin, about his economic message and highlighted the legislative accomplishments of his time in office.
Biden made clear that he was willing to continue the fight as he hit the road, reigniting the social safety net argument with Republicans that sparked one of the most memorable moments in Tuesday’s speech. The argument highlighted Biden’s attempts to shift his message away from the “extreme MAGA” and “mega-MAGA” talking points of the 2022 midterm election.
“There’s a senator named Mike Lee who was also yelling, ‘Liar, liar, house on fire’ kind of stuff last night. … They played last night, something I didn’t even know existed, a video of him saying, ‘I’m here right now to tell you one thing you’ve probably never heard from a politician: It’ll be my objective to phase out Social Security,’” he said.
MAMA Rep. A.C. Biden During an e-mail address to the House of Representatives: What do you think about the “MAGA Republicans”?
PBS NewsHour correspondent Judy Woodruff asked Biden if he expected the kind of reaction he got when he spoke in the House.
“From the folks that did it, I was,” Biden said. The vast majority of Republicans were not like that, but there is still a huge part of them called the “MAGA Republicans”.
During his speech, he expressed skepticism regarding last night’s conversion of some Republicans. I’ll believe it when I see it when their budget’s laid down with the cuts they’re proposing. We are close to a deal on the House of Representatives floor.
“People sent us a clear message: Fighting for the sake of fighting gets us nowhere. He drew arguments against his Republican colleagues when he said that things were getting done.
And he again called on Congress to raise the nation’s debt limit during his earlier remarks, warning against the “chaos” he said Republicans are “suggesting.”
Biden also fired back at a television commentator he heard aboard Air Force One lamenting his focus on junk fees: “Junk fees may not matter to the wealthy people, but they matter of most folks like the home I grew up in. They add hundreds of dollars a month to make it more difficult to pay your bill or afford a family trip. I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and think they can get away with it.”
What are the House Republicans saying about the biden administration? The Times’ Analytical Analysis of Tuesday’s Speech by Dr. Biden
Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Mr. Biden and one of his top communications advisers, said the scrimmage between the president and House Republicans on Tuesday night should provide Americans with a more visceral understanding of what the president has been talking about.
“Clearly, having the House Republican caucus behaving the way they are, and are signaling strongly they will continue to behave, is going to give the president an easy contrast,” she said. The House Republicans are giving him a way to draw a contrast between who he is trying to get done and who he’s trying to get it done for.
How Times reporters cover politics. Our journalists are independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
But Republicans so far have not said how they propose to reduce spending by a large enough amount to achieve their debt reduction goals. The idea of making all laws permanent unless Congress approves them has been proposed by several Republicans.