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February 7, 2023
Punchbowl News Presents
Introducing Tech – our newest policy vertical. From high-profile interviews with industry influencers & policymakers to key lobbying updates, Punchbowl News Tech will be your go-to for timely technology insights.
PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Tuesday morning.
The State of the Union is tonight at 9 p.m. For the first time ever, Speaker Kevin McCarthy will preside over the joint session, sitting next to Vice President Kamala Harris, a fellow Californian. This will be President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union with a House Republican majority in the chamber.
The Capitol has been turned into a fortress once again. The building is ringed by a seven-foot fence and extra security is everywhere around the perimeter. Security was always tight for the State of the Union. But in the post-Jan. 6 era, it’s a whole different level.
We asked a simple question last year on the morning of Biden’s State of the Union: “Can Biden turn it around?” And, in many ways, that question is still quite operative.
The news, especially on the economic front, has been pretty good for Biden. Unemployment is at its lowest level in 50 years. Inflation is slowly cooling. Covid-19 remains a serious problem but not at pandemic levels. Biden signed a slew of bipartisan bills last year – gun control, infrastructure and the CHIPs bill. Democrats had a much better election than nearly everyone expected. McCarthy barely won the speaker’s gavel in the face of conservative opposition.
Former President Donald Trump – a divisive figure, to say the least – is running for the White House again, bolstering the mood of Democrats who believe the 80-year-old Biden isn’t ready for another grueling campaign.
Yet public polling shows that Americans remain sour on Biden and his performance as president. Just 39% of those polled in a Monmouth survey say they believe the state of the union is “somewhat strong.” Most ominously, only 37% of Democrats want him to run for reelection in 2024, with 52% opposed, according to an AP-NORC poll. Among younger Democrats, the number slips to 23%.
Here’s what we’re listening for when Biden speaks tonight:
1) Can Biden’s good news break through? Should Biden be doing better in the polls? You’d think so. The U.S. economy is growing, and as we noted, unemployment is the lowest it’s been since 1969. The likelihood of a recession is receding, per Goldman Sachs. Democrats’ outperformed expectations in the November midterm elections.
Yet Biden remains stuck, unable to break an 18-month string of negative approval ratings. Will tonight change that? No. But if Biden is to be reelected, he needs to find a way out of the ratings doldrums. The White House is searching for ways to change the tone, and tonight is a good place to start.
2) The pie-in-the-sky to achievable ratio. Every president proposes policies they know Congress can’t or won’t approve. But we’re curious to see the mix between the achievable and the impossible for Biden tonight. For example, we don’t think the House will vote to pass a “billionaire minimum tax” or make stock buybacks more expensive.
We also don’t think that Biden will persuade states that haven’t expanded Medicaid to do so. Nor do we think that Biden will be persuasive on a $35 monthly insulin cap for everyone, since Republicans voted against it last Congress. Additional gun safety laws won’t happen.
But will Biden urge Congress to take action on China, pass some sort of Big Tech crackdown or secure the border, three potential areas of bipartisan support?
3) Is this the unofficial start of Biden’s re-election campaign? Karine Jean-Pierre noted that Biden’s State of the Union will sound like a, well, Biden State of the Union. Fair enough. But will it sound like the launch of his 2024 presidential run as well? Will it take a shift in tone to begin to set the 46th president up for his second term?
4) How much does Biden talk about the debt-limit fight? The most important legislative clash of 2023 is the battle between Biden and House Republicans over the debt limit. McCarthy promised Monday evening that the U.S. government wouldn’t default on its $31.4 trillion debt. McCarthy said that he wanted to negotiate with Biden to fix the nation’s fiscal ledgers.
Will Biden put some meat on the bones on what he wants to see in such a package? Will he say that the debt ceiling must be raised without any negotiation? If Biden sticks to the latter, we’re in for a rocky few months.
Also, some news: McCarthy is hosting two off-the-record sessions with television talent this afternoon. The speaker is hosting an event for Fox News hosts and contributors. And then McCarthy is hosting a more traditional sitdown with network talent.
The House Republican Conference – led by Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) – is hosting a “media row” this week to push back on the State of the Union. Today: Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, Townhall, Breitbart, Americano Media, Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Epoch Times, the Washington Examiner, NTD and more will participate.
— Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
Tomorrow: Join us at 9 a.m. ET for our conversation with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) on her priorities for this key panel, spectrum and the conversation around wireless data. Due to popular demand, in-person attendance is full, but livestream access is still available. RSVP here.
THE PUNCH LIST
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WASHINGTON X THE WORLD
What Biden will say about America’s role in the world
When President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address last year, Russia had invaded Ukraine less than a week earlier. As such, the conflict dominated the president’s speech.
This year’s address will occur in the shadow of yet another global crisis foisted on Biden: the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the United States last week.
Tonight, Biden will have an opportunity to rebut Republican critics over how he handled the incursion. And the address will allow Biden to frame the incident in the broader context of U.S.- China competition.
Biden has spoken proudly of his record on the world stage during his first two years in office, with some notable exceptions, such as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Republicans, meanwhile, have panned Biden’s national-security posture as weak and indecisive.
Here’s what to expect tonight on foreign policy:
Ukraine: Biden has been consistent here, arguing that the United States and NATO must support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia. But he’ll be addressing a fractured Republican Party in the House chamber tonight. Many top Republicans assert Biden isn’t doing enough, while Trump-aligned conservatives want to cut off funding altogether.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told us that Biden heads into this year’s address “with a very strong hand” when it comes to foreign policy and Ukraine in particular.
Van Hollen said Biden deserves credit for rallying and strengthening the NATO alliance, and he criticized Republicans for their divisions on such a critical issue. We expect Biden to not only tout what the United States has already done for Ukraine but say that Congress can’t take its foot off the gas when it comes to more funding for the war.
We also caught up with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who said he believed Biden will “make a good case for Ukraine” tonight. But McCaul, like other top Republicans, said Biden has acted too slowly to give the Ukrainians the weapons they need to expel Russian forces.
China: The fear from Western leaders has always been that “war fatigue” would set in among their populations when it comes to backing the war effort in Ukraine. Biden’s job, Van Hollen said, will be to connect that conflict directly to the longer-term struggle with China.
“President Xi [Jinping] is watching very carefully what happens in Ukraine. Republicans who worry about the China threat need to worry about the outcome of the war in Ukraine,” Van Hollen said. He praised Biden for “laying the groundwork for a more united front with respect to China.”
Interestingly, this is the same argument many GOP leaders — including McCaul and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — have made to Republicans who question the utility of supporting Ukraine.
Afghanistan: Don’t expect Biden to bring up what his critics say is a stain on his presidency. But with House Republicans promising oversight into all aspects of the administration, Afghanistan is already top of mind for many in the chamber.
McCaul’s SOTU guest is Roya Rahmani, the former Afghan ambassador to the United States. McCaul said the issue was worth highlighting not to score political points, but to make the case that the embarrassment in Afghanistan in 2021 has emboldened U.S. adversaries.
“We started projecting weakness,” McCaul said. “[Vladimir] Putin saw that. Chairman Xi saw that. The Ayatollah saw that. Kim Jong Un saw that. That’s why you’re seeing these four get particularly hostile.”
— Andrew Desiderio
OVERSIGHT WATCH
What to watch in today’s border hearing
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is starting hearings on the state of the U.S.-Mexico border today. Republicans say the panel’s hearing, titled “On the Front Lines of the Border Crisis: A Hearing with Chief Patrol Agents,” will be a window into what they believe are President Joe Biden’s failed immigration policies.
The GOP argument: We got our hands on House Oversight Chair James Comer’s (R-Ky.) opening statement. Comer will argue that “President Biden and his administration have created the worst border crisis in American history.” It’s a similar message to what we heard from Republicans last week during the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on “The Biden Border Crisis.”
“Administration officials continue to say they are creating a ‘safe, orderly, humane’ immigration system. But reality contradicts this propaganda,” Comer will also say in his opening statement.
Republicans will hammer the White House for the record number of illegal border crossings that occurred in FY 2022, in addition to the flow of fentanyl coming across the southern border.
The Democratic pushback: Expect Oversight Democrats to replicate the playbook used by their Judiciary colleagues. The minority will try to rebut GOP talking points on fentanyl by arguing statistics show most of the smuggling comes from U.S. citizens through legal ports of entry.
Plus, Democrats will emphasize how their government funding bills (which most House Republicans opposed) beefed up funding for DHS and other border initiatives.
The witnesses:
| → | Gloria Chavez, chief patrol agent, Rio Grande Valley Sector |
| → | John Modlin, chief patrol agent, Tucson Sector |
There was some drama behind the scenes over today’s witnesses. When announcing the hearing last month, Comer publicly invited four Border Patrol sector chiefs to testify. DHS responded by writing to Comer and offering Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz up to testify instead.
In a letter we obtained, DHS’ acting legislative affairs chief said the department “has significant operational concerns with recalling four USBP Sector Chiefs on short notice from some of our nation’s busiest sectors.”
Oversight Republicans rejected the offer for Ortiz to appear and the two sides settled on hearing the testimonies of Chavez and Modlin.
Democrats won’t have a witness today.
— Max Cohen
PRESENTED BY COMCAST
Digital Navigators can come from anywhere. Watch how teens from the Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan help seniors get online.
… AND THERE’S MORE
| → | News: Former Twitter employee Anika Collier Navaroli will be the Democratic witness for tomorrow’s House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on Twitter’s handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop. If you recall, Navaroli was a Twitter whistleblower featured during the Jan. 6 select committee hearings and was critical of the company’s permissive attitude toward former President Donald Trump’s tweets. |
| → | Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, has hired Akin Gump to lobby on “[n]avigating CHIPS Act implementation.” |
| → | News: Former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is joining DLA Piper to head up their health policy strategic consulting practice. Burr is joining his close friend and former colleague former Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) at DLA. Here’s the full announcement. |
– Max Cohen and Jake Sherman
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Punchbowl News Presents
Introducing Tech – our newest policy vertical. From high-profile interviews with industry influencers & policymakers to key lobbying updates, Punchbowl News Tech will be your go-to for timely technology insights.
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