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The On the Hill: Breaking Down DC podcast is a collection of sharing more about what’s happening in DC without the bias, ways for you to get involved with the US government, and interviews with friends, colleagues who can help pull back the proverbial curtain of Washington, DC. Katherine Getty, host of the OTH podcast, is a 10-year Washingtonian who lives and breathes politics.
Katherine Getty 0:01
Hi, and welcome to the on the Hill podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty. Each Thursday, I'll peel back the curtain of what happens in Washington, from breaking down current events without bias, to interviews with fellow political nerds, and even and maybe most importantly, ways for you to get involved with our US government. Welcome back to another episode of The on the Hill podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty. If you're listening in real time, the State of the Union was delivered by President Biden just a week ago. And in a speech that was a little over an hour, President Biden really aimed to highlight the differences between his administration, what has happened in the last four years, nearly four years, and his predecessor, ie President Donald Trump. So today's episode, I'm going to give you some context on the speech, give you some highlights of what happened during the speech and provide an outlook of what to expect for the weeks to come in March. So some of the context, this speech came just days after Super Tuesday, which is a big primary day, states across the country were electing kind of who would be their presidential nominee for Republican and Democrat parties. It really solidified that President Biden will be the Democratic nominee and former President Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. So we are looking at a rematch of 2020. You know, I think if we're thinking about any election year State of the Union, it's definitely tends to be a bit more political in nature. And I think we saw the same on, you know, last Thursday, President Biden delivered a speech that really kind of focused on a lot of what he is laying out as points for consideration during this election, from focusing on threats to democracy, abortion rights, the economy, the border, you saw a lot of kind of themes that we've seen coming out of the, you know, President Biden's campaign, I think that's going to continue as we go through 2024. You also saw and, you know, I think I shared last week, if you listen to last week's episode, how much I love the State of the Union. It's a bit of pomp and circumstance, there's something really special about it. And something that I've had always really loved. That has changed in the last, I don't know, 10 to 15 years is it was really a speech where even if you're in the other party, you may not clap at everything the President says. But there is a level of respect. I think you saw this, starting with President Obama, where there he had some people jeering at him and his continued sense. And I think that's pretty sad commentary on what's happening with our State of the Union. But the speech was definitely more political. You definitely saw Republicans engaging in jeering which is never a good luck. I think you'll continue to see President Biden use this speech to really build on his campaign, you saw the day after he kind of hit on a road show that is pretty typical of the State of the Union, where you seek to amplify pieces of the speech with visits around the country, perceiving it as an opportunity for the President to use his bully pulpit. And so, you know, it's not surprising that we looked at a pretty political speech. You also saw President Biden touch on things. I mean, he started his speech off with this, highlighting the Ukraine invasion from Russia, you saw President Biden also highlight the conflict that remains between Israel and Hamas. And you saw kind of a forward looking piece of it all. I think we'll continue to see those abortion rights threats, democracy economy, some of those pieces continue to be as a part of the President's focus in the next few months. And I think we'll just have to kind of see how everything plays out. President Biden really made the case for his economic policies that they were working, that they continued to lift the country from, you know, the COVID-19 pandemic. I think you also saw the President highlight the importance of, you know, border security. And you saw kind of comments related to the package that have fallen apart in from coming from the Senate to the house, which was really on border security. There continues to be kind of a narrative that we need to address the border. But it's definitely becoming a bit of a blame game. And I think that's not surprising, as we look to what's going to happen next, like I said, the President will be doing a country tour basically, I think he has at least four stops as of now or two stops and the Vice President has two stops. You'll continue to kind of see him build on that in the next few weeks. Next. And then you see in context you saw Senator Katie bread or Pelican of Alabama gave the GOP response. You know, Senator Brett really talked on her own personal experience. She also highlighted, you know, kind of a contrast message. That is typically what the response from the opposing party is. It's a contrast to, you just heard X, our vision is why. And so it was kind of fell into that you saw border raised, you saw fit, no crisis. So you kind of continue to see the same issues being raised. I think the economy was raised by Senator Brett. So both parties are identifying what the voters were thinking about. May that be coming on economy, health, the border, but they come at it from different angles. And I think this is a good moment to start to think about how are the parties laying it out, utilize this as a bit of information and source information. As you go towards Election Day. Think about what your vision for this country is, and which party is going to address it in that manner. Now, kind of moving forward. So we've talked about the context of this is really now getting into being a general election. We know now that President Biden and President Trump will be the party nominees. You saw the conversation, both from the State of the Union, delivered by President Biden, as well as GOP response from Senator Brown, it really talked about issues, that I think a lot of voters are thinking about border abortion rights, health care, the economy. And so what happens next reminder, we continue to have funding be front and center for Congress. You know, there is that second tranche of bills that need to be voted on before March 22, or there could be a potential government shutdown. I think, if you think towards, you know, we're already in mid March, we're headed towards an election in November, things will start to get really heated really fast. So don't be surprised by kind of a turn happening pretty soon from parties. You know, it doesn't mean that legislating will not happen just means that it will be a little bit more difficult. So more to come. Alright, so that was today's episode. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. As always find me on Instagram. My handle is at Katherine Getty and the podcast handle is on the Hill DC podcast. As always, thank you, thank you, thank you. Share this with a friend. Share this with someone you know, share it broadly. It means so much to know that this is really helpful information. Today's episode, we not only provided the context, I was able to provide the context of what was happening with the State of the Union give you an overview of the State of Union, the GOP response and what's happening next. Tune in next Thursday for another episode of On the hill and thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai