Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Wednesday, February 8th. I'm Nyla Boudou.

Today, LeBron James makes sports history. But first, a spirited intense state of the union address.

That's today's one big thing.

We've been sent here to finish the job in my view. We've got to finish the job.

Let's finish the job.

That was President Biden in his state of the union address last night with a repeated message.

Axios' Margaret Taliv and Mike Allen are here with their analysis and takeaways. Mike, Margaret, hello.

Thanks, Nyla. Hello, Nyla.

Margaret, let's start with what your biggest impression was coming away from this speech.

Joe Biden ate his weedies. Joe Biden is preparing to announce a reelection bid.

Some time in the coming weeks or months, the state of the union was important because it's going to be seen as a barometer of how much fight does he have in him?

Does he have the energy and the strength, all those sort of cues that are hard to quantify, but that people watching in his own party and in the general public are going to be looking for.

And he was succinct, energetic, optimistic, but gave back as good as he got.

He started out with that olive branch. Congratulations to Kevin McCarthy.

I don't want to ruin your reputation, but I look forward to working with you.

But within minutes, as soon as Republicans were, you know, booing and heckling and jaring him over social security stuff, all of a sudden he was in the fight that he wanted to have for Joe Biden, who is not the world's greatest order.

It was a very strong speech.

Members of the GOP were very vocal at moments. Let's hear one of those.

Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security sunset. I'm not saying it's a majority.

What did you make of these interactions, especially the repeated shouting from different GOP members during the state of the union?

I think that his people are going to like the fact that this showed him in the moment.

So you have him shouting about, check it out.

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