Who sings the National Anthem tonight? Who’s performing in the halftime show?
UPDATE from WH press pool: The motorcade departed at 8:49.
A large group of people gathered on the South Portico steps overlooking an extra large motorcade. First Lady in green appeared to wave to them.
Before loading the vans, pool could hear pro Palestinian demonstrators from the gather spot by the Palm doors.
The policy proposals we have heard so far for this speech are trillions in tax hikes, more government spending, price controls, and aid to enemies in wartime. This is the sort of thing you get from an octogenarian with tenure.
You know, Phil, reading off a teleprompter is something neither George Washington nor Abraham Lincoln ever accomplished.
Still no word about the status of Biden’s motorcade. For reference, I checked pool reports from last year’s State of the Union, and his motorcade left the WH at 8:30 and arrived at the Capitol at 8:40. Right now, it’s 8:50 and we have not received any pool reports about the motorcade.
Spotted in the chamber tonight, chatting with Matt Gaetz, it’s none other than George Santos, who does not seem to quite believe that he is no longer a congressman, given how often he shows up in DC.
He looks well fed.
A prediction for tonight: If Biden manages to stand up and read off the teleprompter for 40 minutes, anything better than him literally falling asleep mid-sentence will be declared by the media to be a masterful performance by a smart-as-a-tack statesman who removed any doubts about his mental acuity and fitness to serve another four years.
Pro-Hamas protesters are blocking Biden’s motorcade route from the White House to the Capitol, chanting the genocidal slogan “from the river to the sea,” which envisions a world in which Israelis do not exist. Diverting the motorcade, rather than dispersing the protests blocking traffic, would be another sign of weakness from Biden. Let’s see how this shakes out.
Greetings, good evening and welcome to what is surely the most exciting use of one’s time on a Thursday night: watching an Old Man Yell at Clouds for 45 minutes or so.
SOTU speeches are usually boring and make no news, and believe me, Joe Biden’s goal tonight is, in a way, to make no news to speak of. (The only news that would cut through to an otherwise largely disengaged electorate is bad news, in the form of Biden having a viral senior moment.) I anticipate Marjorie Taylor-Greene will comport herself as a paragon of class and dignity, while Lauren Boebert has already announced she’s the kind of woman who "can't even promise my pastor to hold back in church." (Someone should ask her about musicals.)
Anyway, the stakes are higher than usual because tonight represents one of the few times Joe Biden will be exposed to the American public at any length before November, in our debate-free general election season. (The other time will be the convention.) Phil Klein has pointed out that it’s easy enough to read a speech off a teleprompter, and this is true – Biden will be getting overblown credit from many in the media if he merely delivers it without vomiting all over his shirt. But the fact that Biden seems right now like the sort of man perfectly capable of botching this is why Americans will be paying more attention than usual. If Biden really has a moment of true decrepitude, the bottom could fall out for him.
From what we know of what Joe Biden plans to announce tonight in terms of new policy, the overarching theme is counterproductivity. The president will announce a plan to create a corridor to transit aid into Gaza via the sea through an Israeli-inspected port in Cyprus. Whatever the merits of this humanitarian proposal, it will complicate Israel’s campaign to neutralize Hamas, which Biden needs to culminate in an Israeli victory in the shortest possible order. Likewise, Biden plans to announce new subsidies for new home buyers and starter-home sellers. By subsidizing demand for housing in a market crunched by low inventory and crippled by rising interest rates, Biden’s fiscal policy is running counter to the Fed’s monetary policy. Maybe someone in the White House should tell the president his foremost goals are to see America’s embattled allies through to victory and crush inflation with all possible alacrity. If Biden knows that, he’s not acting like it.