Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, and Matt Walsh join me live from the State of the Union live coverage to talk about the upcoming speech by President Donald Trump on January 30th, 2020. We talk about what to expect from the speech, what it means for the country, and what we should be focusing on.
00:14:04.000You know, I thought like, you know, I think people know when they can't make the rent.
00:14:08.000I think people know when they can't get their kids the Christmas presents they want.
00:14:11.000I think they know when they're not buying the same foods they were able to afford before.
00:14:15.000So if people are saying they're unhappy about the economy, they probably are.
00:14:18.000And there's probably no chart you can point to and no statistic you can point to that's going to make them feel better.
00:14:24.000So it wouldn't be a bad thing if Trump could muster up just that little mustard seed of humility.
00:14:29.000And I know don't laugh when I say Trump and humility in the same sentence.
00:14:32.000But, you know, if he could just muster that little bit of humility to say, hey, you know, I know this is not going as fast as I wish it would, but it is going to go faster.
00:14:42.000And this is why, you know, and I think that that's just something that is not in Trump's repertoire.
00:14:47.000And yet I think it would go a long way to just say, you know, it's not about it's not always about Donald Trump.
00:14:53.000It's sometimes about the people and the people do feel bad about the economy.
00:14:58.000It does seem to me that things have picked up that not only has has inflation gone down, but wages have actually gone up and outstripped inflation.
00:15:05.000But apparently people are not feeling that yet.
00:15:14.000You know, for my part, I will say that I think that the thing that has been missing and this is true for both parties, I think the president has done an amazing job of fixing many of the problems left in his lap by Joe Biden.
00:15:26.000I think that wiping out DEI, closing the southern borders, Matt mentions, going after the transgender agenda.
00:15:32.000These are all huge gaping holes in the American psyche that the president has done a great job of working to heal.
00:15:39.000I think that that what people are missing and I think where people are feeling dyspeptic, which is my new favorite word, and also, you know, just feeling uneasy in their stomachs is they don't know what are they supposed to think the country looks like in three years.
00:15:53.000Matt, you've talked a lot about A.I. There are a lot of worries out there about A.I., and I don't think those worries are completely unjustified.
00:15:59.000Again, I tend to be more of a tech optimist.
00:16:01.000Matt would like to take every computer apparently in America and just smash it with a hammer, sort of like office space.
00:16:07.000But I think that Matt's sentiment, even for people who are tech optimists, we're like, well, I think it'll be OK, but I'm not kind of like sure it's going to be OK.
00:16:15.000And and I think there are a lot of people out there who are wondering what does life actually look like three years from now?
00:16:20.000So listing off the accomplishments is one thing, but saying, look, here is what you can look forward to.
00:16:24.000Right. If things go the way that I want them to go, here is what industries are looking like.
00:16:29.000Here's how here's what your job looks like in a couple of years.
00:16:31.000Here's what the international scene looks like in a couple of years.
00:16:34.000Right. Just read the trend lines that I've created and take people to a future and then say, and if you stick with me, we can get to this future together.
00:16:41.000And that's something that actually no president that I can remember has actually ever done.
00:16:45.000I think they virtually all talked about the thing they did in the last year, but none of them has actually talked about what they want the future to look like in sort of real terms that people can wrap their brains around.
00:16:54.000The White House did on their YouTube feed actually put out an A.I.
00:16:58.000And again, I talk about things that I have wonders whether they help.
00:17:03.000They put out an A.I. of President Trump listing his accomplishments.
00:17:07.000It is a little weird and makes me also want to smash computers with a hammer.
00:17:12.000Actually, it is the president. I don't know why there is a senator in the background who apparently is wearing a neck brace.
00:17:18.000I don't know. Teddy Kennedy has been dead for a long time.
00:17:21.000And and so I'm not sure what's going on right there.
00:17:24.000This is a visual of the president apparently taking an oath of office while also listing all of it late.
00:17:30.000So he's I don't know what's going on here, honestly.
00:17:33.000And it does. It makes me very disquieted about A.I.
00:17:36.000Guys, you need to stop showing. We're in the uncanny valley. I can't do this.
00:17:39.000One of the things that really bothers me about the conversation, the American conversation, is we've skipped over that part where people say, like, wow, human beings invented artificial intelligence.
00:17:50.000We don't even do that anymore. We go right to the disaster.
00:18:34.000And I'm certainly not the only one, because when I when I look at it, as I've expressed a million times, what I see is a very high probability that at a minimum in the short to mid term,
00:18:48.000AI is going to come in, already has come in and is going to wipe out millions and millions and millions of jobs.
00:18:54.000So it's not even like I'm predicting it. It's that's already happening.
00:18:57.000The only prediction is that it's going to accelerate.
00:18:59.000And I think that we have every reason to think that it will.
00:19:01.000So that's the that's what is almost certainly going to happen.
00:19:04.000What's the what exactly what's the optimistic vision?
00:19:07.000Why shouldn't we freak out about this?
00:19:09.000That's that's what I'd love for someone to explain.
00:19:11.000I agree. And this is why, again, I think that it would be great if you did.
00:19:14.000I mean, if I were writing the speech for the president, what I'd probably say is your medical care is going to get wildly cheaper and better because of AI, which is just true.
00:19:21.000It's going to get so much cheaper and so much better in the next five years.
00:19:24.000It's going to make your head explode with how with how good it is.
00:19:27.000The possibility of you being able to organize your life in better ways is already here.
00:19:31.000I mean, cloud AI is doing extraordinary stuff in terms of you being able to organize your workflow.
00:19:36.000Small businesses are going to be able to start because the cost of starting a small business is going to be reduced so much you won't have to take out big debts in order to go hire five people to start your business.
00:19:44.000You're going to be able to use AI to do all that sort of work.
00:19:47.000You as a worker are going to become significantly more productive, which means that presumably your hours will be able to be shorter because you're able to be so much more productive with this stuff.
00:19:55.000There's going to be expansion, particularly in industries that where you use your hands.
00:19:59.000There's going to be a lot of expansion in industries where the human body actually matters.
00:20:02.000The places that are going to get hit pretty hard are the white collar industries and particularly kind of lower half of white collar.
00:20:51.000That only happens because of members like you.
00:20:53.000Again, please head on over to dailywireplus.com so we can get you more fabulous investigative material.
00:20:58.000And, of course, sparkling commentary from the likes of those that you are hearing right now.
00:21:03.000Okay, so to take it away from the State of the Union for just a second and to take it toward what I think everybody really has their eye on,
00:21:44.000And so you need to change that perception.
00:21:47.000And, you know, highlighting all the wins is one way to do it.
00:21:53.000I think the messaging on that, it's not all about messaging, but the messaging on that obviously has not been clear enough.
00:21:59.000I mean, if we can agree that things are, by almost every metric, things actually are not worse now than they were under Biden, if we can agree on that, and yet there's this perception that it is, then it's hard for me to see that as anything but a messaging failure.
00:22:17.000And so I think that's going to be the key, not just in the State of Union, but going forward into the midterm elections is a kind of clear, coherent, unified message addressing that.
00:22:29.000Yeah, I think one of the things, Drew, and I want to get your take on this, were it to be I advising the administration, the thing I've been saying forever, all Americans want is normalcy.
00:22:43.000And so if you are able for five seconds to deploy people in your administration who are effective at making things be quiet and normal, this means Tom Homan and not, for example, Kristi Noem at DHS.
00:22:53.000This means, for example, Scott Besant at Treasury and not Howard Lutnik over at Commerce.
00:22:57.000It means that if you deploy people who are pros, Marco Rubio in the State Department, who's doing a fabulous job.
00:23:03.000If you deploy the pros and you tell the American people, listen, we're taking mainstream normie positions that 65%, 70% of the American public agrees with, like deport criminal illegal immigrants.
00:23:14.000And Democrats are out there, unified, ice out.
00:23:17.000That to me has always been the Trump pitch.
00:23:19.000And the problem for, I think, President Trump has always been that the actual policy that he effectuates is at war with his rhetoric because the policy is always this kind of 65% policy.
00:23:29.000And he has a really good finger on the pulse of what that feels like, which is why he shifts and he moves when he feels like he doesn't have the pulse.
00:23:35.000But his rhetoric is always sort of the most extreme and inane version of that thing.
00:23:40.000And I think that's at a certain point, the American people are tired.
00:23:43.000I think that's what you're getting right now.
00:23:44.000I think the American people are extremely tired.
00:23:46.000We are one year into the Trump administration, too.
00:23:49.000And it feels like we are all Drew's age.
00:23:59.000But no, you know, I always ask myself, you know, whenever I watch the Democrats, when the Democrats were in power, when Joe Biden, the worst president in my lifetime, which, as you say, goes back infinitely.
00:24:08.000You know, when he was in power, I kept seeing things like this.
00:24:11.000They say, let's cut little boys' testicles off and turn them into little girls.
00:24:16.000Let's, you know, let's hire people according to the color of their skin.
00:24:19.000Let's make, you know, women into men and men into women and have them play women's sports.
00:24:24.000And then they come out, find out they were unpopular, and they say, it must be our messaging.
00:24:28.000You go, no, no, it's not your messaging.
00:24:31.000And in the same way, I think with Donald Trump, there is, you know, a style and substance difference that is really unnerving to people and plays into the prejudices of the media.
00:24:41.000So, I mean, Trump says things that he shouldn't say, you know, and I'm sorry, I keep saying this on my show all the time because it's so old fashioned and yet so true.
00:24:51.000You know, good manners, you can get very far with good manners and determination just as far, if not further, than you can get with determination and bad manners.
00:25:00.000And so, as always, with all of us, you know, Trump's flaws and his strengths are the same.
00:25:05.000And one of his great strengths is the fact that he's willing to break the rules.
00:25:09.000He's willing to go into be the bull in the China shop.
00:25:11.000He's willing to say, oh, yeah, we've done this this way for 50 years.
00:25:37.000So that same kind of unbridled, you know, feeling that he brings to his substance, which is great.
00:25:43.000He brings to his style, which is not so great.
00:25:45.000I think this is where, you know, again, the president is at his best where he can really deploy that is when he's got his book of enemies open.
00:25:51.000And he because he is he is absolutely the most effective destroyer in modern American history.
00:25:57.000He what I've always said about the president is that he has the art of politics is making it very hard to vote for your opponents and easy to vote for you.
00:26:03.000And he's always been amazing at the former.
00:26:05.000And, you know, kind of mixed bag at the latter.
00:26:08.000He's great at making it hard to vote for Democrats.
00:26:10.000And so the question, you know, Matt, is who?
00:26:13.000Again, the president is looking for a target.
00:26:16.000What is the target? Who is the target?
00:26:18.000Who is the target? How how does he singularly polarize around a Democratic target?
00:26:21.000Who is the who's the target rich environment that he should be going after right now?
00:26:25.000I don't know. I mean, I think they all kind of are the the the the good thing that we have.
00:26:29.000And we're talking about returning. Americans want normal.
00:26:31.000We want a sense of normalcy. I think that's true.
00:26:33.000And it brings to mind Gavin Newsom, who just I think yesterday was on CNN saying that, well, you know, the Democrats need to be a little bit more culturally normal.
00:26:42.000So he's doing his whole his whole moderate stick, you know, which, of course, is a stick.
00:26:47.000He mentions pronouns. So he said, maybe we won't be so focused on the pronouns.
00:26:51.000Very boldly coming out against the pronoun thing four years after that peaked anyway.
00:26:55.000But the advantage that that Trump has and Republicans have is that Democrats actually can't do that.
00:27:03.000Like, at least in theory, Republicans can be normal.
00:27:07.000Many times a lot of weird stuff happens among Republicans, but we they can be normal.
00:27:12.000That is a possible thing. With Democrats, it's not even possible.
00:27:14.000It's like inherently impossible because it's they're progressive.
00:27:18.000And so what that means and they would even admit this if you framed it in a more positive way.
00:27:23.000But it means that you're constant. It's a it's a constant state of transformation all the time.
00:27:27.000So there's always a new normal, you know, and so if there's always a new normal, it means that there's never a normal at all.
00:27:33.000And so Democrats are just not just not capable of it.
00:27:36.000I mean, they literally march under a banner that says dismantle.
00:27:39.000You know, that's that's that they they they are the party.
00:27:42.000They are the side that uses a word like dismantle in a positive way.
00:30:40.000So, Matt, I do want your rant on how much Canada sucks, because that was pretty great.
00:30:44.000I mean, the United States, if you could not feel a surge of pride at us defeating our communist northern neighbors who murder the disabled, then I'm not sure what exactly we're doing here.
00:30:54.000Yeah, and it was the first hockey game that I've watched all the way through, and it was actually pretty exciting, but most exciting just to watch Canada get vanquished.
00:31:08.000And what makes it so hilarious, of course, as many people have pointed out, is that hockey is the only thing they know how to do.
00:31:25.000We barely even know it exists, and then we just kind of wander over there.
00:31:28.000We're like, yeah, fine, we'll take the gold in that.
00:31:30.000So my whole pitch was that I think we should just do this now, and I think our next project should be assemble the greatest cricket team that the world has ever seen, and then go and dominate in cricket.
00:31:41.000And I want a bunch of drunk Americans going to the Cricket World Series or whatever it's called, tailgating outside, being obnoxious, bragging.
00:31:48.000We don't even know how the game is played or anything about it, and that's what I think we should do.
00:31:54.000And I will also say, just on the Canada point, that I'm not totally making the argument that we absolutely should invade Canada and depose its regime.
00:32:07.000But I am saying that given that America has done this, and we just did it in Venezuela, many of the arguments that have applied and have justified those actions, if you favored them, really do apply to Canada.
00:32:22.000It's not a crazy thing to talk about, and as you mentioned, Ben, I mean, they are in the middle of a campaign of eugenics.
00:32:28.000They are executing, you know, not terminally ill people, but thousands of people who are, you know, just chronically ill, which is to say they're sick, but they're not going to die of the sickness.
00:32:38.000And that's just what they're burning down churches, not arresting anybody for it, you know, partial birth abortion.
00:32:43.000I mean, it's really just a parade of atrocities in Canada.
00:32:46.000And so, I don't know, it's something we should talk about.
00:32:48.000Maybe Trump will speculate about it in the State of the Union.
00:32:53.000Well, also, by the way, we should mention here, before Walsh ducks out and gets his nighty-night sleep,
00:32:57.000that he has a new episode of Real History that is out right now about the history, the real history of Native Americans, about American Indians.
00:33:05.000That episode is episode two in his wildly popular Real History series.
00:33:09.000Matt, maybe you want to give people a quick rundown.
00:33:10.000By the way, you can only get that if you subscribe, because if you don't give us money, then we can't do things at this company, people.
00:33:16.000So, if you want to see that and also give us money, then you should definitely subscribe to see Matt's Real History.
00:33:20.000Matt, give a little bit of a pitch to episode two for yourself.
00:33:24.000This was a fun one to do, and it's a topic that's really interested me for a long time.
00:33:30.000I've been on this soapbox about the Native Americans for a long time.
00:33:35.000It's really important because this is, we heard it from Billie Eilish at the Grammys, and this is the idea that America is built on stolen land.
00:33:46.000And that idea, as silly as it is, has been very persuasive to a lot of people.
00:33:50.000It's been a justification for some of the worst policies that we've ever seen and some of the worst tyranny in this country and in places like Canada as well.
00:33:59.000Well, so, part of what we're doing in this episode is kind of inspecting that claim.
00:35:24.000Because, you know, then if we do things, people will blame us for them.
00:35:26.000So I think that that's, you know, that John Roberts deserves to show up in his robes and look like a justice from the old America where we had a Congress.
00:35:44.000I'm running for pyrotechnics at this point.
00:35:47.000Speaking of lack of pyrotechnics, if there's one place more boring than the inside of the State of the Union, it's outside the State of the Union where Brecca is on the mall watching a bunch of elderly Democrats mill around uselessly.
00:35:57.000So, Brecca, what is happening out there?
00:36:02.000It is a small crowd, still not much of an update.
00:36:07.000We just had Chris Van Hollen talk to people.
00:36:10.000He talked about Minneapolis and how people need to be like the protesters in Minneapolis and, you know, rise ahead into the event, whatever.
00:36:18.000And then other update, we just had a national scientist.
00:36:50.000We got to get the guy who really who really going to sell this thing.
00:36:53.000Let's get Chris Van Hollen most recently seen like a schmuck down in El Salvador hanging out with Camaro Abrego Garcia, the guy who was alleged to have beaten his wife.
00:37:02.000Well, meanwhile, the the first family has arrived in the box.
00:37:06.000Barron Trump, whose head stretches all the way to the top of the Capitol dome, is is is standing there.
00:37:11.000Melania has entered the president's other children are there as well.
00:39:03.000That is the next Matt Walsh documentary.
00:39:05.000And it was unfair because they unleashed the same amount of hate against her that they unleashed against you, and she was just showing off her clothes.
00:39:49.000A wild cast of luminaries will be joining us post the State of the Union after the president speaks, which may or may not end anytime in the future.
00:39:59.000So we still have people who are entering the chamber.
00:47:50.000Democrats trying to come back at the president with, well, you know, just like Joe, but you're just like Joe Biden.
00:47:55.000And it was like, no, you know what he's not like is Joe Biden, who was legitimately a barely ambulatory corpse by the time he left the office.
00:48:04.000So Isabel Brown is there tonight as well.
00:48:07.000So half the Daily Wire team or more is there.
00:48:10.000He kind of walked right by John Roberts and right over to Brett Kavanaugh, which, which is not exactly surprising.
00:48:15.000He kind of ignored Amy Coney Barrett right there.
00:48:17.000He's he's shaking the hands of the Supreme Court justices.
00:48:20.000He likes playing duck, duck goose with the Supreme Court justices, basically.
00:48:24.000And now he is greeting the general, the the chiefs of staff or the armed forces of the military and making his way up onto the podium.
00:48:33.000Democrats are standing there not clapping and see Elizabeth Warren in the background as as as non moving as the statue we have of her in our studios.
00:48:41.000And and the president is making his way up to the podium right now is is getting a big ovation from the Republican side of the aisle.
00:48:48.000Of course, J.D. Vance behind him, the vice president, Speaker of the House behind him as well.
00:48:56.000The president is approaching the microphone is in a wave to the room a little bit.
00:49:00.000I assume that in a couple of moments he will begin to speak everyone on the Republican side of the aisle on their feet up to and including the rafters.
00:49:07.000The Trump family, which of course is very large, is up in the rafters cheering.
00:49:11.000You can see there there's a tremendous enthusiasm for Republican side of the aisle.
00:49:15.000The president pointing to members of the crowd clapping as he as he prepares to walk forward to the speech.
00:49:21.000Again, one of the benefits of having Mike Johnson behind the president is that he won't be ripping up the president's speech in the immediate aftermath of the State of the Union address.
00:49:29.000The president turning to the vice president as well as the speaker in just a moment, he will be approaching the microphone to begin speaking.
00:49:38.000In just a moment, we're going to go live to the president of the United States in the room.
00:49:46.000Pretty long ovation here for the president.
00:49:48.000It's good. It's good color commentary, Ben.
00:49:53.000You know, like, you know, I got a lot of respect.
00:49:55.000I have more respect now for the cable news people that like they could just kind of wing it and say nothing, wing it, wing it over these moments.
00:55:26.000To make this investment in our children's future, go to trumpaccounts.gov.
00:55:31.000Under my just-enacted most-favored-nation agreements, Americans, who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs,
00:55:44.000will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs.
00:57:01.000And in actuality, the number is much higher than that.
00:57:05.000And California, Massachusetts, Maine, and many other states are even worse.
00:57:10.000This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation.
00:57:15.000And we are working on it like you wouldn't believe.
00:57:17.000So tonight, although started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President J.D. Vance.
00:57:28.000The only thing standing between Americans and a wide open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress.
00:58:07.000That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens.
00:58:21.000In many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country.
00:58:25.000They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country.
00:58:30.000And you should be ashamed of yourself.
00:58:36.000And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military or travel.
00:59:15.000And here is one more opportunity to show common sense in government.
00:59:21.000In the gallery tonight are Sage Blair and her mother, Michelle.
00:59:27.000In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents.
01:00:15.000In Charlie's memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that the
01:00:18.000President of the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States.
01:00:21.000And we must totally reject political violence of any kind.
01:00:22.000And we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God.
01:00:23.000And we must totally reject political violence of any kind.
01:00:25.000Last summer, 23-year-old Irina, who was the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States and the United States, the United States and the United States and the United States.
01:00:32.000In Charlie's memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God.
01:00:33.000And we must totally reject political violence of any kind.
01:00:50.000Last summer, 23-year-old Irina was riding home on the train when a deranged monster who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body.
01:01:10.000No one will ever forget there were people on that train.
01:01:15.000No one will ever forget the expression of terror on Irina's face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life.
01:02:04.000As president, I will make peace wherever I can.
01:02:10.000But I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must.
01:02:16.000That's why, in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons program with an attack on Iranian soil known as Operation Midnight Hammer.
01:02:30.000After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, and in particular nuclear weapons.
01:02:43.000Yet they continue starting it all over.
01:02:46.000We wiped it out, and they want to start all over again.
01:02:49.000For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico — really large parts of Mexico — have been controlled by murderous drug cartels.
01:03:02.000That's why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
01:03:12.000We've also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all — you saw that yesterday.
01:03:22.000The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended.
01:03:26.000It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot.
01:03:36.000And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before.
01:03:43.000Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
01:03:50.000...punctuated by some pretty horrific Democratic behavior, which I think is going to be the story of the night.
01:03:55.000The president was obviously in fine federal. He was in a very good mood throughout.
01:03:59.000There were some pretty great call-outs in the audience, a lot of call-outs in the audience.
01:04:03.000He is — last year, he did a thing where somebody was essentially made an honorary member of the Secret Service in the audience.
01:04:10.000He did that a couple of times. This time, somebody was given the Congressional Medal of Honor.
01:04:14.000Somebody who was announced was going to receive the Presidential Medal of Honor.
01:04:18.000But again, I think the big headline coming out of this, aside from the length of the speech, which ran almost two hours —
01:04:24.000it ran approximately an hour and 48 minutes for those who are in the Calci markets.
01:04:27.000I believe that is the official time. We'll find out shortly.
01:04:30.000With that said, the big thing to me, Drew — and we're here with Andrew Klavan and Mary Margaret Olehan —
01:04:36.000the big thing to me, Drew, was the behavior of the Democrats, which you predicted it.
01:04:41.000We all sort of thought it was going to happen. Uniquely bad tonight.
01:04:44.000Pretty horrific all the way through. We saw particularly Democrats sitting on their hands at odd moments.
01:04:50.000The president specifically called it out at one moment where he said,
01:04:54.000I basically cannot believe that you are sitting for this.
01:04:57.000When he said, why are you — basically, we stand for Americans. We work for Americans.
01:05:02.000We don't work for illegal immigrants. And Democrats sat on their hands.
01:05:05.000And I think he almost couldn't believe that they were going to fall for this trick.
01:07:05.000Well, Mary Margaret O'Han, our White House reporter, is here with us.
01:07:08.000So, Mary Margaret, you're in the room for what was sort of the mood?
01:07:11.000Obviously, when you have these sorts of events, you have the Republicans on one side of the aisle, the Democrats on the other side of the aisle.
01:07:17.000The big game seems to be now trying to figure out when Democrats stand, when they don't stand.
01:07:22.000Were there any moments where they actually stood in unity or was it pretty much on their hands the entire time?
01:07:26.000No, I wouldn't say there were any moments when everyone stood in unity.
01:07:31.000I think, you know, many of them stood for Charlie Kirk, thankfully.
01:07:35.000And there was a chance of Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
01:08:38.000He knows that he needs to spend a lot of time reaching American voters, letting them know what his agenda is.
01:08:45.000And to me, a lot of this was showing American voters, don't forget that the Democrats are not on your side.
01:08:51.000Look at all these different examples of things that they don't stand with you with.
01:08:55.000Don't forget that they still support radical gender ideology.
01:08:58.000Don't forget that they don't want to protect your young women on the metro.
01:09:02.000They don't care about your young women as they're taking metro rides and if they're brutally killed by violent criminals.
01:09:07.000And so all of these messages are going to make for fantastic talking points going forward.
01:09:12.000They're going to make for fantastic stories going forward.
01:09:15.000And, you know, especially when it came to gender ideology.
01:09:18.000I found this really interesting because you all know that I spent a lot of time covering this before I became the White House correspondent.
01:09:24.000He harpened on that one specific word, crazy.
01:09:31.000And that is one of the messages of his 2024 campaign that I think resonated so deeply with American voters who are so tired of hearing about radical gender ideology and being told that it was normal and not insane.
01:09:43.000And so he's hearkening back to those words and reminding the public, no, it's not okay for a little girl to be taken away from her parents by the state and transitioned.
01:09:51.000And he actually suggested he might do something about that as well, which I have a lot of sources telling me they're trying to get him to sign an executive order on that.
01:09:58.000So I was really interested in that as well.
01:10:01.000And one of the things that I think was pretty astonishing about the speech is how little actual policy there was in it.
01:10:06.000So he mentioned some of the policies that, of course, he has promoted.
01:10:10.000As you say, Mary Margaret, he moved really fast through that.
01:10:12.000So he would mention a policy that he'd done and then he'd move pretty quickly into story time.
01:10:17.000And he would pick somebody out of the audience and explain how the policy had personally impacted somebody in the audience rather than going into the details of the policy, which I thought was actually quite smart because the overall sort of tenor of the speech was less about here are the things that I'm doing that you may or may not agree with or understand.
01:10:33.000And more about I actually care about people and these people over here don't care about people and them not clapping for the people became, I thought, his chief weapon tonight.
01:10:42.000I thought he used it to great effect. For those who missed it, obviously, the most evocative moment was the moment when the president got into a war of wars with Ilhan Omar.
01:10:50.000He was speaking about fraud in Somali communities in Minnesota. She started screaming back at him, saying that he should be ashamed of himself.
01:10:57.000She did not have the microphone. And that is a major disadvantage when you are talking about a speech like this one.
01:11:03.000Just for those of us who are watching it on TV and are not in the room, I remember last year when I was in the room, you could hear pretty clearly what Democrats were shouting.
01:11:09.000But if you're watching it on TV through a screen, you can't hear at all what the Democrats are shouting. You can only hear what Trump is saying back to them.
01:11:15.000And so what you ended up with was something that sounded like this.
01:11:18.000Do we have the clip of the president going at it with Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib?
01:11:22.000The. Sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who blocked the removal of criminal aliens.
01:11:35.000In many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country. They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country.
01:11:44.000And you should be ashamed of yourself.
01:11:46.000Now, I will say that one of the shots that was excluded from that clip was a shot that appeared to be into the crowd, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar at that point.
01:12:13.180And it's pretty obvious from just some basic lip reading that while people were chanting USA, Rashida Tlaib was mouthing KKK, which is pretty astonishing stuff.
01:12:23.520And if indeed that is what she was mouthing, then that is going to be a massive headline tonight and tomorrow as well.
01:12:30.180It should be. She, of course, is a radical. She stood with terror supporters her entire career in the Congress.
01:12:36.100Same thing is true of Ilhan Omar. If they want to make that the face of the Democratic Party, man, you are welcome to it.
01:12:41.640What a massive boo-boo for the Democratic Party.
01:12:45.760Mary Margaret, while we have you, I want to ask you about the sort of most fun moment of the night, which obviously was the U.S. men's hockey team coming in, which was a kick.
01:12:55.560I mean, I love that we basically got the president as sportscaster, which was really fun.
01:12:59.980He basically narrated the game and talked about the various numbers of saves and all the rest of it.
01:13:04.600What was the mood in the room like when they came in?
01:13:10.980And they came in right in between all of the press.
01:13:13.580So, you know, the Capitol Hill press are sitting all together in their press seats, and they're looking a little dour and not super into the whole evening.
01:13:21.580And this U.S. men's hockey team just came down in between them.
01:13:25.020There's a really funny shot on Twitter that people should check out where there's a reporter who has a mask on, and he's kind of slumped over his computer and looking really dejected.
01:13:32.900And then right next to him, these hockey players are just beaming, absolutely full of life, delighted to be there.
01:13:51.060He loves these guys genuinely, as we know from the video of him interacting with them as they were in the locker room celebrating their win.
01:13:57.580And I heard that these guys were hanging out in a side room with pizza and beer, which I think is a fun way to help them enjoy the State of the Union without being too locked in while they're still celebrating.
01:14:08.580And, you know, this is just a very fun part of this evening and I think also lends itself to the very patriotic element of this State of the Union.
01:14:17.780You know, we're celebrating American excellence.
01:14:20.760We're celebrating, for example, this service member who was part of the raid on Maduro.
01:14:25.420I loved the story that the president told about him, how his wife dipped his dog tags in holy water before he left because she knew he was going on some dangerous mission.
01:14:35.660And now he was here and honored in front of the whole world for his heroism in that mission.
01:14:41.400So just so many examples like this of Americans being honored and the president celebrating how truly amazing our country is.
01:14:49.780And it gives me chills just talking about it.
01:14:51.660It's just we've been experiencing patriotism unlike anything we've seen in in many years.
01:14:57.340And it's a lot of fun to be a part of it.
01:15:00.460Now, Drew, obviously, you mentioned earlier the these people are crazy clip.
01:15:07.840For those who missed it, this was the moment when the president basically lost it at the Democrats for failing to recognize that, hey, maybe, you know,
01:15:15.660treating minor girls as though they are boys is a crazy thing to do.
01:15:19.420Here's what that sounded like when the president went off.
01:15:22.660When he stands up, these people are crazy.
01:15:52.240You know, this is a really, a really interesting question about this.
01:15:55.160We always talk about the State of the Union, and we always try to be honest about the fact that it usually doesn't move the needle very much.
01:16:01.480But it can change the dialogue sometimes.
01:16:04.020And one of the things that's been shocking to me, as Trump's polls have not been very good, as people have said, unbelievably, that they're still as bad.
01:16:12.900They're worse off than they were a year ago.
01:16:15.480One of the things that will be interesting to see, if maybe he did remind people of what it was like under Joe Biden,
01:16:21.440and why they voted him back into office, and what it would be like to have him back.
01:16:25.500I mean, how can anybody think, you know, Trump is so bad, this guy is so bad,
01:16:29.780that we have to go back to children being butchered, to people being hired according to race,
01:16:36.220to this absolute unrelenting hatred of the country as an entity.
01:16:40.580I just, it's hard for me to see how people can really think that.
01:24:44.820And the Democrats refused to really acknowledge it.
01:24:48.960President Trump then gives them the final out.
01:24:51.300Even moving past Charlie to the message we should all take away from Charlie's assassination by a leftist.
01:24:58.200Trump says, we're one nation under God, and we should reject political violence of all kinds.
01:25:03.900And many Democrats refused to stand up for that.
01:25:07.540Chilling a reminder that they want to kill us.
01:25:11.560You know, I'm not saying all of them want to kill us.
01:25:13.300But a surprising number of them want to kill us, overtly support political violence in the Chamber of Commerce at the State of the Union address.
01:25:26.160A really chilling political malpractice by the Democrats.
01:25:28.980And so I understand why Hakeem Jeffries early on said, hey, Dems, just chill out.
01:25:34.000Or, you know what, maybe don't show up at all.
01:25:35.680Just please don't pull your usual shenanigans.
01:25:41.140Well, you know, we do have that clip of the president basically baiting them where he says America should be for defending Americans and the Democrats take the bait.
01:25:50.900Honestly, like the president is a master of this game.
01:25:54.260He knows the game better than anyone else in it.
01:25:56.720He has changed the game fundamentally in just the time that he's been president because this sort of stuff never used to happen.
01:26:01.720I'm old enough to remember when it was a national scandal when Joe Wilson, a congressman from South Carolina, once yelled, you lie, at President Obama, who was in fact lying.
01:26:09.660And now this has become the way that politics is done.
01:26:13.020And the president has taken advantage of that to full effect.
01:26:14.840Here's the president saying, hey, guys, maybe you should stand up if you think that, you know, America is for the American people.
01:26:21.980If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support.
01:26:26.680The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.
01:26:34.020So where do you think that, you know, America is to protect American citizens.
01:27:19.500You know, right now Democrats are running about five points ahead in the generic congressional ballot.
01:27:24.380The real question about every State of the Union address, as we were discussing beforehand, is whether it really is going to reset the table.
01:27:30.380Will it be a sort of inflection point or will it just be a thing that happened?
01:27:33.480And a week from now we'll be back to sort of business as usual.
01:27:47.620And I'm not saying that this will save the midterms for the Republicans or anything, but it certainly reset the message in exactly the way the president had to do it.
01:27:56.680We were all making our predictions before the State of the Union.
01:27:59.640And I got a bunch of the particulars wrong, you know, how long it would be or who he'd call out or whatever.
01:28:03.900But the one part that I got right wasn't even a prediction of what would happen so much as something I was really hoping would happen, which is that President Trump would say, look, Americans, we're making you safer.
01:28:15.900We're making this country normal again.
01:28:18.140These people, those people over there are crazy.
01:28:21.240That was an actual line from the speech.
01:28:23.160And it completely landed because the Dems refused to back down from transing the kids.
01:28:28.020I mean, it was, you know, the extreme of their ideology.
01:28:30.240What he had to do was say, look, Americans, I understand that you feel things are a little precarious right now, whether we're talking about migration, whether we're talking about the economy.
01:28:39.760This is why I think some of the economic favorability numbers are low, even though a lot of the actual nuts and bolts of the economy are pretty good.
01:29:21.480And two, they need to be able to carry that through the miasma of misinformation and Democrat ops through November.
01:29:30.880I mean, obviously, I think that it is true that Republicans must stay on message.
01:29:36.160It will definitely help if we don't have, you know, to deal with questions about whether Erica Kirk killed her husband or not.
01:29:42.460That seems to be a gigantic fail that is happening in the midst of the Republican online space.
01:29:48.620That seems like a very stupid thing for people to follow a rabbit hole on.
01:29:52.700And a lot of the infighting that's been happening around conspiracy theories surrounding the president.
01:29:56.080If you would like to see the president not impeached after the Democrats win back Congress, then now would be a really good time to actually look at all the things that he has done over the course of the last year to fix many of the problems left by Joe Biden.
01:30:07.760Mary Margaret, what is actually on the schedule for the president in the coming days and the coming weeks?
01:30:13.100Because very often you'll see after the State of the Union that there's sort of a tour that happens where the president goes around and tries to retell some of the bigger messages that he has been pushing.
01:30:51.980So that, you know, all these critics who are saying he's too focused on foreign policy won't be able to say, I told you so, when the midterms come and go, if the president doesn't do so well, if his candidates don't do so well.
01:31:04.820But all of these topics that we heard him talking about tonight, going into the future, these are things that he's going to continue talking about.
01:31:11.680We were able to pretty accurately assess what he'd be talking about tonight based on what the White House has been harping on.
01:31:17.040They've been really consistent in what they're focused on, what they're talking about is the economy, it's immigration, it's keeping our city safe, it's this foreign policy ending all these wars.
01:31:26.920They've been very consistent and focused on these issues, and the president has been hammering this home.
01:31:31.080So I think when you head into the midterms, unlike what we're hearing from legacy media, that Americans only care about affordability, that this is all they want to hear about from the president, there's a lot of different topics that we've been hearing the president talk about.
01:31:44.180And like I was saying earlier, this sense of patriotism and pride in our country, I don't think that's lost on the public.
01:31:50.720I don't think that the USA men's hockey team winning this victory, I don't know that that's just a victory on the, I was going to say the hockey field, I don't know how to talk about sports, the hockey rink.
01:32:02.100I think it's bigger than that, and we all see that.
01:32:05.000It's this sense that this is bigger than sports, this is bigger than these hockey players, this is American pride returning to our country.
01:32:12.340And so these are all things that are playing into the situation going forward, and the president can talk about them all.
01:32:18.960But now he also can talk about these Democrats not standing for these very important issues.
01:32:24.180And when Ilhan Omar goes home tonight and she gets all excited to have her team post that clip on Instagram of her just sitting there for all these issues, that's her big win.
01:32:33.440That's the Democrats' big win tonight.
01:32:35.080And they clearly don't understand the massively tragic optics of these things.
01:32:40.060So for Trump and his team, I think they're going to go to bed feeling pretty good about themselves tonight.
01:32:45.080And they'll have a lot to talk about on the road on these affordability campaign stops.
01:32:48.980And I don't think it will be just affordability that will be the topic of conversation.
01:32:54.520Well, Mary Margaret, I know that you need to go to sleep because you need to get up early in the morning and then go cover the rest of this over at the White House.
01:33:02.500And Isabel is going to be joining us in just a moment.
01:33:05.320I know that she was at the State of the Union as well.
01:33:07.680So, Michael, you know, I'm going to ask you some more questions because Drew and I had to suffer for like several hours in your absence.
01:33:14.840You should have heard me tap dancing in order to just get to the president getting to the microphone.
01:33:20.460It was an astonishing feat of leisure to main, I must say myself.
01:33:23.420But, you know, I think that the big question that's always the takeaway from all of this is also did the president sort of reunify the party?
01:33:31.940This has always been sort of a problem in the aftermath of a second-term victory.
01:33:37.300Presidents have a tough time holding their coalition together.
01:33:40.220And obviously you're seeing a lot of fracturing inside the coalition right now.
01:33:44.720I think that, you know, people blame different folks for that fracture.
01:33:48.240But the president is the person who, in the end, is the leader of the coalition.
01:33:51.920And the agenda that he spelled out is a pretty widely agreed-upon agenda inside the Republican Party.
01:33:57.420Do you think that he's going to get some of the reluctant Trumpers sort of back on board, given his focus on his victories?
01:34:08.960And it's remarkable because Trump has been called a divisive figure for the last decade, or really more than a decade, but certainly a decade in politics.
01:34:17.020And so the fact that this man is now probably the most unifying figure on the right is really impressive.
01:34:25.520I mean, we saw this in his re-election, in that he was re-elected this time with the popular vote.
01:34:30.340And then so much focus has been paid to conspiracy theories and division on infighting on the right and, you know, really factions of the right splintering off into ways that are almost unrecognizable.
01:34:42.760And what I think is quite charming about that, actually, is we seem to look to the activists and the pundits and the chattering class for unity, but they really have no incentive to unify or to even accomplish very much at all in politics.
01:34:58.060And so where pundits and podcasters have been irresponsible with their rhetoric, Mr. Trump, who everyone tells us is the most irresponsible orator of our time, Trump is actually the one who's being responsible here and who is reaching out.
01:35:12.680I think he's really been able to bring together a broad coalition of people.
01:35:16.360And even the way he spoke tonight about foreign policy, you know, there were people who veer a little more on the isolation side, a little more skeptical of intervention, who were up there standing for strength and the four-door strikes in Iran.
01:35:29.580And there were people who were, you know, there were people who were a little skeptical of, you know, the tariffs, who were right up there cheering with President Trump when he was casting a little bit of shade at the Supreme Court, but not too much shade at the Supreme Court, because he knows he's going to need the Supreme Court in the future.
01:35:46.800So, you know, Drew loves to talk about how Trump learns things over time, and he obviously does.
01:35:53.160And one of the things he's learned is to be nuanced with his words, and I think that showed tonight.
01:35:59.580Well, I want to welcome in Isabel Brown, and then we can get to Andrew, who has been sitting there, as always, awaiting death.
01:36:07.840But before we do that, Isabel, who is significantly more sprightly than any of us right now.
01:36:36.520The energy here is so palpable, and I think we've touched on a lot of the negativity surrounding the speech.
01:36:43.080Certainly, there were a lot of shocking moments sitting in the gallery.
01:36:46.360I was across the room, it seems, from where Michael was sitting this evening, but closer to the president's guests and looking across the room at most of the Democrat colleagues from the Republican side,
01:36:55.400who refused to stand up and cheer for America, to call for an end to political violence,
01:37:00.620to offer condolences to widows and grieving mothers whose children had been killed by radical extremists and repeat offenders.
01:37:07.700But you also saw a bit of an American comeback tonight, and I don't want the media to forget that,
01:37:13.400that we saw a resounding standing ovation from virtually every single individual clapping and cheering and singing for multiple minutes on end
01:37:22.660when the USA hockey team walked in to show us their Olympic gold medals and chanting USA across party lines.
01:37:29.100That's something that would have been impossible about 12 months ago, and yet here we are celebrating American exceptionalism again without being called racist for it.
01:37:37.360So I think there's a lot to glean from some of the negativity, certainly,
01:37:41.060but there's a lot to look forward to and so much optimism to have to know that in many ways our country is back.
01:37:48.920So, Michael, you know, well, actually, you know, I've barred Drew from this conversation for too long,
01:37:53.680and I can see that he really, really wants to talk more about the State of the Union.
01:37:57.560I actually do want to say something, though, about what Isabel said and what Noel said before.
01:38:02.700I think the great triumph of the speech was a negative triumph.
01:38:05.400I think that he did bring it back into the center of our attention how crazy and bad the Democrats are and will be again if they get back in office.
01:38:14.680He made them act it out. It was brilliant theater. It was great stuff.
01:38:19.140The positive message is going to be harder because the positive message means that people have to feel it in their pocketbooks
01:38:24.840because they're never, ever going to see it in the mainstream press.
01:38:28.160The press has practiced inducing amnesia.
01:38:31.560They don't – the minute Trump solves a problem, it vanishes from the news.
01:38:35.240The minute the border is closed, nobody talks about the border anymore.
01:38:37.860They just always leap in to the next big problem.
01:38:40.720Oh, isn't the way people are being deported terrible?
01:38:43.600And that's been the trick that they've used, and it's been pretty effective.
01:38:46.020But I think at some point, at some point, people are going to stop and take a breath and say,
01:38:51.140are things really worse, and do I want these people back?
01:38:54.460He set up the negative really well tonight.
01:38:57.040I don't think any words are going to accomplish the positive message that he wants to put forward.
01:39:01.780I think that's going to have to happen over time.
01:39:03.420I think he should be hammering away at it.
01:39:05.020He should be telling people what he's done, but people are going to have to feel it in their pocketbooks before it's real.
01:39:09.500I myself – it was months ago, but I myself was driving along and suddenly noticed that gas prices had plummeted.
01:39:17.620I hadn't read anything about it in the paper.