President Biden spending the weekend on the campaign trail trying to build on whatever momentum he gained from this week's State of the Union address, a speech before tens of millions of Americans that Biden used to launch his campaign for reelection. The state of our union is strong and getting stronger. Joe Biden turned the traditional State of the Union speech into a campaign rally, barely taking the podium before he ripped the bark off Trump and Republicans. My predecessor, a former Republic
an president, tells Putin, quote, Do whatever that hell you want on Ukraine. January 6th and abortion. Biden said voters face a clear choice in November. Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom. My God, what freedoms would you take away? The president also played defense, trying to shift the blame for the illegal immigration surge, challenging Republicans who killed a bipartisan border deal at Trump's urging, the Border Patrol u
nions endorse this bill. The Federal Chamber of Commerce is. Yeah, yeah. You know, look at the facts. But in their response, Republican pushback. President Biden's border. Policies. Are a disgrace. Here with me today, podcaster and author of the bestseller burn Book, Kara Swisher. Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, who also runs the focus group podcast. New York Times journalist and podcast host Lulu GARCIA-NAVARRO. And senior editor at The Dispatch, John MacCormack. Welcome back, everyon
e. So let's take a trip around the panel. On a scale of 1 to 1010 being the Gettysburg Address, I want you to give me a score for how Biden did in his State of the Union speech. One on substance, two on style. Okay. Gettysburg Address was not popular when it was said at the time to people didn't like that speech at all. But it's also the greatest speech in history. I would give him a nine on on style and a seven on substance. Why? Well, a nine because I think he did what he was supposed to do. T
he GOP had set the bar at Corpse, and therefore he looked fantastic. So he gets a nine and ten because it's not the Gettysburg Address. Four Seven is because he didn't he didn't say a lot. There wasn't a lot. It was a campaign speech, essentially. That's exactly what it was. Sarah One of the scores. So on style, I'm going to go with nine as well. But again, it's because of the low expectations. If it was the Gettysburg Address is the bar, I'd go with like a four because that's that that's not wh
ere the bar was. On substance, I'll probably go with the six. I'm more to the center right than Joe Biden. But you know his positions on Ukraine and starting out on foreign policy, that was right up my alley. I would do a solid eight four style. I thought he seemed forceful. He seemed energized to, as we say in Spanish, the last place he had his batteries in. And so you could really see that he was energized. And I would also give him a solid eight for substance, simply because I think he addres
sed the things that he needed to address. He needed to rally his base, and he did it. He was talking about issues that were very important to them, like reproductive rights. And he did bring that home. John I'd only give him a five on style because I wasn't that impressed that he spoke quickly and loudly. I think someone pointed out that there were zero exclamation points in last year's address. There were 80 in this year's address. You're talking about the actual script, which was a great excla
mation. Exclamation this year. And on substance, as a conservative, I'd give him a three. You know, he started out strong on Ukraine, but then went on to a laundry list of democratic talking points. The only two new policies I really heard were a $10,000 credit for homebuyers. That's not going to solve the problem. And he talked about a Gaza humanitarian aid pier. I'm not quite sure how that's going to work. Cara, as our queen of snark, I'm going to give you the opportunity. What was your grade,
your score for Senator Katie Brett's GOP response? Less than zero. It was as if someone put into chatty, petty Stepford wives meets weird kitchen meets someone who failed at getting the lead in the high school play. It was it was terrible. It's just so So we always make too big a deal. Overemphasize the importance of these speeches. It's speech it's given, and it ends two weeks from now. How big a deal with this speech? Big. It's a big, big deal, Chris. Momentum around Joe Biden and gets rid of
that idea that, you know, I know the Republicans are attacking for being too energetic. But before he was too slow. So too bad he looks like he can do it and it gets people excited. Sarah Yeah, look, I think that this is going to stop the drip, drip, drip of people writing op eds telling him he needs to step down and that somebody needs to replace him or that they need to replace Kamala Harris on the ticket like he put to bed. The fact that he's going to be the nominee and that he's up to it. J
ohn, is somebody who was the least impressed by the speech. Let me give it to you in a more negative spin to Joe Biden. Stop the bleeding of his presidential candidacy by his performance this week. I think Sarah is exactly right that he shored up Democrats. And I think that if that was his objective, he definitely succeeded. You had prominent Democrats calling for him, hey, we're going to replace him at the convention. I think that's dead, at least for another month. If his polls start tanking e
ven more, maybe that comes back. But for now, he's bought himself a month. Now, last week I asked all of you whether or not Biden could flip the script on immigration by talking about Republicans cutting the border. Bill Lalo, Did he succeed in flipping the script? I mean, it depends what you mean by that, because the big problem is that he really annoyed Democrats with the way that he spoke about immigration because he used the word illegals to describe people. We normally don't use that word b
ecause people are not illegal. Their actions might be illegal. So I think on the one hand, he annoyed Democrats and on the other hand, you know, he still has a problem with the numbers. The numbers are not in his favor. The border is still in crisis and nothing has been done about it. Yeah, I'm going to pick up on that because the president can talk about some bill, but the fact remains more than three times as many migrants have been encountered at the border under Biden as during the same peri
od under Trump. So, John, did Biden succeed in any way in flipping the script on immigration and making it less of a vulnerability for him and a strength for Trump? I wouldn't say flip the script, but he can definitely bracket, you know, Trump is going to go hard saying, look at all the executive orders that I had an immigration that you'd undid. Biden will say, Hey, look at this compromise. There were pieces of the wall that needed to be fixed regardless of executive authority. So I do think he
has helped himself. I think it'll be a real debate. But I think. One of the things that really matters here is that when you look at Trump, he uses words like poisoning the blood of our nation when he's talking about immigrants, he's saying all immigrants are criminals, that they are bringing crime into this country. I think when you look at that contrast, I think Biden does a lot better because he's trying to show, hey, this is a problem, but I have a policy solution. I have a humane solution
that isn't xenophobia. Does he do better or does he do worse, John, in the sense that if you're really concerned about people coming over the border, not saying that I'm endorsing Trump's language, don't doesn't Trump have more credibility? He's going to stop the border. If you look at the polls, Trump clearly has an advantage. Now, do I think that this bill helps Biden shrink it if there's debates and he can point to this bill? Yes, I do think it marginally helps him, but it's not going to be a
winning issue for Trump. He's got to do something about it. That's all. He's got to actually do something. And they can argue about who's at fault here. But he is holding the bag right now and it's his job. And therefore. It is interesting. You know, remember before the speech, we were all talking about executive action that he might take to unilaterally try to do something about the border, not talk about it, but do something. He didn't do that. So I want to talk to you about something I've be
en hearing a term in the last few days that is new to me. Double haters. I want to put up a poll. I have to say, I like this. It fits the campaign perfectly. In a New York Times poll, 19%, we're described as double haters because they disapprove of both Biden and Trump. And Biden is currently leading among the double haters, 45% to 33%. So Sarah, are the double haters a real thing? And who's going to end up winning the double haters? So I conduct focus groups all the time, and the double haters
are absolutely a real thing. In fact, because we have this phenomenon here where you essentially have two incumbents running against each other, the persuadable chunk of voters is different this time. It is people who have they know both these guys and they don't like either. And so that's why this is going to be a really negative campaign, because persuadable voters to bring them over, you're going to make them hate the other guy more. The phrase that we hear in focus groups all the time and if
it was a drinking game, we'd all be dead, is the phrase lesser of two evils. And what they mean is I'm basically to make my decision on who I hate slightly less. And Biden usually cleans up on that front because people hate Trump a little bit more. Okay. That's that's his claim to fame. They hate me. Less. America. There you go.
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