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- [00:00]
Nathaniel Rakic
Do we agree that America is the hottest country? I feel like Brazil would have something to say about that.
- [00:08]
Mary Radcliffe
It's all the Ozempic.
- [00:10]
Galen Druke
Well, do you know how much Ozempic costs on Trump rx, I went, like many Americans, at his direction. I went to trumprx.gov ozempic$199 a month.
- [00:21]
Nathaniel Rakic
Is that good? That seems exp.
- [00:34]
Galen Druke
Hello, and welcome to this late night reaction edition of the GD Politics podcast, State of the Union edition. I'm Galen Druke and I am joined this evening with friends of the podcast Mary Radcliffe and Nathaniel Rakic. Mary, Nathaniel, welcome to the podcast.
- [00:50]
Nathaniel Rakic
Welcome, Galen. You know, happy anniversary.
- [00:53]
Galen Druke
Yeah, yeah, Happy anniversary. Okay, so we just finished watching the State of the Union address and the Democratic rebuttal, and I felt like it was an important thing for us to do together because not exactly one year ago tonight, but one year ago, the night of the State of the Union address is when we technically have union shit.
- [01:13]
Nathaniel Rakic
Joint address.
- [01:14]
Galen Druke
Joint address. Yeah. Okay, we get. It was when we found out that FiveThirtyEight was being shuttered by ABC News in a leak to the Wall Street Journal. It literally got published while Trump was speaking during his fake State of the Union address. And the three of us all then had to record a podcast together that ended up being the last episode ever recorded of the FiveThirtyEight politics podcast, during which we made oblique references to the fact that it seemed like FiveThirtyEight was being shut down, but we ultimately hadn't been told by our bosses, so really couldn't be explicit about it. Although we all pretty much saw the writing on the wall. So we are back.
- [02:00]
Nathaniel Rakic
Or the Wall Street Journal.
- [02:01]
Galen Druke
Or the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, good one. So we are back a year later to prove that life goes on. It feels like it's been five, but it's only been one year. A lot has happened. Honestly, just that speech itself feels like five years. Oh, my gosh. So we're here to mark. We're here to mark an anniversary. We're here to mark a record broken. It was the longest State of the Union address in American history. Is that right, Nathaniel?
- [02:30]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yes. At an hour and 48 minutes. But it wasn't two hours, which is what Trump and his team had been kind of teasing beforehand. And so I think they really succeeded in, like, lowering people's expectations for the night, because people were like, wow, it wasn't two hours, guys. It was still the longest State of the Union address in history. Like, that was a frigging long speech.
- [02:48]
Mary Radcliffe
Breaking his own record set last year at the fake State of the Union. Right.
- [02:54]
Galen Druke
And there was another record broken tonight. Right, Mary, you were tracking the number of shout outs to people in the audience.
- [03:03]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah. So I, I should caveat this because I wasn't actually tracking this live. It was like, partway through the speech and I was like, he seems to be naming, like, a lot of people, so I don't have an exact count. I. Based on my notes and my recollection, there were at least 15 times that Trump, like, named a guest in the audience that he had brought to the State of the Union to make a point about whatever.
- [03:26]
Galen Druke
It was a real Oprah Winfrey kind of moment for President Trump, giving out
- [03:31]
Mary Radcliffe
congressional medals of freedom and whatever else you're doing.
- [03:34]
Galen Druke
And it ranged from just like these out of nowhere, like gruesome, gory stories of blood pouring down the aisle of a helicopter and then introducing a member of the armed services to like, hey, it's the USA gold medal, like hockey team. You know, let's all ch. It was a, it was a kind of a whiplash situation.
- [03:59]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah. So that's. That was at least 15 shout outs that, that I counted. When we get the full transcript, we can double check. And according to the American Presidency Project at University of California, Santa Barbara, that is a record beating Trump's record set in his first term of 13 shout outs. I will say, on average, they've been tracking this since the first time a president shouted someone out, which was Ronald Reagan in the, in the 80s. Trump in his State of the Unions averages way more of these shout outs than any other president in his first term. He averaged ten and a half per speech. The next closest president was Biden, whose average was 6. I should note that this does not include 2021 or 2025, because in 2021 was Covid years. So the State of the Union didn't have very many guests and they did not have data for 2025. So.
- [04:57]
Galen Druke
So Trump the showman really likes to make his mark with featured guests. I mean, okay, there's a, there's a lot to get into here. It was an hour and 40 minute speech hour, 48 minute speech. I'll say my takeaway from it all was just a total lack of decorum. Like, that's not a surprise at this point. I don't think anybody was going in expecting, you know, some sort of, you know, stuffy capital P presidential speech, but, like, he was calling the Democrats sickos and they were yelling back at him and he was like, these people are crazy. And like, it was. It was not a State of the Union in the sense of, like, this is our shared nation and this is how it's going, this thing that we're all invested in. And it was much more political and campaigny than that. You know, I'm curious for your top line takeaways if you. If it was similar or if you had something more, you know, I don't know, more detailed than that. But my takeaway coming out of this was just a little bit like, what the. Was that?
- [06:05]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah, I tend to agree. I like, at some point, he pointed at the Democrats when he was talking about affordability and cost of living issues and said, you caused that problem. Right. Like, I mean, really, Frank felt like a lot of politicking. In fact, we were texting while we were all in our own respective homes watching the speech, and that stuck out to all of us. Right. This seems like a lot of politicking, but, I mean, Nathaniel pointed out, and maybe you can speak more to this, Nathaniel. It seems maybe it's always been like this with Trump, and every year we're just surprised by how it continues to happen.
- [06:38]
Nathaniel Rakic
I think it's gotten more and more political with him. Yeah, I don't remember his first term all that well, but I remember that last year his speech was also a lot like this. It wasn't a traditional State of the Union. It had a lot of that showmanship. It was very political. Obviously, Trump's favorite thing in the world to do is to give a campaign speech at a rally. And this is basically him trying to approximate that with half their own being his supporters and half their own being his opponents, which I think to some extent, he relishes. Right. I mean, I think we talked about this last year, that it was kind of like, you know, the question time in the uk, Right, where, you know, the president, in this case gets to, you know, go back and forth with his opposition, the Democrats, and. Yeah, but I think it does seem like every year it gets more and more personal and nasty and the decorum gets thrown out the window even more. This is obviously a different type of speech, but I think, like, with his inaugural address, too, like, his inaugural address back in 2017 was, like, pretty dark. He talked about American carnage and stuff like that. But I think we all. I believe we were all on the podcast together for his inaugural in 2025 as well, and we. I remember coming back to that being like, whoa, that was really negative. Like, even more negative than his 2017 address, which I rewatched after the 2025 address. And yeah, I think he has just gotten more, he's the kind of, he has stopped sugarcoating it. Like, you know, he, he still had a couple of trappings of a traditional State of the Union in this, he did have a couple of requests to Congress, which I assume we'll talk about. He ended with a, you know, very flowery thing about, you know, America's 250th and the great, the promise of 17, you know, from the sun kissed beaches of Florida to the endless plains of the Dakotas. But for the most part, yeah, this was a, you know, he was, he was not holding back.
- [08:24]
Galen Druke
I mean, I think the moment that will probably get the most attention from analysts after the fact was the moment when he said, you know, stand with me, if you agree with the following statement, which was that the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. And so, of course, Republicans stand and applaud. I think it might be the longest applause line of the whole speech or something. Or maybe it was the hockey, I think was the longest. I think it was, I think it was probably the hockey. Second, second to US Men's hockey. And Democrats are just sitting there sort of looking stern, not standing and applauding. And I don't know who controls the cameras, but they, they zoom in on Mark Kelly in particular, Senator from Arizona, who's looking stern. And, you know, part of me wonders, like, I don't know, why not just stand and applaud? Like, I guess it's kind of annoying to give Trump the win, but ultimately, I don't think there's a Democrat who would reason, any Democrat in any competitive election who would reasonably say no to that statement. And they did sort of stand and applaud at different points in time, particularly to cheer for the armed services and things like that. And so part of me wanted to say, like, oh, it's not a big trap. Just stand and agree, you know. But I'm sure lots of Democrats disagree with his characterization as of illegal aliens, as opposed to undocumented immigrants or immigrants in the country illegally or however you want to say it. And that was the moment during which Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were shouting back at the president, saying, you're killing Americans. I mean, obviously the contrast there is, you know, in, in your pursuit of illegal immigrants, you are not keeping American citizens safe. You know, exhibit A, Renee Good. Exhibit B, Alex Preddy. So I understand Democrats have a lot of anger about the whole dynamic of immigration, right? Now, but part of me also thought, you know, why even give him those optics? Because that is going to be sort of the main image from the night for a lot of, for a lot of folks.
- [10:38]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah.
- [10:38]
Nathaniel Rakic
I mean, I think we should caveat this by saying that State of the Union addresses really don't matter politically. Like, you know, we, we as we covered at 538, right. The president typically does not get a, they're just as likely to get an approval rating, like, decrease as increase out of the speech. And these things tend to get forgotten within days. And it's not like people are going to be voting in the midterms based on this or whatever. But, like, yeah, I agree. It was like, it was a lose, lose proposition for Democrats. It was either like, give Democrat, give Trump his win and basically like, you know, like, grovel before him or like, have this pretty bad, like, look of, you know, like, that can be in a campaign ad. And again, I'm not sure that that's going to matter given all the noise that's going to surround the 2026 midterms. But, but yeah, it didn't look good, but I thought it was a really interesting kind of like, perversion of this. I think, speaking of kind of the way that the State of the Union address has become, you know, particularly under Trump, has become kind of campaignified and politicized is that, you know, this is obviously a feature of State of the Union addresses is that, you know, every so often it gets interrupted by applause and, you know, usually the president's party claps and the, the opposition party doesn't. And this was the president, like, almost like breaking the fourth wall and being like, I am going to dare you to not applaud for this right now. And like, really highlight bringing attention to the fact that the Democrats were not applauding something that should be a, you know, to your point, Gail, and I think that like 99% of politicians would agree with. So, yeah, it was, it was,
- [12:05]
Mary Radcliffe
it
- [12:06]
Nathaniel Rakic
was a smart play, but also a, you know, one that was, I think, really perverted, the nature of the exercise of the Democratic exercise of the State of the Union.
- [12:16]
Galen Druke
And he kind of did that again and again, being like, look at these guys. They're not, you know, for gender transitioning, for example, he did a shout out to somebody in the audience who, you know, had ultimately not transitioned and was going, and then had a full ride to Liberty University and was like. And then he said, you know, like, these people are crazy. Everyone should be standing applauding, you know, Whatever, that kind of thing.
- [12:37]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah. I mean, thinking of it as a lose, lose proposition for Democrats, like you said, Nathaniel, it really reminds me of the 2020 Democratic presidential debates where the moderators of the debates did all these raise your hand if you believe yada yada statements like, raise your hand if you believe we should have Medicare for All, like, whatever. It was decriminalized.
- [12:56]
Galen Druke
Crossing the border.
- [12:57]
Mary Radcliffe
Exactly. Like, whatever and whatever statement comes next, like, for a lot of those candidates, it really is a lose, lose proposition, whether you raise your hand or don't, because there's like the. A part of the base, a significant part of the Democratic base that supported those positions, but not necessarily among the general electorate. And that's really what this reminded me of, is like you're putting yourself in a position that's hard to defend in either case.
- [13:23]
Nathaniel Rakic
And to put a finer point on it, any Democrat that stood and applauded for that speech would have become immediately Persona non grata among Democratic primary voters, for sure.
- [13:35]
Galen Druke
It would either have to be one of those things where everybody decides, we're just not going to give him this win and everybody stands up, or nobody stands up because nobody wanted to be. Mark Kelly stands up all by himself, you know. Right.
- [13:49]
Mary Radcliffe
But I mean, it was really a moment designed to be clipped and played over and over again on foxes. Exactly.
- [13:54]
Galen Druke
Okay. So we won't fall any further into the trap, although it was a politically savvy trap, I guess, is what we're saying. Let's talk a little bit about what the point of the State of the Union often is, which is to set out an agenda going forward and ask Congress to do the things that you, as president, would like them to do at the start of the year. Right. I guess the other thing is to weigh whether or not the State of the Union is strong. And in Trump's estimation, the State of the Union is strong. He said those words explicit.
- [14:27]
Nathaniel Rakic
It's really funny. The president always. The State of the Union is always strong. It's crazy how that's the case.
- [14:33]
Mary Radcliffe
Hey, even Abigail Spanberger agreed.
- [14:35]
Galen Druke
Don't you remember back in the day, though, when Obama couldn't say that the State of the Union was strong, he had to say it was getting stronger because it didn't feel like the recovery had really sort of caused.
- [14:46]
Nathaniel Rakic
Was that like a 9 or 10.
- [14:48]
Galen Druke
Yeah, that, like, awkward moment where it's like, is he gonna say that it's strong? Because Americans don't feel like it's strong. He's gotta just say it's getting stronger. Um, but, I mean, it was notable to me at least, that the first time he asked for congressional action, it was to codify something that he'd already done through executive action. And the second time he asked Congress to act was also to codify something that he'd already done with executive action. The first being favored nations prescription. So, you know, lowering prescription drug prices to be in line with or lower what other countries pay. And this is, in particular, we talk a little bit more about this on, you know, like, weight loss drugs and things like that, and then codifying, you know, private equity firms, not buying private homes on the, you know, American sort of real estate market, which are things that he's already attempted to do through executive action. I don't know. Did you have any thoughts about how. How much he did or didn't ask Congress to do?
- [15:56]
Nathaniel Rakic
Very much? So, yeah. So, as you point out, traditionally, the point of the State of the Union is to go to Congress and say, hey, pass my agenda. And to that end, parapolitical scientists Donna Huffman and Allison Howard have collected data on how many requests the President has made in State of the Union addresses over time.
- [16:16]
Galen Druke
Is that Mary drinking whiskey right now?
- [16:18]
Mary Radcliffe
Oh, yeah, but I stayed sober through that hour and 40 minutes. For you, I am drinking Scotch.
- [16:27]
Nathaniel Rakic
No, the real play was to drink during the speech.
- [16:32]
Galen Druke
You didn't warn us, Mary. I would have gotten. I would have gotten something myself.
- [16:37]
Mary Radcliffe
Okay, I'm sorry. Carry on.
- [16:38]
Nathaniel Rakic
No, no, it's okay. It's for a good cause. Anyway, so the median State of The union between 1965 and 2024 had 31 asks in it. Congressional, like, requests by the President for Congress to take action on something. Now, Trump has always been below average on that. During his first term, he never surpassed 24 requests for congressional action. But I was keeping an informal tally this time around, and I don't know exactly what the political scientists kind of like, you know, methodology is, but I only counted five, and I think that that is. That's just extremely telling, because, as we have talked about on this podcast, Donald Trump has taken an unprecedented number of executive actions. Executive orders, I should say. He has obviously tried to consolidate power in the executive branch more than any other president has, and has basically not had any use for Congress. He also said at one point, and I quote, congressional action will not be necessary when talking about the tariffs, which is just a bonkers thing to say at a State of the Union address, which is. It's supposed to be. The point is congressional action. And so I just thought that that was a really interesting and kind of era defining, kind of stat from the speech.
- [17:51]
Mary Radcliffe
Can I ask you, Nathaniel, because you have that informal tally. One of the things that I was noticing is what you typically get from a State of the Union address is not just asking Congress for things, but also announcing new policy ideas. Like, hey, here are my new things I'm thinking about that I would like to bring before Congress and negotiate over. And when he's talking about this stuff, like we mentioned, several of these were asking to codify stuff he's already done. He asked Congress to pass the SAVE act and to block congressional insider trading. These are all like bills that are already being either moved through or not moved through the legislature, but already have been introduced. Did you notice any new pieces of legislation we had not heard about before?
- [18:36]
Nathaniel Rakic
So he didn't. I mean, I was trying to kind of careful. And this is part of why I mentioned that, you know, I don't know exactly the methodology that the police, political scientists use. But like, he did talk about some proposals of his. So like he had like a healthcare proposal and stuff like that. Um, but he didn't specifically say, hey, Congress passed this, so I didn't count it. Um, and so obviously, again, this president has taken a lot of executive orders. Maybe he's just like being like, hey, FYI, Congress, I think this is a great idea. I'm going to go and do it myself. Congressional action is not necessary. Again, talked about the tariffs in that way. Um, he told. It was a lot of talking about his accomplishments, which were kind of calendar was ancillary for.
- [19:13]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah. Cause like, that's. For me, listening to this speech, like, one of the things that really struck me is it really felt like there was nothing new here. Right? Like, and that is atypical for a State of the Union address. This felt more like a rally speech where it's just like you do the same shtick over and over and over again. And this is the shtick that Donald Trump does. And so he did it some more, but just like on a nationally televised speech. And I guess I felt like that was really bizarre to me. Like there were only one or two things in there that I had not heard anything about. And I just felt like there wasn't. It didn't seem like there was a purpose to this.
- [19:49]
Galen Druke
And it was small. Like, I mean, one thing that stuck out to me as something that I hadn't heard before, but maybe it's already been offered was Delilah's Law, where he shouted out another person in the audience and he Talked about, you know, wanting to pass a law that bars states from providing commercial driver's licenses to people in the country illegally.
- [20:07]
Mary Radcliffe
Oh, you hadn't heard about that?
- [20:08]
Galen Druke
So maybe that's already out there. But, you know, he implores Congress to take that action. Like, okay, that's all well and good, but when you think about what are Americans most concerned about? You know, we were all watching different networks going into the speech, and literally, you know, 17,000 times before the speech begins, you hear the anchors and the analysts talking about affordability. Affordability. What is he gonna say about affordability? And like, so he opens the speech and he says. He lies and he says inflation is down to 1.7%. And he ticks off all of these accomplishments on, you know, the cost of living, inflation, tariffs. We ended dei. We've seen a decrease in crime, which. That's true. We have seen a significant decrease in crime. It started under Biden.
- [20:56]
Mary Radcliffe
You know, stock market, oil production.
- [20:58]
Galen Druke
Yeah. You know, border crossings, virtually zero. I mean, basically true. But we don't hear any proposals on the big ticket items. Like, you know, he could get up there and say, you know, he talked about no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security, which all have a lot of caveats associated with them that make them less lucrative than you might initially think for the people for whom that. That would have an impact. But he could get up and say, and I want Congress to. I wanna pass a law saying that states can't have their own gas taxes. You know, I wanna. He can literally say whatever the. He wants, and everyone will talk about it the next day. And if it's something that has to do with trying to make, like, life more affordable for Americans, that's his bully pulpit. Like, that's the whole point of a bully pulpit. And he says literally nothing.
- [21:56]
Mary Radcliffe
Well, so he did have a section about affordability later in the. In the speech. And we. We sort of touched on this before. This is when he pointed at the Democrats and said, you caused that problem. He said, what does he.
- [22:09]
Galen Druke
I mean, I could have been totally spaced out by that. But, yeah, go for it.
- [22:13]
Mary Radcliffe
Okay.
- [22:13]
Galen Druke
Yes, I'm willing to give credit where. Where credit's due.
- [22:17]
Mary Radcliffe
So that was where he outlined the. The health care plan that you were talking about, which we have heard Republicans kicking around, of modifying Obamacare so that rather than providing a stipend to the insurance companies, it would provide funds directly to Americans to do as they please with, to purchase healthcare for themselves. So that was one policy that was where he had the ask about codifying the most favored nation status for prescription drugs. He talked about this policy. This is one I actually hadn't heard about AI companies having to produce their own power so that they're not competing with Americans for that energy was not a proposal, but it was not a congressional ask. That's right. So he was saying that he's negotiating with these companies, basically having the individual companies make these, like, informal agreements that they will do that. But those kinds of things are not up to the federal government. Like, the energy stuff is negotiated at the local level with the, with the county and city in which you are building your projects.
- [23:18]
Galen Druke
It's literally just the AI companies saying, yes, Mr. Trump, we will create our own electricity wherever we develop our data center.
- [23:26]
Mary Radcliffe
Yes, it's them saying, we promise you, like it's nothing.
- [23:30]
Galen Druke
And that was the only mention of AI as well, was, you know, when we're talking about big ideas, bold. You know, in some ways it's weird because he talked about the one area where Americans are really skeptical of AI, which is electricity prices and data centers and that whole thing. But AI is powering much of the stock market gains that he's talking about. It's kind of a success story, quote, unquote, under the Trump administration, which has had a purposefully laissez faire approach to AI with the goal of, you know, beating China and powering the economy. So that's kind of a success story. But he doesn't actually talk about that. He does talk about the one area where there's a lot of skepticism and he says nothing about the future.
- [24:17]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah, so I just. There's two more things in this affordability section I want to highlight. The thing about the housing not allowing private equity to purchase individual family homes was in that section. And this thing about access to retirement plans through the federal government for folks that don't have matching retirement plans through their employers. So those are like the policies in that section. But the thing to me, small bore stuff.
- [24:38]
Galen Druke
Like, again, it's all small ball.
- [24:40]
Mary Radcliffe
It's all small ball. Most of these policies affect relatively few people. Like, if you look at the private equity purchasing single family homes, recent research shows that that's less than half a percent of the housing market. So, like, it just. It doesn't seem like that's going to impact all that many people. We talked a little bit about the most favored nation status prior to really beginning the podcast for prescription drug, and there's really only two, like, two or three broad categories of drugs where they've been able to make significant headway in reducing costs for Americans based on this most favored nation status because they're having to go like drug by drug. So like all of this stuff is such small ball and is not going to impact most Americans. And some of it is like, I mean, we could debate whether or not they're like good or bad policies, but what they are is little policies.
- [25:33]
Galen Druke
Yeah, that, that stuck out to me because like, Lord knows you don't have to follow through. I mean, because whether it's Trump or any other president, almost never do the requests to Congress end up passing as requested.
- [25:49]
Nathaniel Rakic
Not never, it's. I think it's about a quarter of the time.
- [25:51]
Galen Druke
Okay.
- [25:52]
Nathaniel Rakic
So the political scientists have data on that too.
- [25:55]
Galen Druke
There is a real sort of, I don't know what's 25%, a losing record of getting these things passed. So he can really aspirational, he can really say anything and he can really say anything on the issue of affordability. And he doesn't. And you know, to my ear, he doesn't do much, which was kind of. Yeah.
- [26:17]
Mary Radcliffe
What's. How many asks did he have? Six?
- [26:20]
Galen Druke
Five.
- [26:20]
Nathaniel Rakic
I counted five.
- [26:21]
Mary Radcliffe
So we get one of them.
- [26:24]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah, if the past holds.
- [26:28]
Galen Druke
Yeah.
- [26:29]
Nathaniel Rakic
No, I mean, I think it's interesting because, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. But at the same time, right, I think clearly Trump has made a decision that as long as he has the bully pulpit and he, you know, if people are only gonna write one story tomorrow, he wants it to be about his successes. Right. Like, there was so much backward looking stuff about, you know, all the things that he has done over the past year and honoring people for, you know, their acts of heroism over the year and stuff like that. And that is like, and I think that that is a, an interesting strategy because I think that it can be successful because I think there is some risk in like over promising and then under delivering. But then like, I think there's also risk in what he did, which is that like, obviously we know from the polling that like Americans are not satisfied with his job performance. Right. His average approval rating is at 39% right now. I know that on various issues that, you know, Mary, you guys track over at 50 plus 1, you know, the, and even like immigration, he's underwater. And so it, it risks being seen as tone deaf, I think. Yeah, like, oh, we're doing so well. But you know, Americans don't, don't think that. That said, there's also this trend where the people, the audience of the State of the Union tends To be co partisans. Right. The, the audience. 10. It's usually Republican presidents. Right, Exactly. But, but you see this every year, right? Is that in. When there's a Republican president, ratings are higher among Republicans and lower among Democrats, and then vice versa when a Democrat is president. And so to some extent he was kind of talking to, preaching to the choir. But yeah, I don't, I don't know if it was the best use of the bully pulpit.
- [28:07]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah. To that point, Nathaniel and Galen, you were talking about like this opening section where he's like, highlighting the success, the perceived successes of his administration, at least to him. I was just writing them down in my notes as he went through them. The third thing he mentioned was bringing inflation down, which as you mentioned, like he just straight up lied about the numbers. But like, that's the third thing he mentioned in his successes. It's literally his worst issue other than Epstein.
- [28:32]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah.
- [28:33]
Mary Radcliffe
Like if you look at the, at the tracking that our, our friend Elliot Morris has using 50 plus 1 data on his website, this is his worst issue. His approval is in the low 30s on inflation. Like, it's astonishing to me that you would mention that right at the top as one of your, like, key successes. Because we also know it's very common for people to watch like a small part of the speech and then just turn it off. Cause it gets boring.
- [29:03]
Galen Druke
I mean, this is part of whatever. I hate when people start to like, psychoanalyze Trump the man. But it's like this is part of the world he lives in where like, you tell people the information about the world that you want them to believe that they live in and then you kind of move on. Like just saying it makes it so. And if Americans are not in line with that, then obviously there will be consequences come November. But that's sort of the world that Trump has lived in for a long time. I want to talk a little bit. We all watched most of the Democratic rebuttal, so I want to talk about that as well. But the official one, the official rebuttal, because there's a lot of them from Governor of Virginia Abigail Spanberger. But were there any other comments that we wanted to make about the actual State of the Union address before we do that?
- [29:57]
Nathaniel Rakic
I mean, I think there were two, two of the actual requests that he made of Congress, I think, you know, were particularly interesting to me. One was the ban on insider trading, essentially by Congress, which was basically one of like, two things that Democrats actually stood up and applauded for.
- [30:16]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah, he got Elizabeth Warren on her Feet.
- [30:18]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah, yeah. So I thought that was interesting. Obviously, that's something that is, like, would be very popular among the average American. But when you heard the hecklewire popular
- [30:28]
Galen Druke
heckle him said, like, what about you? Like, well, you.
- [30:31]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yes, yes, right, exactly. What about you? And, yeah, I don't know who that was, but. But, yeah, but I thought that was notable. And obviously that's kind of like the platonic ideal of populism. Right. And so, you know, so they're. That, you know, it'd be interesting if we actually see movement on that, first of all. And then second.
- [30:49]
Galen Druke
Well, and he also chided Republicans, didn't he? He said like, he was kind of like, I don't know.
- [30:54]
Nathaniel Rakic
I didn't know if you guys were going to stand and applaud for that one, which was. Which was kind of funny. But yeah, Trump the showman again. But the second thing that I thought was interesting, you know, my day job now is working for Ed Vote Beat, you know, which covers election administration. And, you know, one of his ask was to pass the Save America act, which is this bill that would require proof of citizensh to register to vote and photo ID and that. He also was very kind of pointed. There's been a lot of talk about that, like, some Republicans want to use the talking filibuster for that, which is basically like the way that the filibuster rules works right now is that like, basically any senator can put in like, basically like a, you know, stand in for a filibuster. And that just kind of like puts kibosh on a bill. But they could technically make it so that. But people actually have to do what people think of filibustering as, which is you stand up and you just take the time on the floor and like, eat up all the time to make sure that the bill can't pass. And there are Republicans who want to force Democrats to actually do that. That, of course would waste like, weeks of. For time on the Senate, which a lot of Republicans like John Thune don't want to do. But Trump specifically said, you know, he would like. He said something like, get it done, John. And, and he also said something like, you know, this needs to happen before anything else happens. So I think that really signaled like the. Of the election issue to Trump. Obviously, we know, and he said it in the speech, you know, that he thinks that elections are filled with fraud and that this is the only reason that Democrats win them, which of course is not true. But with the midterms approaching, it's obviously Very. It's a very pressing issue, you know, both for Trump and for, you know, for everybody if. If the bill ends up passing.
- [32:38]
Galen Druke
Yeah. And I'll just say one more thing that comes to mind while we're talking about impressions from the actual State of the Union, is that he didn't really talk about AI. He also just very briefly talked about Iran at a time when we all are waiting for. To potentially go to war with Iran. And so he didn't really make that much of a case for why we should do that or why even Congress should approve of.
- [33:11]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah, but don't you think that means that there's still active negotiations going on behind the scenes that we're not privy to?
- [33:18]
Galen Druke
I'm. I mean, I'm. I'm. I think we are privy to the fact that there are negotiations still going on behind the scenes. But if he's posit. I mean, he's already positioned so many of America's war resources around the region to put pressure on Iran. So if he wants to put pressure on Iran, another opportunity to put pressure on Iran is in the State of the Union address. But I think, in part, he knows Americans don't care. Right. Like, he's trying to. I mean, not that Americans don't care, period, but that Americans care significantly less than they care about the cost of all of the things in their lives and the feeling that, you know, they've lost control over their lives.
- [34:04]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah. I mean, as a baby of the Bush administration, one of the first State of the Unions that I watched was the 2003 address, which was literally, George W. Bush devoted that entire address to making the case for going to war with Iraq. And the contrast, assuming that Trump actually does take action, Iran, which obviously he's already done once, and we forgot about that. And about Venezuela, which he also mentioned. But he talked about his friend.
- [34:32]
Galen Druke
Did he talk about his friend, Delsey Rodriguez?
- [34:34]
Nathaniel Rakic
Dulcie Rodriguez? Yes, he did.
- [34:36]
Galen Druke
Like, he was like, our friend. He was like our new friend and
- [34:38]
Nathaniel Rakic
I, Our wonderful new partner. Venezuela.
- [34:41]
Galen Druke
Venezuela.
- [34:43]
Nathaniel Rakic
But. But, yeah.
- [34:44]
Galen Druke
No, but, number two, our best friend.
- [34:47]
Nathaniel Rakic
Right. But, yeah, if he does end up going to war or taking some kind of military action against Iran, I think it would be notable how much he did not bother to, again, use the power to persuade to. To do that.
- [35:01]
Mary Radcliffe
I guess one thing I would highlight is in my, like, final takeaways of this, this is not political at all. This is just, like, an impression for me. I was repeatedly struck by how gruesome he is when he is talking about, like, terrible Things that have happened. Like, he's talking about the horrific floods in Texas last year that killed dozens of children. And he said, quote, the rapid waters. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. They said, wow, that's something like dozens of children died. What are we doing? He's talking about blood running down the helicopter. He's describing these.
- [35:45]
Galen Druke
The concentration camps in the Philippines. He was like, the biggest concentration camps you've ever seen.
- [35:51]
Mary Radcliffe
He was describing the really tragic attack on a woman in Charlotte on a. Was on a metro train or something and her parents were in the room. And I'm watching him go in detail into this disgusting, gruesome story and her mom is just sobbing her face off. And I'm like, I just. The graphicness and the relish that he takes in telling these graphic and gruesome stories really, really left a bad taste in my mouth. Like, very yucky. And I don't.
- [36:26]
Galen Druke
Yeah, it's. I mean, it's almost like. I mean, I don't think that this is necessarily the case, but it's almost like when you're reading off of a teleprompter and you know that the words there are like superlative words, but you forget that they're associated with something tragic and you get like, you read them in too excited of a manner. I have certainly read a script in too excited of a manner before for what the content of the script actually is. So I understand that part. But it was like, I mean, his language relies so heavily on superlatives, and when he's talking about really horrible things, he still relies heavily on those super like the greatest comeback ever. And then also like the biggest concentration camps ever. And it's just like, what the.
- [37:08]
Mary Radcliffe
And you can tell there's moments in these stories where he's also riffing. Cause he'll read the sentence, he'll realize it's horrific and then he'll pause and he'll be like, it's so terrible. It's so horrible. Tragedy. They. Wow, that's something like, God, gross. Gross. I like, I don't mean to come off as prudish, right. I'm a middle aged white woman. I listen to true crime. But I just. From my president. No, thank you.
- [37:35]
Galen Druke
Okay. And with that, let's talk about a very, very different speech. Which was Governor of Virginia Abigail Spanberger. She was speaking from the former House of Burgesses in Virginia, which is where, I guess the representatives of Virginia met before Virginia was a state when it was still a colony. And she set out three questions that she intended to ask during the speech that she gave, I think it was only about 10 minutes, maybe 12 minutes. She asked.
- [38:11]
Mary Radcliffe
Thank you, Abigail.
- [38:12]
Nathaniel Rakic
Speech.
- [38:12]
Galen Druke
Yes, indeed. She asked, is the president working to make life more affordable? Is the president working to make Americans safer at home and abroad? And is the president working for you? And of course those themes were essentially, is the president working to make life more affordable? The cost of living. Is the president working to make Americans safer at home and abroad? At home she talked a lot about immigration and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy and the detentions of other people in particular. And then abroad she talked about sort of cozying up to Putin and selling out America's economic advantages over China and yada yada, yada. And then is the President working for you? The focus on that was corruption and self dealing, I think, which mostly hits on the things that, that Democrats want to highlight, right? I think so.
- [39:12]
Mary Radcliffe
Mm.
- [39:14]
Galen Druke
Yeah.
- [39:14]
Mary Radcliffe
I mean I, I think there's also a strand that the Democratic Party keeps playing footsie with, whether they wanna highlight, which is like safeguarding democracy, which she didn't mention here, I think in any detail.
- [39:26]
Galen Druke
Well, kind of like we get to determine the whole House of Burgesses thing. Like we get to determine our symbolism. Like it's up to us to determine whether we wanna be ruled by tyranny or ruled by ourselves.
- [39:40]
Mary Radcliffe
Right, but she didn't make like explicit types of references that we have seen from some Democrats on the like.
- [39:46]
Galen Druke
Yeah, she didn't say like Trump's an autocrat and fascism is sort of afoot in America.
- [39:53]
Mary Radcliffe
Right, right. And they're trying to, to steal our elections and et cetera and so on.
- [39:57]
Galen Druke
Yeah, yeah, but that's okay.
- [40:00]
Mary Radcliffe
I mean that's, that's like a strand that I think the Democrats go back and forth on whether it's a good idea to do so.
- [40:07]
Galen Druke
Yeah, and I think polling suggests that of amongst. When looking at some of the other things that she did focus on, Americans care more about the other things. Yeah. Nathaniel, what did you make of the speech?
- [40:21]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah, I mean, I agree it was obviously a much more conventional speech and you know, I think it made sense from a messaging perspective. I think obviously it was good that it was short both for us long suffering journalists and just from a, you know, it makes it more likely that people are willing to. Would watch it or parts of it. I think, you know, I think it's interesting. Obviously the State of the Union response has kind of a long and troubled history. You know, it's considered to be cursed because it's Just like such a hard medium to nail. My personal favorite in this category is Marco Rubio and his water bottle. Of course, now he's executed.
- [40:57]
Mary Radcliffe
It's so crazy that we still remember
- [40:59]
Nathaniel Rakic
that, like when that was like 15 years.
- [41:02]
Mary Radcliffe
It was like 15 years ago.
- [41:03]
Nathaniel Rakic
It was Obama.
- [41:04]
Mary Radcliffe
And for those of us that follow politics, it is like indelibly etched in our memories that one time Marco Rubio took a drink of water. But like badly.
- [41:12]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yes, but there were many, many other bad.
- [41:15]
Galen Druke
And look where he.
- [41:16]
Nathaniel Rakic
Look how far he's come over time. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. And it didn't end up hurting his career. So, you know, I think that she did like, you know, like, she avoided. She. She followed the cardinal rule of State of the Union responses, which is do no harm. For a fun piece of trivia for, you know, the real nerds out there. She basically did what Bob McDonnell, her like, predecessor. Predecessor Presser's predecessor as Virginia governor did when he gave the State of the Union response in, I believe it was 2010, because he was standing from the actual House of Delegates in like the actual Virginia Capitol building with an audience basically trying to simulate the State of the Union. And this is kind of what Spanberger did. She was standing. It wasn't actually in like a legislative chamber. It looked like it was just kind of like a hall with. With like there were people stand like sitting in like chairs kind of like on the sides. And you know, there was kind of like, like muted applause. Like it was like 10. The sound of 10 people applauding every so often.
- [42:11]
Galen Druke
So it didn't gave her a moment to herself. So she didn't have to drink water like a. Harry.
- [42:19]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yes. Which I actually think is non. Ironically a good idea, but. But she generally did pretty well. And obviously she's somebody who is talked about as kind of like a rising star in the party. You know, I think that the talk that she could run for president is pretty silly. Cause she just became governor and she would have to basically spend her entire term as governor campaigning for president. But I think she could be a very viable VP pick and I don't think she did any, you know, harm to her own prospects tonight.
- [42:43]
Mary Radcliffe
Yeah, I think the bar for this kind of response is don't embarrass yourself.
- [42:47]
Nathaniel Rakic
Right.
- [42:47]
Mary Radcliffe
And she cleared it.
- [42:49]
Galen Druke
She cleared it. Congratulations.
- [42:50]
Nathaniel Rakic
Good job, Abigail Spanberger.
- [42:53]
Galen Druke
All right, well, with that, it is now significantly past midnight on the East Coast. So let's wrap it up. Let's not stay any longer than we need to, and we'll set Mary free to enjoy her whiskey without politics. You know the way whiskey is meant
- [43:11]
Mary Radcliffe
to be enjoyed after two hours worth of speeches. Come on.
- [43:16]
Galen Druke
All right, Nathaniel, Mary, thank you so much for joining me this evening.
- [43:21]
Mary Radcliffe
Thank you, Galen.
- [43:21]
Nathaniel Rakic
Thanks, Galen. Let's hope that this podcast still exists this tomorrow.
- [43:25]
Galen Druke
Oh, yeah. I mean, let's take a moment to acknowledge how far we've all come in one year. Dare we say we're in much better places now than a year ago.
- [43:36]
Nathaniel Rakic
Indeed. Congratulations.
- [43:38]
Galen Druke
Sweet memories. Thank you. And congratulations to both of you as well.
- [43:41]
Mary Radcliffe
Thank you.
- [43:42]
Galen Druke
With that, my name is Galen Druk. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@genie politics.com and wherever you get your your podcast and if you want it to continue to exist, become a paid subscriber. Because paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes access to some of the videos for the podcast. You can join our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. And like I said, most importantly, you ensure we can keep making a podcast like this. Also be a friend of the POD and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon.