What Went Down During President Biden’s Speech To Congress

I agree with what Meredith said earlier, about the “both sides” rhetoric we’ve seen in Biden’s speech tonight on racial equality and policing. A lot of 2021 has focused on “cancel culture” and how the GOP is using that as a strategy to attack Democrats for being too liberal. And as we mentioned earlier on the live blog, Biden has acted far more liberal than some of his predecessors, but that wasn’t really reflected in his remarks tonight. He mainly focused on an economic messaging. Does that reflect that Democrats are really concerned about this messaging?

For what it’s worth, I think Cruz “falling asleep” was 100 percent a bit. It was about as authentic as Glenn Close’s “Da Butt” moment at the Oscars.

Julia, it’s just another way Biden is leaning into a “return to normalcy.” Even if that’s not necessarily true, it might be how some people interpret it, and it was essentially one of the appeals Biden made during the 2020 campaign.