The President of the United States!

Hey y'all, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

We are here today to talk about President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night.

This was his seventh and also his last.

I'm Sam Sanders, campaign reporter for NPR.

I'm Mara Lias and National Political Correspondent, and I'm Susan Davis and I cover Congress.

Alright, so here is how it all started.

Tonight marks the eighth year that I've come here to report on the State of the Union.

And for this final one, I'm going to try to make it a little shorter.

I know some of you are answering to get back to Iowa.

So that joke kind of set the tone for the whole speech, right?

It was really influenced a lot by this big intense campaign for President that we are

in the midst of right now.

Absolutely.

I think the White House kind of missulled the speech when they said it was going to be

future-oriented, not a laundry list.

It was going to be about big themes.

It was about big themes, but it was mostly a point-by-point rebuttal of what you are

hearing on the presidential campaign from Republicans.

And it was a defense of his approach and his agenda and the way he sees the big problems

of the country as opposed to what you're hearing from them.

So what are those points?

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