The '24 Seven - 3/8/24
The top seven stories shaping the race for the White House
Hello, and welcome to The ‘24 Seven – 24sight’s daily roundup of the top seven stories shaping the race for the White House. If you see something we missed or have suggestions, drop us a note - tom@24sight.news.
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So, was that the Great (Biden) Reset last night?
1 The state of this union
President Joe Biden opened the State of the Union address Thursday night harkening to his political north star, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and then wound through a 66-minute speech laced with the New Deal-style populism which used to dominate the Democratic Party and a number of Ds are working to reclaim. He also framed the coming election as a fight for democracy, with foreign threats from Russia’s Vladimir Putin and others demanding a strong U.S. response, and reinserted January 6th into the center of the race.
The political tacking was clear, and effective, by a veteran politico, parrying shots at times and ad libbing.
As he was walking into the chamber, Biden mocked Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene as she worked to insert herself into the moment. Later, during the speech, as Rep. Greene yelled from the audience, Biden pulled out one of the pins she had been distributing honoring Laken Riley, and pivoted to urge Republicans to work with him on a bipartisan border deal instead of yelling about it.
It’s one example of Biden leaning on a classic of politics (detailed in Chris Matthews’ handbook of politics, “Hardball”) to attack your opponents’ strengths rather than their weaknesses.
(More on this later this afternoon in our latest episode of the 24sight Pod.
spoke with Washington Monthly’s and veteran conservative commentator and author — they host The DMZ podcast over at Bloggingheads.TV and had some excellent insights into how Biden reshaped the race Thursday night.)The big question now, as we head full force into the general election rematch between Biden and Trump (barring a comet striking or a miraculous surge by Jason Palmer) is whether Biden and his team will be able to keep up that momentum generated in the House chamber.
2 What wasn’t said
In the middle of Biden’s address, Steven Nikoui, the father of one of the 13 marines killed in a terrorist attack in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2021, was pulled from the House gallery as he yelled at Biden to acknowledge the soldiers who died during the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.
Veteran military reporter James LaPorta, himself a marine, explained the moment on X.com Thursday.
3 Britt
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, delivered a widely panned rebuttal to Biden shortly after the State of the Union Thursday night. Britt, a young mother and rising star in the party, rode a rollercoaster of emotions throughout her rebuttal, at times describing graphic scenes of gang rape, as part of a broader message arguing that Biden has let the country fall into a lawless hellscape. (This is very similar to Trump’s own campaign messages in three consecutive runs for the White House — and potentially more depending on the results in November.)
It’s unclear what that does for Britt’s career long term, though it’s worth noting that Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders was also panned after her State of the Union rebuttal last year and is still riding high in Trumpworld, mentioned often as a possible running mate. … Which reminds me, probably time to update 24sight rankings.
4 Trump posts bond
Trump put up a $91 million bond to stave off a pending fine of $83 million in the defamation case from E. Jean Carroll, as he appeals the verdict. This comes as Trump has increasingly been working on GOP mega-donors to come back into the fold for him now that he is the presumptive Republican nominee.
5 Red (tie) Wave
writer notes that some of Trump’s Senate fan club – including those he trounced during the 2016 presidential primary like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida – have taken to cosplaying as him.(Rubio, as a number of Republican sources have noted, is being mentioned as a possible Trump running mate — although the 12th Amendment provides a fairly big hurdle for him and other Floridians to overcome.)
6 Youngkin takes the L
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the GOP darling who was expected to shake up the 2024 presidential race but never jumped in, has taken a major hit as Democratic state Sen. L. Louise Lucas spiked his $2 billion, taxpayer-funded stadium deal with venue-shopping sports mogul Ted Leonsis.
Youngkin can still try and make a play for the public debt-backed entertainment complex designed to lure the Washington Wizards and Capitals away from their current home in downtown D.C., but Lucas seems unlikely to budge no matter what he throws at her.
“He tried to make it like, ‘Oh, you just killed the commonwealth,’” Lucas told The Washington Post of her decision to cut the proposal from the state budget blueprint. “And I said, ‘Governor, I’ve thought about the negative impact — to put the full faith and credit of the commonwealth behind a project that’s going to enrich billionaires was a bridge too far for me.’”
A former businessman, Youngkin has been heralded as a centrist alternative to Donald Trump’s far-right MAGA movement.
7 Shoring up relief for Gaza
As is so often the case when it comes to humanitarian relief efforts, global leaders are racing to catch up with World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés on the front lines of hunger.
The New York Times reports that WCK’s first maritime food delivery to resource-starved Palestinians is already in the works, launching a pilot program designed to bolster the more than 32 million meals WCK says it’s served in the region since Hamas fighters attacked Israel last fall.
Andrés said his group is already making around 350,000 meals a day in the war-torn area, but he wants to up production to 1 million per day. ““It’s worth trying the impossible to feed the people of Gaza,” he told the Times.
Biden announced that the U.S. would set up a temporary port to speed aid to Gaza as part of his State of the Union address but it remains unclear how soon that might be completed.