Perhaps you know me as, the kung fu panda. Ah, youre adorable. Huh. Oh, whah welcome back to msnbc state of the Union Special coverage. President biden gave a forceful speech and made clear that democracy is under threat. Not just abroad but right here in the u. S. In front of both chambers of congress, he reminded of the january 6th Capitol Attack in the very room, three years ago. History is watching. Just like history watched three years ago on january 6. Insurrection stormed the capitol , the threat of american democracy. Many of you were here on the darkest of days. We also, they were not patriots. They stopped to overcome the peaceful transfer of power. January 6th lies about the 2020 election and the plots to steal the election posed a threat to the u. S. Democracy since the civil war. They failed. America stood. America stood strong. Democracy prevailed. The Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute of politics and public service. And brendan buck is here but he is the former Press Secretary to former republican speaker, jon weiner. This is the second time we have done this. It is a thing. Brendan buck, you advise a number of speakers who sat in that chamber behind the president giving that speech. What did you make of Speaker Mike Johnson . He had nods and smirks. I do not think i saw him send a. What did you make of his performance . He would turn to joe biden, john, and said he would not want to stand up. What was clear, mike johnson, did not have control over his members the way he was trying to. What republicans need to realize, these moments where you are engaging with the president , it does not work out well for you. He has the structural evidence. They think if they go at him he will melt. That clearly has not happened. Lester they got into a backand forth with him and biden won that. Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to debate him and he won that moment. That probably six out to me the most . She should up as a provocateur and he shut up as a president. Exactly. He has the imagery. He is higher than them and the camera, every advantage you want. He took a moment. Given that she probably believes he is old and senile, she was probably surprised he was able to handle that. The performance was used for on what your thoughts before we get to the overall what did you think about the president s delivery, his approach, coming out strong, not allowing the speaker to introduce him . That was the first of the history of the State Of The Union speeches. Clearly the president had an agenda in his head that he wanted to get through. Something he wanted to convey. What was your take as someone who was in that chamber, knowing the protocols and how the president performed . There is a lot of conversation about it being a partisan speech and people taking issue. There is no doubt that it was a partisan speech, he went after his actual opponent. I have never seen that before. We talked a lot going into the speech, how will he balance firing up the base and extending the open hand to haleys voters . You have to pick one about firing the base, it was the more urgent need that they had. You probably will not win over haley voters by being a soft gentle democrat. You will win them over by making the point that donald trump is a big threat to this country, you cannot do that. I think it was the right way to go about it. Is it an amazing speech that we were number. Expectations were so lowered about how he can function, he very easily cleared that bar. Some of those assessments are subjective and open to interpretation as we can tell from the number of people that we spoke to tonight. Some of them felt his performance far exceeded expectations. Its important to contextualize all of this in the week that was. This was a huge race reshaping. You have nikki haley drop out. You have dean phillips drop out. Crystallizes as a twoperson race. It speaks to your point about the fact that the president and his team understood that going into tonights speech. In many ways the general election starts in a clear way right now. They were contrasted. 100 . Look, where i think i disagree a little bit, i do not think this was purely a base consolidation speech. Maybe not reaching out to nikki haley voters, but in the pavement independent voters like the idea of protecting a womans right to choose and investing in womens Reproductive Health. He hits on that. Independent voters like the idea of Fighting Fees and raising costs for the american consumer. He hit that hard time after time today. He had the issues that do not just speak to the democratic base, gun control, he knows to reach out to suburban moms and independent voters and draw them in. In that sense it really was a good general election speech. Yes, it was partisan. Not a Single Person can say it was not. It was partisan in the sense that it was making the case for his reelection. Not that it was purely a democratic speech. Why are we saying it was partisan . It was for what is the followup . An example . The first time i have seen in a State Of The Union, he knows who the alyssa the former president of the United States alyssa who is running for president. Hes a candidate to the office. Donald trump literally botched the handling of a pandemic and matters. That is the point. That is what directly proceeded joe bidens of ministration. What joe biden and Kamala Harris have had to do, what they missed is directly connected to the administration that came before them. Go back and listen to other speeches, president s in the Election Year even if they do not know who the upcoming opponent is, they do not look backwards. They look forward. When youre looking backwards at the guy you are running against, yes, it will come off partisan. That is not a criticism. See i guess i am saying i do not agree. Tactically and made sense to do what he did. Do not pretend it was not partisan. They do not always go after their opponent but they draw contest in the State Of The Union speeches. Donald trump in his 2020 State Of The Union speech, the year of his reelection campaign, went after the radical left in his speech. Drawing a contrast with the others. That was the partisan point. My point, the State Of The Union, the president goes out there to make the case for his agenda. That is what president s do. Often times, one of the best ways to do that, to draw a contrast with the other sides agenda. I think that is totally legitimate. Im not saying it was part a schism. I was happy to see him making a forceful case, as a democrat, i wish he had made it much sooner in the selection for i agree with that part of it. If nothing else, for me, it was a critical turning point tonight for the first time. He almost seemed sort of unfettered. He was relieved to smack folks around and to do the biden thing the way he likes to do the biden thing. Brennan says a lot about how the republicans responded. To your point, they always think they have the upper hand until they realize they dont. There are a number of moments this evening where i think the party in that context, republicans, should have understood the moment enough to stand up and applaud i dont know, democracy, fighting cancer, educating poor kids you become so hardened in your response to the guy who is on the stage, you become, do you think they lose sight of the moment to actually get a little bit close to the guy who is winning the room . To win a little bit at the same time . Its such an insular party that they believe the Talking Points so much that its hard to imagine that he can be other thing that a horrible person. The age thing, they are convinced he can barely function. We should appreciate it is not a republican and venture. Poll after poll after poll shows that even democrats are concerned about his age. That was why this was an important speech. Nothing he said was all that important. Lets be honest. How he presented himself politically is much more important. I do not want to overstate that. The Big Take Away was that he did not fall flat on his face in the way that the marjorie Taylor Greene greens were banking on. They were certain he would not be able to get to the speech without embarrassing himself. That is crazy. This is the third hes been president for the last three years. He has given an inaugural address. He takes questions from the press, not as regularly as he should, but he has given a joint address to congress in his first year. His second State Of The Union, you can argue the third if you count the joint address. What universe what team are they sipping on to believe the man could not get up there and rise to that occasion . It goes back to brennans point about how they are high on their own supply. What was striking to me, for all of that nonsense, for the circus and the sideshow, you had the president very clear straight out of the gate saying the stakes are high. You heard echoes of his original campaign. Crisis at home, crisis abroad, you need someone on day one who is ready to hit the ground running. They were echoes of what we have heard before. But, restating of the case to say, i will make it to you again and tell you at this moment we find ourselves in, the stakes are even higher than the first time. That is absolutely right. One thing you can say about joe biden with a great deal of confidence, the man is who he is and who he always has been. This is a guy who believes in a worldview that he has been arguing for and articulating since he first entered public service. What we saw tonight was him applying that to this moment. Right . Same the stakes are high. This is who we are as a people. This is who we need to be as a people. The threats are coming from more places than ever. What was astonishing to me going back to the whole issue of the republican response in the room at the time alyssa we will get to. In the room, they would not stand for certain things. I saw some republican commentary saying, i cannot believe joe biden led off with an issue as divisive as ukraine. You would think he would have reached out to something that brings us together. For me, i thought it was crazy that people thought an american president standing up and saying that we will not bow down to one of the worlds greatest dictators, they thought that was divisive. That is where i think you saw two very different approaches to this entire campaign season. Joe biden, is actually reaching out beyond his base. Republicans are only talking to theirs. Marjorie Taylor Greene was not being a provocateur, she was standing up there because she did not care how bad it looked to anyone outside of her voters back home in georgia. As weve been discussing during his state of the Union Address, President Biden was not afraid to challenge republicans in some fiery exchanges. And exploded the federal deficit. They added more to the National Debt than any president ial term in american history. Check the numbers. The bipartisan bill with the toughest set of Border Security reforms weve ever seen. Oh, you dont think so . Oh, you dont like that bill, huh . That conservatives got together and said was a good bill. Ill be darned. Thats amazing. The Border Patrol unit has endorsed this bill. The federal Chamber Of Commerce yeah, yeah, youre saying low, look at the facts. I know i know you know how to read. I love it, i love it. Mo, that was a moment. Dude, i mean really, you know . It was a great moment. But ill be honest, i was a little nervous about if that moment would come. He had a moment like that last year in the state of the Union Address. Right. Where he sort of parlayed the heckling and turned it into sort of a win on Social Security. And it was such a good moment, like you cant you cant force that. You cant force a moment. And so i was worried that they were going to try to hard to recreate that moment. It wasnt forced. He is just that naturally good at parlaying against an opponent, and the republicans, they did take the bait. They set the trap for themselves and he just swooped in and turned it. This was an issue, the immigration bill, that the republicans put up on a tee for this president. This was the perfect venue to hit it. You had republicans literally saying on the record i dont want to give joe biden a win in the Election Year, so were not going to do that. Of course hes going to take advantage of that. Then again, they werent smart enough to be discipline m. D. The moment there. To your point, hes better at this than people give him credit for. I need to know what you thought of the republican response, the official republican response. Oh yes. It was interesting. I think katie britt was the absolute right choice to do this. I think she is the kind of person we want to be putting out to show that we are, you know, not all Marjorie Taylor greens. I think the delivery was unfortunate. She was clearly overcoached and as somebody whos been involved in these response, sometimes people come out of the woodwork, they hire people, i dont know what happened there. But i thought that she was delivering what was the message got lost for me just in the delivery, and thats unfortunately. Thats hard to sort of walk back. But you know, i generally believe that if you want to do a good state of the Union Response, it cant be a mini state of the june yop. It needs to be coming from a real particular point of view. And she had a particular point of view, whether it was effective for everybody, i dont know. I think the idea was sound. I worry about the delivery. I want to know what the panel thinks about the kitchen. I want to be very clear, katie britt is the Junior Senator from alabama. As i, you know, ive worked for women politicians. You, the Junior Senator from alabama does not belong in a kitchen in a very lovely blouse in a kitchen in a very loverly blouse as though she is not a sitting member of congress. I heard nothing about her experience in the senate. I heard nothing about you know, she ran the Alabama Chamber of commerce. Like Alabama Business Council prior to that. She was a Chief Of Staff on the hill for the for the seat that she now represents. You would not get that from what we saw here. What is with the kitchen . Im going to be counterintuitive here and defend it Just A Little Bit. The kitchen . Just a little bit. I dont think she was trying to project her very impressive resume, i think she was trying to project suburban mom. Do suburban moms belong in the kitchen, thats the question i want to know. So i dont look, i think the two worst jobs in washington the two worst gigs you could have, National Party chair and state of the Union Response, right . Like it just it rarely goes its painful. Well. And i think, you know, if any Media Consultant or Campaign Staffer who gets that call and says to their boss, hell yeah, you should do this is doing their boss a disservice more often than not. And when they do, they tend to overproduce and try to and overcoach and push these people into being someone they are not. Katie britt actually is a very, very impressive she is. Member of the senate. She is, i think, would be a potent running mate for donald trump and someone i think a debate between Vice President harris and senator britt would actually be a really engaging debate to watch as just a student of politics. But when they overproduce right . I can just tell you, do you want to add anything else to what you just said before the internet get ahold of it, mo . No. Okay. I think tonight she did not live up to her own potential, and i think if you ever watch any of her speeches you would see that. But what she did tonight i think was overproduced. It was a caricature of who they wanted to actually produce. Ive got a lot of folks asking the question. Initially, people who didnt know who she was thought she was an actress playing a politician. Yeah. And that, to your point, to both your points, is the unfortunate part. But heres the rub. I think were kind of overthinking some of this, because theres a real baseline approach that i think republicans took here having, i mean, ive been in these rooms as well for a lot of this stuff. The audience wasnt necessarily the folks that, you know, more broadly speaking. This was cultured and catered in a way the kitchen was deliberate. The sort of, you know, work a day mom look was deliberate. And it was an appeal a direct appeal to suburban white women to come back home. Its time to leave joe biden and come back home. And this was the opening salvo in that what will be a very important conversation for republicans going forward. So to add to what michael was saying, theres reporting in the New York Times about the fact that there were already Talking Points being released by her teams. She came off like americas mom. She gets it. She is one of us. Thatll be familys takeaway. What it was they wanted. Lets move away from the style, which i think we all agree missed the mark, and talk Just A Little Bit then about the substance. It is not an accident that she is from alabama, given that ivf and the actions of the