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- Welcome to POD Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. - I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We just watched the State of the Union Dan. It's late. It's it's 845 Pacific time I don't know how people in the East Coast do this I mean we used to do it. I know like we were a lot younger. We we are fortunate to have

House press secretary, uh, Corrine Jean-Pierre. She'll be joining us a little bit later, but first, Joe Biden just give a, uh, humdinger of a state of the union, Dan. He really enjoyed himself. I think he likes doing this. He likes giving the state of the union. That was the, that was my first impression. He was energetic. He was forceful. He picked a lot of fights. Dan, if a Biden skeptical friend who didn't watch the speech asked you about the What would you say? - Watch the speech. I mean, that's sort of the point, right? is all. All of the concerns we hear about the president's age, his fitness, his job, all of that are offered by people who mostly. Have not seen him give a speech in three years. What you see of Joe Biden is what you hear about an 80-year-old man and the sort of self-fulfilling prophecy of people saying they're concerned about his age, so more people are concerned about his age.

Watch the speech. I think you people, anyone who watches speech would feel very good about his ability to do the job. He certainly wildly surpassed the expectation. A lot of people very concerned about his ability to do the job. He widely surpassed the very low bar of expectations set by the right-wing media and Donald Trump and the Republicans. And I also think there's a lot in this speech for people who are concerned about costs, the border, just whether the president's gonna fight for that. So I like this is one of those things you would do where you would take clips from this speech. You would show that if they would watch the whole speech, God bless them. It must be a really good friend, but if not, there's a lot of really important moments we're going to talk about some that we should show people. It was a little delayed. I was getting a little nervous there. - Where did you think he was? - I don't know, but we were just waiting and waiting. I was like, let's start this thing. Maybe the most surprising thing about the speech, I thought.

It was the first State of the Union I've ever heard where he directly went after the guy he's running against. Now of course, nothing is normal about this situation. We have two former presidents. Who served in two consecutive terms, who are now running against each other. You know, Donald Trump's gonna run again. This is the third time he's running for president. And so he looms over the entire night, particularly because he is basically the boss of the Republicans in Congress right now. But Joe Biden, over and over again, I thought it was gonna be like oblique references. He just called out. His predecessor, he called it my predecessor, many times in the speech, let's listen. - My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th. I will not do that. Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom. My God.

What freedom else would you take away? Over 100 million of you can no longer be denied health insurance because of freezing condition. My predecessor and many in this chamber want to take this red prescription drug away by repealing the Affordable Care Act. He did nothing on guns when he was president. After another shooting in Iowa recently, he said -- when asked what to do about it, he said, Just get over it. There's his quote. Just get over it. I say stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. So what did you think about that? I was surprised. Were you surprised?

I was impressed that they got that through the lawyers. I mean, we know when Obama gave the 2012 State of the Union, heading into that campaign, you wrote that speech. We did not yet know Mitt Romney was definitely going to be his opponent, but we had a pretty good idea. That speech was written with the idea that we were going to be facing Mitt Romney, a prime minister. Equity executive who made a lot of money buying companies and firing the employees and was promoting policies to cut taxes for rich people like himself. And remember in that speech, there was a lot about economic inequality. That was the Buffett rule, which was the rule. That said that it was based on the idea that Warren Buffett used to say that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did. And so, I expect... It would be all about Trump. I didn't expect that they would directly mention him, but they did.

It's just why no reason to like dance around it. I kind of hate when you don't, when you don't just say the thing and they said the thing and I think it's great. And because he did that, I think this is the most important part about this is it will get more attention. And one of the things. That the president has really struggled with because of the sort of structural deficiencies that Democrats have in the media is Kind of sort of given a very good speech that just was an implicit kind of subtle implicit white house council approved

Earned to power without a real fight. Like, he feels this. He genuinely believes that Donald Trump is a threat to this country, and he has heard the -- and the criticisms and all that kind of stuff and he was up there tonight and he he was feisty he was Like he was as energetic as I've seen him. And here's the thing too, it was not perfect, right? Like his stutter, which he has been struggling with his entire life and which we saw him struggle with in 2020, it was definitely like, there were moments tonight where he swallowed his words like he usually does. But, and I think I've made this point before, but like it was okay. It's okay if he mumbles through some stuff, as long as he is showing energy and fight and expressing himself in a way that makes you believe it.

There was a lot of times tonight where he probably more times than his staff would like that he went off script But even those moments when he went off script It was something that he like deeply believed and so I think that like the performance of the speech tonight The delivery was something that he felt deeply and I think that goes Along way with people. And so then if you flub some lines here and there and you mumble through some words, people don't penalize you for that because. They know that what you're saying is authentic to who you are and what you believe. And I think that's what he what he. Demonstrated tonight. - Those are the sort of, not even misstatements, but sort of speech delivery moments that voters don't care about, right? It's really only people like us and reporters and close political observers who look at every single word of policy.

Voters have a much more human approach to the way people talk. That's always been true of Joe Biden. And it's just the way he delivered the speech was strong. And it got so important, right? It was like it felt like a fight. And that's important because the age concerns are often sometimes become a proxy for strength concerns. And if he's out there fighting and seeming energetic, it just goes a long way to making people feel much more comfortable that he can be the strong leader they want and in times that feel chaotic. Uh... -Just tell you the chyron on Fox News on Sean Hannity's show. It's got a video of Biden.

Jacked up Joe, not his normal self tonight. - Sure, great. - I'll take it, great. Jacked up Joe, absolutely. - Absolutely. All right, so there was another thing that I had not seen in a State of the Union before. He started with Ukraine at the beginning of the speech. He had a message for Putin, let's listen.

We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down. In a literal sense, history is watching. He did say history is watching quite a few times. I was wondering at first when I heard, I'm like, oh, it's interesting that he's starting with Ukraine. And the reason I said that is because if you ask most Americans their top concern, they're not going to say the war in Ukraine, even though a majority of Americans support Ukraine and support sending additional aid to Ukraine to stop Putin. So public opinion's on his side, but it's not the most salient issue. But then that--

that we just heard the message to Putin after he said that. He got applause from Democrats and Republicans. It was one of the few times during the speech that everyone stood up to applaud. So I'm betting that's why they did it first. Probably because Joe Biden thinks it's very important that we support Ukraine. He genuinely believes that if Putin is allowed to take Ukraine, then he'll... Roll through NATO next. But it was interesting that they started with... That. I think there was, he had a bunch of really big things really fast, and I think it's actually a pretty savvy understanding of both how people... Consume media right now and how political narratives are set. We remember this from debates. What happens in the first 15 minutes of a debate?

is if you start out a debate super strong, almost nothing happens in the last five minutes But if you start out weak and then you get better than the narrative- Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. So he started with- Big strong moments lots of applause seeming very strong and it sort of set the stage for how people were going to think about the debate going forward so I thought it was smart it was good. Well so it was it was Ukraine. And then he went to January 6th and then he talked about Roe v. Wade and IVF. Let's listen. If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to That was all right at the beginning. Ukraine January 6th, row, the campaign has been saying and democratic strategists have been saying for some time now that the election is going to be Dobbs and democracy and I guess that was the signal for the beginning of the speech that they're going to be campaigning on that and that's going to be the central focus.

To the campaign. - And it's also an acknowledgement that while abortion has been, has-- Is for every single one of these abortion bans. - Yeah. Did the speech tell you anything new about Biden's reelection strategy? - I don't know if it told me anything new, but it sort of clarified, I think, some of his top priorities. Definitely trying to reestablish some of his populist credentials to demonstrate that he is fighting for middle and working class people. That's something that he did very well on in 2020 and has fallen behind Trump in the polling on. And Trump has like a 10 point advantage on it. The CBS poll that came out this weekend. And you saw that in the policies on shrinkflation and corporate price gouging and raising taxes on corporations. He said, I'm going to fight

tax code. And so I think that that is one of the main things that he was doing there. Abortion is obviously another huge part of the agenda. And the third thing Is that he is going to draw a contrast between the progress that he has made, which is strong progress, not triumphant progress. Bill refusing to pass Ukraine aid, and trying to really stroke a fight with them over a whole bunch of different things. Show just how sort of chaotic and overly political they are. - You mentioned that you talked about taxes. Went into a section after sort of that opening that we talked about where he discussed sort of where the country was when he took office, the economic progress we made, he's touted a lot of his accomplishments, and then as he spoke about his economic agenda going forward, I think that his section on taxes

which is probably maybe the longest section. It was certainly one of the feistiest sections in the economics section. Let's listen. Folks at home, does anybody really think the tax code is fair? No! Do you really think the wealthy and big corporations need another two? To be the sexiest section for media coverage, I would imagine, but. I haven't seen focus groups yet. I haven't seen dial tests yet. I would bet that's one of the more popular sections. The subtext here, which I think is worth pointing out, is that the Trump corporate tax cuts that lowered corporate tax rates gave huge benefits People expire at the end of the next president's first year. So if we elect Donald Trump--

He's gonna renew those if we elect Joe Biden He will let those expire and raise taxes back up to a normal more fair level for corporations Yeah, and I think it's gonna be a great contrast with Trump He's going to be able to kick the shit out of Trump on this Trump already passed a one of Trump's few domestic policy achievements in his first term was passing a giant tax cut mostly for the wealthy which skyrocketed the deficit. And Biden's going to say, I want to raise tax. He talked about, No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse. The Buffett rule that you mentioned. One of these days we're gonna get it passed. So I do think when he talks about his economic agenda. When he's out on the campaign trail, I would imagine that his tax agenda is gonna be something that he really focuses on. We have seen in polling and a lot of message testing that we have a lot of working class voters and a lot of these gettable voters who are.

Persuadable who haven't made up their minds yet. Their biggest concerns about Trump are both what he might do on task. And then also what he might do on Medicare and Social Security. And I thought Biden had a great back and forth with Republicans. Similar to the one he had last year and last State of the Union about Social Security and Medicare let's listen Anyone here tries to cut social security, Medicare or raise their retirement age, I will stop you. Well, that's good to hear. You're not going to cut another $2 trillion for the super wealth. That's good to hear. They are going to do that. That is their plan. That's their plan. That's Donald Trump's plan. They're going to cut Social Security and Medicare so they can pay for a giant tax cut for rich people.

To defund the IRS so that rich tax cheats can continue being rich tax cheats. That's what they want to do. Look, I'd love the whole thing. It was good to see Biden really zero in on that tonight, I thought. So he talked about the border, like we thought he was going to do. He did not announce any new executive actions on the border. He did whack the Republicans for having -- you know, and Donald Trump for killing the bipartisan border deal that came together in the Senate.

And then there was an interesting moment where Marjorie Taylor Greene, who... Oof. She was, like, wearing her MAGA hat. She's got, like, a T-shirt on. And she gave Biden a button when he walked into the State of the Union, and it was a button about Laken Riley, who's the young woman from Georgia who was murdered. By an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, and it has been this gigantic story. Probably have not heard about it, but it has been a gigantic story on the right. It's been all over Fox, all over conservative media. She gave him this button. And as he's going back and forth with Republicans about the border, he picks up the. And he says, You know what? He's like, It's horrible that this young woman died, and he says something to her parents, who I don't think were there, maybe they were there, but he mentioned something about her parents. What did you think about that sort of ad lib where he went off script to talk about that?

I know that was certainly not his strongest part of the night Obviously the use of the term illegal which he did once or twice was unfortunate not how he would normally he would usually use the term undocumented so that that I think he was Flustered in that moment. But I think, you know, the back and forth is usually good for him. That one was less good. But in the whole of the speech, I don't think it's a huge, huge moment. But I think we are now hitting a transition period where every state of the union is going to be like this now. They sort of started, we've been getting there. There was such backlash when Congressman-- Joe Wilson yelled, You lie to Obama. Everyone was on their best behavior for a decade. Then last year, they got into a thing with Biden, even though Biden... Won that exchange. Now I think every one of these members is going to try to get some attention from doing it. So this is the future. Biden's gets reelected, he has four more of these. Democrats will probably do the same thing to Trump. So I think this is par--

The course going forward. - I will say, obviously, him using the word illegal is just evidence of him being from a different generation. That's what people said, even people who supported immigration way back when. So that wasn't great, but it's very-- Biden to take on, to like, Marjorie Taylor Greene hands on this button and instead of being like, fuck off, I'm not going to talk about this issue. The fact that he's like, Yeah, no, my position is, it's of course horrific that this young woman was murdered, but what I want to do is-- the border and also give a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants living here who make this country stronger and not set up mass deportation camps like Donald Trump wants to do. And he also you can tell he he enjoyed the you're right that the back and forth is going to be the norm from state unions from now on. But he really enjoys it. He's like, like you could see the guy would be very comfortable in the

Parliament. He liked the back and forth, he wanted to talk to them, he mentioned Bob Casey and his bill about shrinkflation at one point. And he's like, Pass Bobby's bill. Bobby is in the prepared remarks. Bobby is in the prepared remarks. He said, Pass Bob Casey's shrinkflation bill. But he-- He has Bobby's bill. Is he Graham later? And it's just very it's very Joe Biden. He loves legislating. He loves governing. He loves Congress like that's what he. Well, that's what he likes to do. - I'm sure the staff was not super excited when they saw him going into his pocket to get the thing that Marjorie Taylor Green gave him, - Heavy, other than that one flub that we mentioned, he navigated that moment fine. - Hello, driver. It's me, your oil change light, here to ruin your day. Remember that last mechanic who sold you stuff you didn't need and took three...

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- We are not Tommy and Ben, this is not Pod Save the World, so we will not get deep into the policy, but obviously the president announced the opening of. A peer in Gaza to get more aid in, humanitarian aid. It seemed like a very specific effort to speak to the voters unhappy with his approach to Gaza. What did you think of that section of the speech? I thought that that was probably the politically worst part of the speech. I think he, from a policy perspective, he's trying to do something to speak to the people. And I think though within the administration themselves who are incredibly horrified by what's by the humanitarian crisis happening in Gaza without changing the actual policy and approach to Israel but the the rhetoric who used the way he talked about it was, I think, you could just see it online that people were.

Acted very negatively to it. I think he seemed more concerned about being considered insufficiently supportive of Israel than-- - And then supportive, insufficiently supportive of trying to help the people in Gaza. And I think that that is just. When you say being of a different generation, that is of a different generation. That is a different political world. It felt not It is certainly, if the policy was designed to, I think, actually do what the United States can to deal with it, obviously, this crisis. The announcement of the policy in the preview was designed to speak to the people in his 2020 voters. In our base who are very unhappy with what's happening there, the uncommitted voters in Michigan and Minnesota and elsewhere. Rhetoric around that policy, I think, certainly didn't help things, it may have made them worse. In that moment, I could see, I really felt for his staff, and I could see what they must have gone through over the last several months, because, you know, he gets, in the prepared remarks.

He gets to a but Israel must do its part, must allow more aid in to leadership of Israel. I say this, Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration, or Bart and goes on and on. But before he gets to the but, Whether it's Jake Sullivan, whether it's other people like who are probably trying to get him to be a little more forceful, but he is, we've talked about this before. I mean, Ben have like, he is a president from an era where Israel's security was so threatened all the time that I do not think on the -- About whether your ideas are old or not, I think on this issue he is still, he is a man of the past and he is, you know, it's, I didn't like it. And love it. Okay, so end of the speech, he used the end of the speech to take on the age issue directly.

Which I thought was interesting. Let's listen. -I know you don't want to hear any more of Lindsey, but I got to say a few more things. I know it may not look like it, but I've been around a while. When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever. I know the American story. Again and again I've seen the contest between competing forces in the battle. For the soul of our nation. Between those who want to pull America back to the past, Move America to the future. The issue facing our nation isn't how old we are. how old we are. It's how old are ideas? Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. - Lead America with ancient ideas. Only take us back.

America the land of possibilities you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done. I thought it was great. Great way to take it on and it was a slight joke. It was the end of the speech. I do think the best sound of him taking on the age issue was not in the prepared remarks. It was caught on hot mic when he was talking to congressman Jerry Nadler after the speech. Let's listen. Nobody's going to talk about cognitive impairment now. You were on fire. I wish sometimes there was cognitive impairment.

I kind of wish sometimes I was cognitively in cognitive decline. I love that. That's just great. That's just real. That's real. What did you think of the end there? Well, he road-tested this. It's not my age. It's the age of one's ideas on Seth Meyers a few weeks ago, or last week, I guess that was. Time has no meaning anymore. But, and I think that's the right thing to do. You're not going to keep, and it's also, I think, an acknowledgement that he has taken. Transition on this. I think he was very dismissive of people's concerns. For a while. I think he was annoyed by them and frustrated by them. And he's, as he mentioned tonight, he was elected to the Senate when he was 29. They wouldn't let him get in the Senator's elevator 'cause they thought he was like an intern. And so he's always been the youngest person and now all of a sudden he's the oldest person. That's kind of how I feel on this podcast, but. See, and you make a joke about it. You make a joke about it, you feel better. Yeah, man, it's fine.

But now he's sort of going on offense a little bit with it. And it's just like, ultimately what the words are not going to solve the concerns. It's just going to be how he performs over the next eight months here. But to the extent, when you talk about it, if you can just pivot into offense and then, because what he is. When you do this, not in the speech per se, but like in the Seth Meyers interview, it's the age of his ideas. Look at all these things he wants to do. He wants to take us back to when...

Didn't have reproductive freedoms when gay people couldn't get married and just go right at sort of the the revanchist MAGA agenda and it makes a very easy pivot point and you go from defense offense very quickly as opposed to just being incredibly defensive about it which he was in that in that Robert Herr report press conference a few weeks ago. Ron Barnes had a very smart piece in the Atlantic today where he talked about sort of the three options for this race for how to define this race. He talked about it could be a referendum on Biden right which obviously Biden does not want. It can also be a choice between whether voters think that Donald Trump's term was better or Joe Biden's term was better and he was saying it is clear that the Trump people want that choice because right now they are benefiting from.

Short memories and people forgetting how bad Donald Trump was. And so they are judging it by the last four years, which, you know, we're pretty happy with, but a bunch of people in the country apparently are not happy with. And the other choice is to make it about the future and about what Donald Trump is going to do and what Joe Biden is going to do in the next four years and where Donald Trump's going to take the country and where Joe Biden is and Donald Trump's policies and old ideas and Joe Biden's policies and ideas that will take us into the future. And I do think that you're definitely going to need to do some to remind people how bad Trump's term was, particularly 2020, not a great year. The other day, Are you better off than you were four years ago? Four years ago right now, everyone was about to be... Locked in their homes, like thousands of people dying a day in April and then the year ended with a fucking insurrection. So not a great year. So there's gonna be, it's gonna have to be,

Definitely do some work reminding people of how bad Trump's term was and also remind people what Joe Biden has achieved over these last four years. But I do think the bulk of the campaign is going to have to be what Biden wants to do versus what Trump will do. And you know, he he basically set that up at the end of the speech. And I think he did that throughout the speech. You know, there's still a little heavier on the accomplishments than I would like, but I like that at least at the end and at the beginning and with a lot of the policy he laid out, he is setting up a campaign where he can talk about, you know, maybe I'm pretty old, but I'm the one Who wants to take us into the future with the policies that I have already enacted and the ones that I'll be fighting for if you give me another four years, and Donald Trump will take us backward and it'll be chaos and disaster and it's all there in the plans that he wants to enact. He's president again. - Yeah, I thought the accomplishments was pretty good. I thought you have to do it.

You know, there's polling that shows that it's actually incredibly influential with particularly with the double haters, the people who disapprove of both of them, which makes up a quite a large. Out of the electorate this time around that they are in particularly, and this is the one he did it for a lot, a lot tonight is there is. Policy more popular than than the wall having medicare negotiate with the prescription drug companies get lower prices and cap on the price of insulin at 35. $25. Polls show that upwards of 80% of voters love it. Also, polls show that less than 50% of voters know about it. So talking about those things is important. But what I thought the tone. Was Right for people's mood right now. Like people are a little more optimistic about the economy They're not yet giving the president credit for it, but it was not so triumphant it's he really got to where I think he needs to be which is We inherited a shit show. We've made some real hard progress. We did it even though, even. In bipartisan ways, and we're making that progress and we're gonna get there, but we're not gonna get there if Donald Trump and...

These fucking extreme yahoos get in power and they take us all the way back, right? And I think that was sort of the tenor, the subtext and the tenor of this. I thought that was good there. He did not do we passed all these amazing things and everything is perfect The greatest economy of all time right there was like obviously a little triumphalness and there should be but I don't think he overshot the runway at all tonight You know I? I think a campaign that is Donald Trump is consumed with his own past and getting revenge, and Joe Biden is consumed with the future and what kind of country he can leave to his grandchildren and everyone else's, that's a good choice. That's a fight that they're gonna want to have. And I think they did a great job. That up tonight. Alright, Katie Britt, Republican Senator from Alabama. She gave the response and whoo I've never heard one like this before let's let's listen to a clip. Mr. President Enough is enough

Innocent Americans are dying and you only have yourself to blame. Fulfill your oath of office. Reverse your policies, end this crisis and stop the suffering. There's the Sunday, a late entry from Katie Britt. That's a good joke. I mean, she's sound. It sounded like she was on a bad Netflix teen drama. It was like the shaky, the overacting was just, it was wild. It was the only, I don't, I can't even tell you what she said because I could not, I couldn't focus on anything but the, like the quiver in her voice and the fact Inauthentic in acting. It was horrible. - Yeah, it's one of the worst ones ever. And that is saying a lot because they're all pretty terrible. - A lot because they're all bad. They're all bad. You knew it was gonna be bad when Jonathan Swan of the New York Times tweeted this out that her

Her allies have already put out talking points before the speech was given. Comparing it to run. - Ronald Reagan's Berlin Wall in City on a Hill speeches. Give him the speech yet. This is like, you're compensating for something there, people, you've seen the dress rehearsals. and Agapeople do not like it either. Uh, Charlie Kirk tweeted, did you like Katie Britt's speech? And, uh, go check out some of the replies way too dramatic. Are very babysitter reading a bedtime story? These are all the like blue check MAGA people. It was bad reviews, bad reviews from Katie Britt. Trump was doing a in real time truthing of the whole speech He really zeroed in on Joe Biden coughing a lot. He said, Don't shake his hand, he's coughing, which is interesting. As someone on our team said, this is the guy that exposed...

Everyone took COVID, almost killed a few people. - He's very worried about receiving germs, not giving them to people. - Yes, that's right. Anyway, enough with Katie Britt, enough with Donald Trump. - It was a great night for Joe Biden. Have you seen any of the dial tests? - I have not seen any dial tests. Have our team seen CNN or CBS polls yet? - I haven't gotten the chance to dig into all the dial testing. I think some of the flash polls were quite good for the president, as they often are after State of the Union, but that's great. We'll take it. I'm interested to see all the data. I would not be surprised though if this speech Energize Democrats, wavering Democrats, and probably, you know, picked up some ground with independents as well. Yeah, I think this... I think whether this moves the polls or not, I don't want to set expectations too high, but I think it sets the stage. I think it's going to get a 10 point, 10 point bump. You're hard at here.

Something that we argued against for years in our previous life. But no, I look, I think this was a great night for the president. He should feel very good about his team. Should feel very good about it. And this is the kickoff of the general election campaign. It off in a really good way. Yeah, we should say the only, the only real presidential approval bump after state of the union, uh, in the last couple of decades was Barack Obama. After the 2009 State of the Union, which I can only imagine is because we were going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And he was a brand new president, so they were like, all right, let's-- Let's cut him some slack for a little bit and then that quickly went away. But just to set the baseline, usually these things don't actually move. Presidential approval. Yes, it is unlikely to change, but it sets the stage for change later on. Yes, and it is a blueprint for a message that he can deliver throughout the campaign.

And also it was good to see him have a lot of fight tonight. Okay, before we go to break, two quick items. In just a few days. Pre-sale tickets will only be available for Friends of the Pod subscribers starting on Tuesday, so make sure to join. For access to the best seats in the house, head to krkad.com/friends to sign up. Also, if by... Remarks didn't calm your anxiety about the year ahead, you can pre-order our book, Democracy or Else, right now at cricket.com/book. And we're gonna be donating the profits to support Vote Save America, its partners And other organizations which are mobilizing around the 2024 election. It's a fun book, lots of illustrations, pretty short, a good guide to how to get through this election and other elections. We have them, and again, it goes to a good cause, VSA. So pre-order your copy of Democracy or Else Now at crooked.com/books. - I've read it, it's great. - Dan has read it. - I've read it, I've pre-ordered it. It is a short read, which is real. That's a plus.

You're gonna learn a lot. You're gonna laugh a lot. It's not gonna take too much your time go for it That's what we need that's what we're looking for when we come back White House price Terry, Corinne Jean-Pierre. Hello, driver. It's me, your oil change light, here to ruin your day. Remember that last mechanic who sold you stuff you didn't need and took three... Long boring hours. Did you trust him? Do you trust anyone anymore? What do I know? I'm just a light. Silence your oil change anxiety at Valvoline Instant Oil Change where we give you a stress-free oil change in about 15 minutes. Valvoline Instant Oil Change. Service you can see, experts you can trust. The best

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Joining us tonight, White House Press Secretary Corrine Jean-Pierre. Corrine, welcome to POD Save America. Welcome back. Thank you so much for having me back. Night. What a great night. It's good to see you both. Thank you. You too. So you're the White House press secretary. What's your dream headline for the speech. What are you hoping to see Friday morning? You know what? I think what we saw tonight, as far as a headline, is you saw a president stand up and fight for the American people. And it was a president. Who stood up for our democracy, who stood up for the middle class, who stood up for our rights, who stood up for our freedoms and laid out his vision. For moving this country forward, not going backwards. And I think that is what you saw. It was a. Probably one of the best State of the Union speeches that I think we've seen in some time. And he was incredible in the sense of taking it on. He would just...

Took it on when House Republicans were trying to give him a little bit of a hard time. He's like, Oh, yeah? You want a little bit of this? I'll show you Joe from Scranton. You know? And so, but you saw a leader drawing a stark contrast between the vision of this country and that of those... Trying to block our progress, right? And he started from that from the beginning, right? You know, you can't, uh, I mean, there's some great there is some great lines that he had in the speech. We see if I can. Some of them down. Let me see if I can share some of them that I thought that was really, really good, which is... The state of our union is getting stronger and stronger. You don't love your country. This is the first, I think the first thing that he said, which was so powerful, You don't love your country only when you win. Only when you win.

It was exactly what he needed to do. He met the moment of where we are as a country. He met the moment of where we need to be going. I think one of the way he ended it is so Joe Biden in an optimistic way, talking about the future. Or the possibilities of Americans not betting against Americans. And that is something that is so quintessential, Joe Biden, that optimism. Of who he is. He is in his DNA. He's optimistic. And also, let's not forget, there's a commander in chief component of it as well. Discussing what America's role around the world and the threats that we face and where we stood. You know, the first thing he talked about was Ukraine and called out. House Republicans from really not moving on that, not moving on that national supplemental deal

To 29 in the Senate. And if it was put in the floor by the Speaker, who was standing obviously to his left, it would get overwhelming support. And this is about not politics, but about our national security. And we have to help the brave people of Ukraine as they are defending themselves, defending themselves against the tyrant as they're fighting for their democracy. I mean, it was a jam packed speech, but it was impactful. And let's not forget about one of the number one issues that we hear about over and over again, especially. Over the last couple of years, which is reproductive rights, fighting for women's healthcare. I think he gave one of the. Strongest, most strongest remarks on that and the reason to make sure we protect reproductive rights. He did that in a really forceful way, and also our democracy, our democracy. We gotta fight for our democracy.

So that is what I saw last night. I think that's what other people saw. I got so many texts from people saying, Wow, what a powerful speech. He was great. This is exactly what we needed him to do. You. And I will say one more thing. The fact that he talked about his age at the end, and took that head on and didn't It and said, look, there were times where people thought I was too young. There were times where people thought I was too old. And I think all of that. Of these things are important because he answered and leaned into things that we keep hearing about. Right. And I think that was incredibly important as well. I think he did a great job. I think he was fantastic. So here's my question for you. John and I worked- a lot of State of the Unions together over the years. Yes, I was going to say, I was thinking that. And one of the great impediments to progress in any State of the Union is the White House Counsel's Office.

Take the hatchback very seriously yet somehow there were by my count 13 references to an unnamed person. Is the White House counsel tied up in a basement somewhere? How did you guys get that done? I mean, he did say the former president, right? And Donald Trump was a former. And I think there are real things that have happened in the last three years, even before then, obviously during his presidency, that I think the president was able to. To lean into and talk about. And here's the thing, you know, there is extremists in the Republican Party that follow this former president. I mean, he talked. About the border deal. Let's not forget that border deal that we got from the Senate, which bipartisan deal, Republicans and Democrats. We worked with them for two months and this is. Not normal. We don't normally get bipartisan deals, especially bipartisan deals that is supported by

the border patrol union or the US chamber of commerce. Like that's not something that happens here in this political discourse. That. Was we were able to land that. And what happened, the former president stepped in and said, Do not move this forward because. And so the president had always said he was going to be very honest about that, take it directly to the American people. I mean, reproductive, right? You think about You've been talking about Roe v. Wade, the Dobbs decision. That happened under the former president. When he, as you all know, you've covered this very, very well, what he did with the Supreme Court. Very much conservative. And because of that, and he was really clear as why he was doing that because they wanted to Overturn roe v wade and that's what happened. So it is everything that we're seeing right now.

That we're seeing right now with this country, with Republicans, is tied in to the former president. But you're right. You, I know you're right, Dan. Been a communications director, you were a senior advisor here for, for the former, former president, President, Obama, John as a speech writer, you know how much of a massive undertaking it took. Takes to write these types of speeches, you're right. It has to go to the council. It's a lot of fun. I think he was able to make his point about where we are politically and where the Republicans, how extreme they are. And it is being led by the former president. That is just the reality that we're in right now. You mentioned the section on when he challenged Republicans on passing the bipartisan border bill. There had been some rumors that the president might announce some examples. On his own, did some reporting on that. Is that something that you guys are thinking about in the next several weeks? He didn't mention it tonight. What was the thinking there?

So the press look, we always, as you know, working in an administration, you always have to be prepared. Look at all of the options on the table. And we're doing that we're always going to look at the options on the table. What we believe what this president believes in this is what he said today. In the speech and this is what he's even said privately is he wants to get this bipartisan border deal done. He believes there's still a chance to get this done. He believes it's the best way to move forward with a broken system, a broken immigration system. He believes it's the best way to actually deal with. With the challenges that we're seeing at the border. It is tough, but it is a fair piece of legislation. And it's not very often that you come to this, in a bipartisan way. So he wants to continue fighting for it. Let's not forget that was the bipartisan infrastructure legislation. People said we wouldn't get that done. It was a joke in the last. Administration. It was, you know, a punchline infrastructure week and the president was able to get that done. The CHIPS and Science Act, the PACT Act, right, that helps veterans

veterans and their families. Nobody thought we would be able to get that done. That done. Obviously, the make of the Congress was obviously different. But the president, again, optimistic guy, he wants to get that done. But as it relates to any executive action, we don't believe any executive action would be as strong as the deal that we have currently. So he wants to continue to work towards that. But of course, we're always going to look at all the opportunities, options that we have in front of us. But we want to try, right? want to try and get to see if we can move this at all, move this at all. This State of the Union for every president running for re-election is usually the speech where, as the president did tonight, you sort of lay out your agenda for a second term. President Biden certainly did.

That as he is going out on the road talking to crowds in the next several weeks and months, what do you think are the big ticket policy initiatives that he talked about tonight that he's going to really emphasize and focus on? In the months to come? - It's a great question. So two things that we talked, well actually three things that we talked about this week, as you know, as we go into the State of the Union, On a Thursday, we try to lean into a couple of policies, a couple of new things. Kind of lay out the ideas and what he's thinking about for the rest of this year. And we did a drug We focus on pharmaceutical drugs this week, right? What can we do to make sure That we continue lowering costs, right? He talked about Obamacare, right? ACA and how important it is to protect that. So healthcare costs are really important. Drug costs are really important.

Are really important and it's actually very popular, very important for the American people. So we talked about that. He put he brought Together his competition council to talk about more junk fees, ways that we can get rid of junk fees. That is something that Americans really, truly care about. And so these are things that we think that are important. All of this really goes under lowering costs. And so that is critical. Is that is, I think you're gonna continue to hear the president talk about that. We're gonna be on the road for most of March. Tomorrow we're gonna be in Philly. On Saturday, he's gonna be. In Atlanta, Georgia. We're going to be announcing a lot more trips and you'll see that theme, right? The economy making sure that we're growing the economy. Economy from the bottom up, middle out. That is something that the president wants to continue to do, not leave anybody behind. And those...

Important pieces of legislation that he signed into laws, like I mentioned, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act. Parts of infrastructure legislation, we have to implement those and protect those because Republicans want to repeal, for example, the inflation reduction act. Those are the things that he's been talking about this week that we're going to continue to move forward on. And so that's going to be kind of what you're going to be hearing from him. Throughout this month and also making sure we're protecting, we're fighting for reproductive health, women's health care. And so that's kind of what you're going to be hearing from the President this month. Thank you so much for staying up with us. I know it's a late night and a big night for you and for the President and for everybody.

At the White House. So we really appreciate you. You jumping on with us for a little bit. It's my pleasure. Happy to do it again. Guys, thank you for everything that you all do. And talk to you all soon. Talk to you soon. Congratulations on a big night. Thank you. Karim for joining us and everyone have a great weekend. We will talk to you next week. - Bye everyone. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our friends of the pod subscription community at crooked.com/friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at PodSaveAmerica on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Joaquin is our senior.

Producer. Reed Churlan is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Kohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman. David Tolles, Kirill Palaviv, and Molly Lobel. Is sponsored by BetterHelp. Do you tend to compare your life to others? Does social media play a part in that? It does. What do you do when you get caught up wishing your life looked like someone else's? You know what, that's not my problem. Yeah, you need to know that. I don't get the, like, envy. But you know what I- Do you do? I decide to use social media. I weigh in on things that suck and then terrible people criticize you and you could tell yourself It doesn't matter but it actually does bother you. Yeah, I do let strangers get I'm just I'm I've just started deleting tweets cuz I'm like, you know what I just I don't care. I don't

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