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The Playbook Podcast

March 7, 2024: Why tonight’s SOTU speech is *actually* important

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

Government, Daily News, News, Politics

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The importance of State of the Union speeches is vastly overrated. Except this year.When President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress this evening, the vast viewing audience won’t simply by listening to the usual laundry list of accomplishments; they’ll be looking for reliable proof of his stamina and mental acuity, for his narrative frame that justifies his reelection campaign, and for a sense of vision that will provide his presidency with badly needed momentum. How’s the Biden team handling all this? White House Correspondent Adam Cancryn joins Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels to discuss that and what else to look at tonight’s big speech. Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels interviews White House Correspondent Adam Cancryn.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Presented by ExxonMobil

0:02.0

Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels. It is Thursday, March 7th, State of the Union Day, Super Bowl for you nerds. And here's what's driving the day. First, the House passed a six-bill government funding package on Wednesday.

0:21.9

That bill will now head to the Senate with barely time to spare before yet another government

0:27.7

shutdown deadline.

0:29.1

The measure is $459 billion, and they are hoping to lock down an agreement in the upper

0:36.9

chamber to speed up votes.

0:38.4

And that is going to require the consent of all 100 senators.

0:41.9

So we'll have to see how many amendments get voted in exchange, though none of those are expected to actually succeed.

0:48.8

Also, it is now a two-man race toward the general election.

0:53.4

Both the Nikki Haley and Dean Phillips dropped out of the

0:57.4

race. So now it is Joe Biden and Donald Trump, unless something really, really, really weird

1:03.4

and unforeseen happens before November. And like I teased, it is the State of the Union Day.

1:10.4

President Joe Biden will take the stage at 9 p.m. in front of Congress to give his State of the Union. Every year they say it strong or some kind of word like that. Do you know Jerry Ford was the only president to say it was not good, which is always my favorite piece of trivia. And to talk

1:29.9

through all of that is White House reporter Adam Kankran, friend of the pod. Adam, thank you for joining.

1:36.1

It's great to be back. Thanks for having me again. So, you know, tonight President Biden is going to do

1:41.2

something presidents do every year and have done every year for a very

1:44.6

long time. But you've written, I've written, everyone knows. His is a little bit different. But first,

1:51.2

I want to start with kind of the policy. The state of the union is a chance for an administration

1:55.9

to say, these are the things we want to get done. These are the new things that we want to get

2:00.4

done. Are we expecting

2:02.0

anything new from President Biden in this speech tonight? I mean, one of the kind of really

2:08.0

interesting parts about this is this is, you know, a year for State of the Union. So you not only

...

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