"Ron Klain" Previews the State of the Union Address
Or: I preview the State of the Union address....
What you will find below is NOT a real memo.
I wrote it, based on my reporting and analysis.
But if you want to think Ron Klain wrote it, it will be impossible for me to stop you.
And now a word about you, the sole sponsors/funders of Wide World of News.
(Apologies to those of you who received this edition twice…)
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Back to the fake Ron Klain memo.
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TO: JRB
FROM: Ron Klain
DATE: 3/1/22
RE: SOTU ETC
Good morning.
Big day (and night) for you and the team, which should go close to midnight when all is said and done.
I will get to Ukraine in a minute, but first I wanted to start with good news.
You always wanted to be a consequential president and prove you can do this job every bit as well as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – and now you have your chance.
Bruce Reed and I were laughing last night about how President Clinton faced a “split-screen moment” during his 1997 State of the Union address, when the O.J. Simpson civil trial verdict came down just as the speech was finishing up. White House fears to the contrary, most of the TV networks stayed with the speech.
You have the mother of all split-screen SOTUs tonight.
More good news: Bruce says you have already broken Bill Clinton’s record of most revisions of a State of the Union speech text. We are on version #392, and, knowing you as I do, I feel confident we will get well over #400 before you actually deliver the speech.
We need you UPBEAT all day and tonight, so here’s a great trivia question I think you will like! You will have to read the whole memo to get the answer.
Only three artists have simultaneously had the #1 and #2 album on the Billboard charts. Guns ’n’ Roses did it second and Nelly was 3rd.
Who did it first?
Yes, don’t worry about who Guns ‘n’ Roses is. Or are. Or Nelly. Or ask the girls.
Anyway, here’s a hint. The answer is one of your contemporaries.
You will notice the clip file this morning is pretty light on curtain-raisers for your big night. There is just too much Ukraine coverage to break through, but Dr. Biden is confident your rousing remarks this evening will do just that.
To frame things up, here’s an excerpt from a brand new polling memo from our political team:
Most Americans don’t think the state of our union is strong; they think Biden’s first year has been disaster. Since he took office, we have experienced the worst inflation in 40 years; the worst crime wave in many cities since the 1990s; the worst border crisis in U.S. history; the worst foreign policy debacle in recent memory, in Afghanistan. The worst global health crisis in a century is still upending our lives. And we are witnessing the worst act of unprovoked aggression in Europe since World War II.
Just kidding!
That isn’t from Anzo; those are the words of right-wing Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen.
But let’s be honest – even if you were to quibble with some of those characterizations (like on Afghanistan…), that paragraph actually accurately frames up where the preponderance of public opinion is now, and the public mood.
Amy Walter was on that program you (still) call the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour last night and she got it exactly correct:
“[The challenge for the president right now isn't unifying around support for Ukraine or opposition to Russia's actions. The challenge right now is for Americans to see the president himself as a leader.”
To be frank, tonight is where the fact that the filter, the Gang of 500, and the Dominant Media have largely turned against us and accepted the Mitch McConnell narrative on your economic performance, the midterms, and your competence really matters, unfortunately.
The setting will give you a chance to come across as a leader on the war, but you are going to have to sell your leadership on the economy like you never have before. If you think the panic on the Hill over the midterms can’t get any more severe, please, Mr. President, think again.
No matter how well written the speech is, no matter how brilliantly you deliver it, and no matter how well received it is in the chamber by one or both parties, let’s not kid ourselves. There is no paradigm shift coming tomorrow morning. Even if we keep Mike’s “tough on crime” section in there (not quite at Sister Soulja levels, but still strong), Putin has ensured no one is going to notice or care.
I think the current speech draft hits the sweet spot between telling people the economy is doing great and also feeling their pain, with the details of our plan.
In one of the few pieces previewing tonight, the New York Times writes:
The president, officials said, will argue that passage of the legislation will effectively counter the inflation that is affecting people’s everyday budgets. And Mr. Biden will urge lawmakers to confirm his nominees to the Federal Reserve Board, which has signaled that it will soon take steps to slow the country’s growth in an effort to reduce inflation.
Officials said Mr. Biden will also announce new steps to confront price increases caused by a lack of competition.
And we are inserting a paragraph that will play off of this optimistic Wall Street Journal forecast about the impact of Russia’s aggression:
Halperin’s crazy theory that Putin is going to launch on Kiev and/or create a no-fly-zone crisis shortly before the speech is asinine. But the no-fly issue is obviously a potentially major problem, one of the few areas where we could lose the support of the coalition of the willing and, more importantly, of Twitter.
Tony and Jake are spending hours and hours on the phone, keeping the coalition together. I know you would like to make more of the calls, but they have this. With the exception of India and a few others, even the Wall Street Journal ed board is applauding the worldwide response (although not giving you enough credit for it).
We have done so much right on this that isn’t getting sufficient attention. Sending a high-level delegation to Taiwan was super brilliant, and properly aggressive, for instance. The comms folks are looking back at the media coverage of Bush 41 and trying to figure out how he got all that great press for uniting the world against Saddam Hussein.
Putin give us an opportunity to turn the speech tonight into a bipartisan, feel-good moment for the nation, standing up to evil, celebrating Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, etc. We are crafting that section so it is rah-rah in the chamber and around the nation.
I know you are a bit distracted by (maybe fragile over) the deaths of Dick Blum and Mrs. Olivere, who I just found out was your childhood crush. And the sentencing of Hunt’s friend Devon Archer (what a great guy) is upsetting as well.
But tonight’s the night.
Your night.
With the right speech text and right energy, we are going to start the Biden-Harris comeback at 9:01pm ET.
Unless, of course, Kiev falls before you get to Wisconsin on Wednesday.
Oh, I almost forgot. The answer to that trivia question is Bob Newhart!
The national security team will have an update for you after your workout.