Back before it much mattered — ie. when he was just a senator from Delaware, just the chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees or just even vice president— it was probably a source of mild bemusement for his staff to guess what might come out of Joe Biden’s mouth the moment the microphones went hot. Would he accuse John Bolton of chasing a woman across Kazakhstan with a staple-gun, put the kibosh on Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment, or would he tell U.S. troops serving in harm’s way in Afghanistan to “clap for that, you stupid bastards”?
But now that it matters a good deal more, the funny factor has worn thin. That’s why we’ve see so little of our president over these past three years, but tonight his nervous staff will have to roll him out anyway for what very well may be his last State of the Union address.
What President Biden says tonight — and how he says it — will go a long way towards confirming or allaying concerns that he is too old for the job, as more that three-quarters of registered voters told The New York Times last week they believe he is.
Trailing former President Donald Trump in the NYT’s own, and other major polls, Biden the incumbent must suddenly show he “gets it,” as voters tend not to be kind to the irretrievably out-of-touch.
At the time of writing, Monday has come and gone and no cease-fire over Gaza has been agreed, or even tabled, as a zoned-out looking Biden predicted would have happened by now late last week while licking an ice cream cone near the Mexican border. (“My national security advisor assures me it’s in the works,” he boasted confidently.)
But let’s just assume his cracker-jack staff has been working overtime since then – if not to secure an actual cease-fire, then at least to prep him for tonight’s speech. What will he say?
First, the president will need to walk a tightrope between taking credit for an allegedly robust economy and acknowledging the tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans who just aren’t feeling it. Even long-time Democrat pollsters like Stan Greenberg have pleaded with Biden to get real when it comes to the pain many of us feel at the check-out line in supermarkets every day.
[RELATED: From Texas to Maine, Biden’s Lawless Border Fuels Illegal Alien Crime Wave…]
Yet the same newspaper that just two months ago was reporting that happy days are here again now seems to be arguing for Democrats to pull Biden out of the race he now seems primed to lose, so it is understandable why White House staffers might be confused on the point.
How Biden talks about the inflationary pressures matters. Will he blame rising prices on greedy supermarkets, as he has in recent weeks? If he continues on this course, he’ll be confronted with the inconvenient fact that his own administration’s data says it isn’t so, and that it’s profligate spending in Washington that’s really at fault. Anyone who has balanced their own checkbook knows you can’t spend your way to prosperity.
[RELATED: Mills Admin: US Dollar Inflation Since 2019 22%…]
Second, there is the still looming pledge that Biden’s inevitable challenger made in 2016 to “build the wall.” As his ice cream eating adventure itself indicated last week, Biden’s White House can no longer ignore the imperative of fixing America’s broken immigration system. Democrat Tom Suozzi, who snatched up banished Republican Congressman George Santos’ Long Island House seat last week implored his party, and its nominal leader, Biden, to finally get real on the border crisis. Tonight we’ll hear whether party leadership is indeed listening.
If Biden tries to shift the blame for the border crisis on the very Republicans who have been screeching about it nonstop since Day One of his administration, he will again be forced to confront how his own actions contributed to making it worse than what he inherited in 2021. A wiser move would be a serious overture for bipartisan action on fully funding enforcement, and an outline of how real reform could be achieved should he have a second term.
And finally, there is Ukraine.
Even though the Senate has taken the lead on moving a delayed $60 billion closer to the front, House Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t need a poll to tell him which way the war effort is going. At no time since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its southern neighbor just over two years ago has Biden addressed the American people to lay out the stakes or his vision for America’s role in deterring Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Tonight is Biden’s last chance to make up for lost time. As I’ve written in this space before, by seeking to politicize Russia, Democrats have done the Ukrainians’ cause no justice on the other side of the aisle. Blaming Republicans now for his own lack of vision will cast a pall over Kyiv’s hopes for new US munitions and support.
But unlike in Ukraine, in the Middle East, U.S. support for Israel is hurting Biden with his own base, as weakened support in Michigan primary last week showed with double-digits going “uncommitted” because of anger over Palestinian deaths. Tonight, the president will need to show he has a plan of his own for dialing back the global violence that has spun up exponentially on his watch.
At the same time, he will need to tamp down the kind of rhetoric speechwriters have crafted for him in the past about the dire threats to democracy “ultra MAGA Republicans” pose, which just last year he delivered against the backdrop of Nuremberg rally-esque lighting.
Now, for Biden, the timing is not ideal for such re-hashed theatrics. Super Tuesday results showed Donald Trump sweeping the table on the Republican side (except of course for Bernie Sanders’ VT) just after the Supreme Court unanimously tossed out “legal” efforts to kick Trump off the ballot that were never really about the law. And the Republicans will be putting up young Alabama senator Katie Britt, who is seen as competent and moderate, for their response to the SOTU.
This is one more reason for Uncle Joe to appear more presidential than he ever has for what will be, quite possibly, the performance of his career.
No one knows!
Not his speech writers, the teleprompter operator, or the commie “former” prez in his earpiece.
But especially not Joe himself
He won t know beforehand, as he s saying it, and certainly not 2 seconds later