Welcome to a special edition of the beat on State of the Union night.

You heard it here first and you know how it works.

We're looking at the capital where the leaders of all three branches of the federal government

are going to be gathering very soon.

We should note this is the final State of the Union of President Biden's first term.

While organizers knew that they had scheduled it for after this week's Super Tuesday,

they could not be sure that these primaries would be over or what

else will be happening in the country. But the primaries did functionally end

yesterday. Remember that? Lots have been happening as Nicky Haley dropped out of

the Republican race.

So tonight, the President speaks to his largest audience of the year at a time when the election

has now formally become the expected rematch of Biden's victorious campaign over then outgoing

president Donald Trump from last time around. And as that reality sets in for

many, you watch the news, I'm involved in the the news but a lot of people don't follow

this every day but they're hearing this week oh yep we got a rematch yep trumps

cleared the field yep it's gonna be this and that means at this very pivotal moment, Biden will be making the case directly to the

nation that, like it or not, we've seen on both sides, there's not a ton of excitement about the

rematch per se, but it's what's happening. And he's going to try to close what many see as a

gap between the very real signs of a strong economy. I'll have more to say about that in a

moment and some of the perceptions out there which are also understandable as we've covered it.

The president walks the line showing what he's doing and getting done while understanding

and acknowledging a lot of the disruption and pain that we've had over the last several years

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