[music]

Male Speaker 1: I come before you tonight to report on the State of the Union.

Male Speaker 2: I come before you to report on the State of our Union.

Male Speaker 3: My fellow Americans, the State of our Union.

[crosstalk]

President Joe Biden: The State of our Union. I've come to report on the State of the Nation, the State of the Union, and my report is this. The State of the Union is strong because you the American people are strong.

[applause]

Pres. Biden: The only nation that can be defined by a single word possibilities, now is the hour. Our moment of responsibility. Our test to resolve and conscience of history itself. It is in this moment that our character of this generation is formed. Our purpose is found, our future is forged. Well, I know this nation. We’ll meet the test to protect freedom and liberty, expand fairness and opportunity, and we will save democracy. As hard as those times have been, I'm more optimistic about America today than I've been my whole life because, I see the future that's within our grasp.

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: On Tuesday night, President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address before proud of Congressional lawmakers who were no longer required to wear masks. The President highlighted the country's role leading the Western response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He outlined his plans to address inflation, and he affirmed his continuing optimism in the American project.

Pres. Biden: We fought for freedom, expanded liberty, debated totalitarianism and terror. We built the strongest, freest, and most prosperous nation the world has ever known.

Melissa: Before President Biden took the podium, we asked what topics you wanted to hear from President Biden. This is what you told us.

Listener 1: The war going on right now in Ukraine.

Listener 2: We need more Black representation but not just faces in high [unintelligible 00:02:10]. We need actual events that keep us from constantly being robbed generation after generation.

Listener 3: All of the misinformation and the bad actors that are spreading this misinformation about climate change and about the COVID virus.

Listener 4: Prioritize voting rights.

Listener 5: Emphasize patience and sacrifice among the American people to solve our major problems.

Listener 6: Oil prices and, of course, COVID.

Listener 7: We put them in order of one, two, and three. One, Putin. Two, Putin. Three, Putin,

Listener 8: Climate change, and people are upset about inflation now, but there's going to be a lot worse inflation if we don't have any energy, any natural resources left because of climate change.

Melissa: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and the State of Union is where we begin on today's Takeaway. With us now is Michael Tomasky, who is editor for The New Republic and the journal Democracy. Michael, welcome to The Takeaway.

Michael Tomasky: Thanks so much. Happy to be here.

Melissa: Also with us is Pablo Manríquez, Capitol Hill correspondent for Latino Rebels. Pablo, welcome back to the show.

Pablo Manríquez: Thank you, Melissa, always a pleasure.

Melissa: All right, Pablo, I have to start with you, because last night you tweeted, "I'm not going to say exactly where my State of the Union stakeout spot is tonight, until my interview tomorrow morning with M. Harris-Perry on The Takeaway. Where were you staked out?

Pablo: I was staked out outside of the third-floor bathroom on the House of Representatives with the esteemed Aida Chávez from The Nation. Basically, what happened last night was they had COVID restrictions, which they implemented social distancing, which kept members sort of like a seat apart from each other. It also meant that there were a lot fewer seats to go around, so they relegated a lot of members to the upper deck.

Because members were on the upper deck, and so many members like to, let's say, pre-game before the State of the Union, the bathroom became like the ultimate spot to be. Because just standing outside the bathroom, we had member after member of Congress coming in and giving us comments all night long.

Melissa: Wow. Okay. You did say in the tweet that it was going to be a brilliant spot. That does absolutely make sense to me. Michael, let's get into the content of what was happening last night. Obviously, the top half of the President's speech had clearly been written in recent days in response to the crisis happening in Ukraine. Let's take a quick listen.

Pres. Biden: We spent months building coalitions of other freedom-loving nations in Europe, from America to the Asian and African continents to confront Putin. Like many of you, I spent countless hours unifying our European allies. We shared with the world in advance what we knew Putin was planning, and precisely how he would try to falsify and justify his aggression.

Melissa: Was that subtweet of former President Trump?

Michael: In a way, but there were a few spots in the speech, Melissa, where I thought he could have been a bit more direct about Trump. The most obvious one has not to do with Ukraine but has to do with January 6th, toward the very end of the speech, when he had that line about calling the Capitol building--

Pres. Biden: The citadel of democracy.

Michael: I was waiting for a sentence that might have gone something like, "Which came under domestic assault," but he didn't deliver that sentence. I think he used the Ukraine portion of the speech generally, to highlight the good work that he's done. I think most people agree, he has done a good job of keeping the NATO coalition together, and that he's been tougher on sanctions than people expected three weeks ago. That was reflected in the much more bipartisan applause for those parts of the speech. Because Republicans know that they're under the lens here, because of certain things that Trump, and Tucker Carlson, and a few other Republicans have said that were favorable toward Putin.

Melissa: In recent days, as we've heard, sort of a global sense of Ukraine being the center of democracy, the sort of shining light of what it means to care about self-governance and to want to protect self-governance. It's important to focus on Ukraine as Ukraine, but it also felt like a moment, when there could have been a reaffirmation of the US as an experiment in self-governance. The sense that, in fact, not so long ago, right here in our own country, just over a year ago, that seemed to come under attack rather than be supported by the people of our nation.

Michael: Absolutely. One of the things, I think, that struck me last night was just how many members of Congress were returning to that upper deck of the House of Representatives, where they hid out on January 6th. Lou Correa, a member from Orange County, in California, actually brought with him an ink pen, which he called his weapon that he was afraid for his life that he was going to have-- he told us that he was going to have to use that day. He told us, he was like, "I have this trauma that still exists in me." Yes, I think that January 6th could have been acknowledged more in the speech.

At the same time, so much of the State of the Union is written on what is playing well currently in the political climate. If January 6th isn't something that the ruling party-- in this case, the Democrats-- feel that they can really run on in the midterms, then they're going to leave it out of the speech.

Melissa: Well, Michael, the President did bring up inflation, which is clearly an issue that is going to matter in the midterms. Let's take a quick listen.

Pres. Biden: My plan to fight inflation will lower your costs and lower the deficit. 17 Nobel laureates in economics said my plan will ease long-term inflationary pressures. Top business leaders and, I believe, most Americans support the plan.

Melissa: Michael, I'm always worried when Nobel laureates in economics are saying something about a plan. [laughs] Talk to me a bit about whether or not you think this landed for Americans on what has been shown in public opinion polls to be a top issue right now, inflation?

Michael: Not quite. I thought there were certain assertions that he made that were better than others. I thought he maybe could have been a little bit more forceful in demonstrating that he understands how people feel, on the empathy front. One is this, you have to dispense enough empathy to show that you're in touch. Then, the second is you have to say, "Here's what I'm trying to do about it."He did both of those. I thought both could have probably been done a little more sharply.

The bottom line here, Melissa, is that there are two versions that the American people are getting of why this inflation is happening. One, from the Democrats, is it’s the pandemic and the supply chains. The other one from the Republicans is too much spending by these crazy liberals. I think the Democrat's version is kind of winning, but very narrowly. If it drags on a lot longer, especially close to November, the Republican version, alas, might gain more traction.

Melissa: Right. It may be that people will ultimately not care what's causing it, but simply that it's not fixed, and we do have a track record in the US of holding presence accountable for economic indicators whether or not they are in fact in control of them. It's one of those correlations that kind of works every time as a predictive measure.

Pablo: Correct.

Melissa: Pablo, there was something that landed last night, I mean, oh boy, did it land. Let's take a listen to something the president had to say about policing.

Pres. Biden: We should all agree, the answer is not to defund the police, it's to fund the police.

[applause]

Pres. Biden: Fund them, fund them, fund them with resources and training, resources and training they need to protect our community.

Melissa: Pablo, should we all agree? The answer is not to defund the police?

Pablo: I don't think that progressive members of Congress agree, but within the building last night, that is actually a really nuanced position, because it was the Capitol police that defended the capitol from the Trump insurrectionists on January 6th. The Capitol police officer, Eugene Goodman, being sort of like the embodiment of the real hero of the day, are heroes in many ways. At the same time, up in the upper deck last night, where we were staking out, Cori Bush, the Congresswoman phenom from St. Louis, a new member of the squad of freshman this year, was wearing a shirt that said 18,000.

18,000 to her was a number of people who Joe Biden could give clemency to, people who she said had minor crimes. People who she said could have their lives put back together, from the result of over aggressive policing in her community in St. Louis. There is sort of an undercurrent of progressive members of Congress who are very critical of the police and the police actions in their community. I think that there is a narrative anyway right now that "Defund the police," and things like NN slogans like that, political slogans like that didn't play out well during the general election.

Democrats are saying basically like the consultant class in Washington-- they're always looking for something to the blame. Progressive members of the house like the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressleys, Ilhan Omars of the world, they are being blamed for a lot of things. It's probably one of those things, where poll testing suggested that a lot of moderate white voters get offended by the "Defund the police" notion. But there other people who are saying that a lot of communities of color, for example, in the Rio Grande valley in Texas and Houston, Texas, are also in favor of funding the police as opposed to defunding the police.

I think that there is a lot of nuance to the position of "Fund the police," especially in the building, given that it was the police that saved pretty much everyone's lives on January 6th. At the same time, it is sort of like a break from the narrative of unarmed Black men being shot dead by police in America. It's an epidemic that no one is really acknowledging right now, and people are putting that on the results of the last election.

Melissa: There was another piece that landed pretty clearly around these issues of policing but in this case, it was President Biden talking about policing at the border. Let's take a listen.

Pres. Biden: If we're to advance liberty and justice, we need to secure our border and fix the immigration system.

Melissa: All right. Pablo, you wanted the president to talk about immigration. Did that do it?

Pablo: No, definitely not. Securing the border is not what activists mobilize for Democrats during midterms or general elections. This is a Republican talking point, and it's a Republican talking point that ultimately is always a moving goalpost. You start out with a fence, then you have an army of border patrol agents. Then you have a wall, and now we're having robot dogs and things like that patrolling the border. Soon, we'll have like robot hippos and robot giraffes, and everything else securing the border, because you could always spend more money on pet projects in this regard.

Ultimately, what wasn't addressed effectively was if securing the border is the stick. The carrot should be some form of relief for the immigrants, the documented and undocumented immigrants who are here, who have been supportive and hopeful of the president up to this point, to do something for them. Right now, obviously, in Congress nothing is happening, we haven't seen any executive orders that have also been promised. Some immigration groups are pushing for executive orders that would enact certain forms of relief, at least temporarily through the end of the presidency. Obviously, if Democrats lose, Republicans will probably roll them back.

By leading with the whole "Secure the border" narrative, Joe Biden is basically aligning himself to what I would call the far right fringe of the Democratic Party on this issue. People like Joe Manchin, who have no interest whatsoever and have been negotiating in completely bad faith against immigrants. He's aligning themselves with them because there's never actually going to be a secure border. The whole notion of a secure border completely underestimates the resiliency of the immigrants who want to come here. Now, it didn't land well with immigrants. It didn't land well with immigrant communities who are desperate for relief after the terror of the Trump era.

Melissa: Michael, I think part of what I heard there from Pablo are these multiple publics, these multiple perspectives that the president and maybe what we would call kind of moderate Democrats are trying to either appease or address it in this conversation. Maybe it goes in part to the fact that there were two responses last night, one coming from the president's left and one coming from his right. Talk to me a bit both about those responses but also whether or not the president really can thread the needle here in a way that's effective especially for the midterms.

Michael: The Democratic Party has a problem getting to and maintaining 218 seats in the House of Representatives. If they can't maintain 218 seats, that is to say a majority, then they're not doing anybody any good at all. According to Cook Political Report, and others, there are about 195 solidly red seats in Congress, and about 165 or so solidly blue seats. That leaves something in the neighborhood of 60 or 70 swing votes. For the Democrats to overcome that 195 to 165 deficit, they have to win two thirds of those swing districts. That's the math they face.

Their politics on certain issues are just inevitably going to reflect the politics that will play well in those swing districts and help them win those swing districts. That's where the activist base is going to be inevitably disappointed in the position of the party. Biden, on economics, I think he's strikingly more progressive than Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. His appointments are very good. The very underdiscussed section of the speech last night on monopoly power, and the fact that the president of the United States said a sentence like, "Capitalism without cooperation is exploitation," was amazing.

I think on economic stuff, he's good, but on some other issues-- we called social or cultural issues-- the Democratic Party is just going to cue more toward the center because of this House of Representative's math that I cited.

Melissa: Pablo, I actually want to end on something for you a bit different than direct State of the Union issues. It's really about some recent reporting that you've been doing about efforts by congressional staffers to unionize. You always bring so many insights about what is happening in that extraordinary building of self-governance. What is the latest on this story about congressional staffers?

Pablo: The effort by staffers to unionized Congress is now moving at what I would call breakneck pace in the legislative sense. A resolution was introduced, I think, three legislative days ago by Andy Levin, a democratic Congressman from Michigan, that basically creates a legal framework to protect offices, because each office in Congress is an employer. Each committee in Congress is its own employer, so it protects the workers in those offices who want to unionize. Today's Wednesday, today, there's a hearing in the House Administration Committee, Zoe Lofgren’s committee-- Zoe Lofgren being Nancy Pelosi's right-hand woman in the House of Representatives-- and they're going to evaluate this resolution.

Currently, there is an extreme amount of pressure being put on members, especially the ones who are abusive to their staffs, by anonymous social media accounts like Dear White Staffers on Instagram, who got its first shout-out ever in significant media right here on The Takeaway the last time we were on. It has become a place, a marketplace, really, for the airing of grievances. Staffers who get abused by their bosses, staffers who have been abused by their bosses in the past and moved on are sharing the tea.

As reporters on Capitol Hill, we are eating it up. That is the backdrop for this unionization push, the junior ranks of Congress. The most junior staffers, like the staff assistance in particular that really do the legwork in the building for the members for the committees, are saying that they've had enough.

Melissa: The State of the Union and the state of the unions. Keep us up to date on that, Pablo. Pablo Manríquez is Capitol Hill correspondent for Latino Rebels, and Michael Tomasky is editor for The New Republic. Thank you both for joining us.

Michael: Thank you, Melissa.

Pablo: Thank you very much.

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