Biden’s SOTU challenge: Old-man vibes

Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here. Thanks for waking up with us.

In today’s edition … Hard right lawmakers aren’t thrilled as Johnson defends his decisions on funding … Baldwin releases first ad in Wisconsin Senate race … but first …

At the White House

Biden’s highest-stakes SOTU

President Biden will give his third State of the Union address tonight — and it will be his most important. 

The general election race is underway now that former president Donald Trump is the last candidate standing for the Republican nomination, so Biden is under pressure to deliver a strong message to a dissatisfied electorate.

Biden is entering this presidential rematch wounded. Polling shows voters are uninspired, splintered and apathetic. The president’s job approval rating continues to suffer, hovering around 41 percent, according to a Washington Post analysis of February and March polls. He is polling alongside or behind Trump in recent polls, and many voters worry about his age.

“The stakes are high with this speech,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a vice chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “The stakes are high every day on the campaign trail.” 

The speech is less important nowadays because fewer Americans pay attention than they did in prior decades. Last year, it had its second-lowest viewership since 1993. But it still drew 27 million viewers, according to Nielsen, which could be Biden’s biggest audience before Election Day, unless he debates Trump.

In an age of viral moments, clips can be seen by millions more. Plus, the Biden campaign hopes to increase its reach by streaming the speech on Instagram for the first time. 

Beating back perceptions

Despite Biden’s ability to banter with reporters, meet with world leaders and engage with voters on the campaign trail, the 81-year-old president is plagued by old-man vibes. Trump and conservative media have successfully used Biden’s career of gaffe-prone speeches to sow doubt about his mental acuity since Biden became the Democratic nominee in 2020. 

Democrats privately say Biden needs to use the State of the Union speech to beat back perceptions that he is too old for the job. Biden’s delivery must be snappy and strong with notes of defiance and wit, they say. One Democratic aide said this speech is more important than any poll that has been released recently. 

Democrats hope he has another speech like last year’s, when he accused Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare. That led to outbursts by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and others who yelled “liar” and “you lie.”

Biden then declared, “We all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare are off the books now, right?” 

Democrats erupted in applause and laughter. 

“I'd love to have another moment like that,” Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) said. “He took it off the table. We never had another discussion about Social Security.”

Michael Waldman, who helped write several of President Bill Clinton’s State of the Union addresses, including the speech he gave while running for reelection in 1996 in which he declared that “the era of big government is over,“ said presidents often head into the speech with something to prove. “In this case, Biden is facing scrutiny over his age,” he said.

• “People want to sort of see how the president is doing,” he added. “They want to see if he has vigor and command and is a happy warrior.”

Many Democrats point to Trump despite voters’ concerns with Biden’s age.

• “He’s an older candidate, but look, at least he knows his wife’s name,” Kuster added, referring to Trump forgetting Melania’s name at CPAC. “We have two older candidates: One is competent and capable to be president of the United States; the other is a threat to our democracy.”

Voters who might have seen short clips of Biden last month confusing the Mexican and Egyptian presidents will see him speak at much greater length tonight.

“He’s going to be up there for 40 or 60 or, God help us, 70 minutes,” Dan Cluchey, who worked on Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address as a senior White House speechwriter, told us. “And you get to tune in and watch and make that judgment for yourself.”

Rebuilding the base

Biden’s speech, Democrats say, must also start to repair the fractures in the Democratic base. 

How Biden addresses Israel and the war in Gaza will be crucial. In the Michigan and Minnesota primaries, Biden lost a significant percentage of the vote — 13 and 19 percent, respectively — to the ballot’s “uncommitted” option, in large part in protest to his handling of the war.

Some Democrats say Biden must call for a cease-fire and lay out his disagreements about how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is carrying out Israel’s war in Gaza.

Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who is close to Biden but also retiring at the end of this Congress, said the speech is an “opportunity” for Biden to speak “with clarity” about Netanyahu.

Other Democrats are demanding even more.

“We have children starving to death in Gaza,” Bowman said. “We need a permanent cease-fire. We need humanitarian aid in there right now. We need a release of the hostages. A pathway to sustainable peace. And so, you know, I hope he goes into some of that. I don’t know if he will, but that’s what I’m hoping.”

All you need to know about the State of the Union: 

• “Biden will call for blocking corporations from deducting the costs of paying salaries over $1 million from their federal taxes,” among other populist-oriented proposals in the speech targeting billionaires, the rich and big corporations, our colleague Jeff Stein reports.
• Last year, Biden congratulated the 118th Congress and the newly elected speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). This year, he’ll address the same Congress but probably congratulate the latest new speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.).
• Johnson’s guests will be the parents of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia. (Johnson’s team insists it changes nothing on the status of Ukraine funding. They say all Republicans are united in bringing Evan home.)
• Many Democrats plan to bring guests who have close associations with IVF, including first lady Jill Biden.
• Jill Biden’s 20 guests include United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Mayor Garnett Johnson of Augusta, Ga., and Kate Cox, the Texas woman who was forced to leave the state in December to get an abortion after learning her unborn child had a fatal genetic condition. 
• Rising star freshman Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) will deliver the Republican response.
• The Women’s Democratic Caucus plan to wear white and “reproductive freedom” pins.
• The American Petroleum Institute is launching an eight-figure ad buy alleging Biden broke his SOTU promises on oil and natural gas. 

While you wait for the State of the Union speech, check out our colleague Glenn Kessler’s review of Biden’s 2023 address, the 24 proposals he announced at the time and what happened to them.

On the Hill

Mike Johnson is defending his decisions on funding. The hard right isn’t thrilled.

Our colleague Marianna Sotomayor is out this morning with a look at how Mike Johnson (R-La.), who negotiated and passed a $459 billion spending package Wednesday, has sought to balance his responsibilities as House speaker with the demands from the hard-right faction of his conference — and why “his efforts can only go so far.” Here’s an excerpt: 

When Johnson “campaigned to become speaker of the House, he privately told Republicans he could help manage the whims of hard-right members because they were cut from the same ideological cloth,” Marianna writes. “But the debate over how to fund the government — which has consistently torn the conference apart — has made Johnson recognize his efforts can go only so far.”

“More than a dozen Republican lawmakers and aides, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to outline private conversations, portrayed Johnson to The Washington Post as coming to terms in recent days with the reality that many on the right, particularly within the House Freedom Caucus, will not relent on their legislative demands that have prevented the slim majority from passing conservative priorities.”

• “Over the next days and weeks, Johnson will need to hold his conference together just enough to ensure the government doesn’t shut down over a pair of deadlines, while also working to find a solution the majority of his conference can support on Ukraine and border security.”
• “How he proceeds navigating a razor-thin two-vote majority will continue to test his resolve and the patience of many within the notoriously fractious conference. But some on the hard-right flank fear that Johnson’s positioning to again rely on Democrats to fund the government, given sizable Republican opposition, means the speaker could become like past Republican leaders who have ultimately chosen to sideline the Freedom Caucus, which staunchly represents Trump’s base voters.”

The campaign

Baldwin releases first ad in Wisconsin Senate race

The Wisconsin Senate race has begun. 

Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is running for a third term in what is expected to be one of the most competitive races in the country, released her first TV and digital ad of the campaign today. The seven-figure ad buy, titled “Wisconsin jobs,” highlights the senator’s work on a measure requiring government contractors to use U.S.-produced iron and steel. 

Her opponent, Republican Eric Hovde, the owner of a California-based bank, released his first ad this week. It’s a bio called “Wisconsin Roots” in which his wife speaks to the camera and introduces her husband as a “fourth-generation Wisconsinite.” 

The Media

Must reads

From The Post: 

• Alabama governor signs IVF bill giving patients, providers legal cover. By Praveena Somasundaram.
• The hard-right wing of House GOP poised to grow even larger next year. By Paul Kane.
• He campaigned for Biden in Michigan. Now he’s working against him. By Jesús Rodríguez. 
• Perspective: A colonel promoted diversity. So a GOP senator is blocking his promotion. By Joe Davidson. 

From across the web: 

• How Trump propelled Schiff to the general election — and likely a Senate seat. By the Los Angeles Times’s Benjamin Oreskes, Seema Mehta and Laura J. Nelson.
• Biden promised calm after Trump chaos, but the world has not cooperated. By the New York Times’s Peter Baker.
• Haley flopped. But she exposed Trump’s weaknesses on her way out. By Politico’s Lisa Kashinsky and Jessica Piper.

Viral

Thanks for reading. You can also follow us on X: @LACaldwellDC and @theodoricmeyer.