Are we too divided for unity?
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The Washington Post
4.1 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2021
⏱️ 40 minutes
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Summary
President Biden pledged to unify the country, and to do it amid tense racial and cultural division. How far has Biden come on that promise? Will he move toward more aggressively tackling social issues in year 2?
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| 0:00.0 | Give a helping hand this holiday season with the Washington Post helping hand. |
| 0:04.6 | This is John Kelly and I'm writing about Bread for the City, Friendship Place, and Miriam's Kitchen over the next few weeks. |
| 0:11.1 | Go to posthelpinghand.com to learn more and donate today. |
| 0:15.1 | Hi, it's Allison and we're back this week with the second chat in our series of year-end conversations about 2021 and the world of politics. |
| 0:24.3 | And for this series, we've been bringing you the voices of some of the post's best political reporters. And this week we're doing that again. |
| 0:31.3 | Today's chat will be led by the great Cleve Watson Washington Post White House reporter. Hi, Cleve. How are you today? |
| 0:38.3 | I'm doing okay. I'm apparently the only one on this call who's not wearing pajamas. So that's nice. Although I'm wearing a tie, a sport coat, and pajama bottoms, which is probably wording out everybody at home or in the newsroom. |
| 0:53.3 | But I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I'm comfortable. That's great. Well, from what I can see, the top half of you looks excellent, very, very professional. Only half that matters. |
| 1:02.3 | All right, Cleve. Well, I will hand this off to you and the other reporters joining you today. |
| 1:07.3 | We're here with Philip Bump, the National Correspondent for the Washington Post, and with Eugene Scott, a National Political Reporter for the Post. |
| 1:16.3 | I see your room Raider set up on the zoom. Where are you reporting from? This actually isn't my room Raider. My room Raider is slightly adjusted to the side. |
| 1:23.3 | So you can see the big scoreboard I have behind me in my office. I'm in my office at my, at my house. It's almost certain that I will have a child or dog interrupt at some point. |
| 1:31.3 | So I will beg your forgiveness before and for that. Yeah, we call those Easter eggs. Do you have a room Raider score, by the way? I'm proud to say I have a 10 out of 10 from room Raider, mostly because of the scoreboard. Yeah. |
| 1:42.3 | Oh, fancy, fancy Eugene, where are you? I won't, I won't ask about your room Raider score unless you want to divulge. |
| 1:49.3 | So, fun fact, I actually have two room Raider scores. I have a 10 out of 10 like Philip, which is actually not where I am, but actually in a corner in my, in the room, my living room. |
| 2:02.3 | And then I have a nine out of a 10 at my partner's house. And so we are going to have to fix that. And I'm currently in my living room in downtown DC. |
| 2:12.3 | What was the nine for? What did you lose points for? Is this too tragic to talk about? It might be. No, no, it's worth worth sharing. |
| 2:19.3 | And for anyone out there who wants some tips, so both locations, I just have artwork in the background. And I think my artwork is far more interesting than his. And that's why I got one point higher. I mean, I just think that's just the truth. |
| 2:33.3 | So we'll, we'll probably losing partner points as we speak. It's more important. We do. We'll goodbye the post on our partners. That's for sure. Yes. |
| 2:42.3 | Exactly. All right. Well, I won't say any more relationship ending stuff. I will talk about Biden's first year of his presidency. I think that we can all agree that when Biden came in, the emphasis was on fixing the pandemic, mitigating the pandemic, getting us past this. |
| 3:00.3 | I feel I sort of want to direct this to you, even though I know reporters hate prognosticating and having a crystal ball and all of that stuff. But what do you think and Eugene, you can jump into but, but Phil, what do you, what do you think needs to be the focus next or what do you think Biden is gearing up to tackle after this tumultuous year? |
| 3:21.3 | Yeah, I mean, I think it's been sort of fascinating to watch. Obviously, you ran very heavily on the pandemic for obvious reasons, but it's been sort of fascinating to watch the ways in which he has not embraced a response to the pandemic that one might have assumed. |
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