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Biden Sets Stage for Likely 2024 Bid, Sparring with GOP in Speech; Biden Touts Economic Accomplishments, Spars with GOP in Speech; Sarah Huckabee Sanders Draws Generational Contrast with Biden. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired February 08, 2023 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:02]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I was going to say, some people watch the State of the Union last night, some people watched LeBron James breaking the coring scoring record.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Were you doing both? Were you both on the set going, yeah, and, Wolf, and --
COLLINS: Don't tell LeBron, but I was asleep, by the time that happened.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: Did you get to watch?
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: What a great -- I didn't see it in real time. But he had tears in his eyes afterwards. What a moment.
LEMON: Yeah, remember when we were on the court last week and we did that interview with TNT, they asked us about that and I got the note from Kareem, he said he was very proud. People thought like, oh, my God, he'd be upset that someone is taking his record. But he said he was very proud and he was on the court last night.
HARLOW: What a night here and there.
LEMON: Yeah, what a night.
Oh, good morning, everyone. We're for getting we're on television. You can see we're in Washington. The Capitol is behind us and it is another big day for Washington.
The State of the Union happening last night and President Biden delivering his second address to a divided Congress. He was heckled and booed and kept the focus on issues impacting Middle America. The highlights straight ahead on CNN this morning.
HARLOW: Also this morning, survivors are still be pulled from the rubble in Turkey and in Syria. The death toll has now risen to 9,500 people from that earthquake. See the heartbreaking images this devastating story. We'll take you live to Turkey. LEMON: There's a lot to get to, but we're going to begin with
President Biden facing a tough and at times down right hostile crowd last night. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not saying it is majority --
(BOOS)
Let me give you -- anybody who doubts it --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Look, whatever you thought about it, it was an interesting back and forth. We're going to discuss it. But the president stood his ground as Republicans heckled and booed, some Republicans heckled and booed his State of the Union address. And at one point, President Biden turned the table and seemed to get Republicans to promise that they would not slash Medicare and Social Security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: As we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?
All right.
(CHEERS)
We've got unanimity.
Tonight, let's all agree and we apparently, stand up for seniors.
(CHEERS)
Stand up and show them we'll not cut Social Security, we will not cut Medicare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Let's bring in now senior White House correspondent MJ Lee. You can see her.
Good morning, I'm sure you are blurry eyed as we are, but it was a very interesting speech by the president, MJ. This was his first State of the Union in front of a divided Congress and it really showed.
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It sure did, Don. In so many ways, it was such a different speech than the one that he gave in the two years past. As he tried to turn the page on the first two years of his presidency by talking about the strides made over the last two years. But, Don, it was very clear that this was a speech meant to be about the future. As he told the American people numerous times that it is time to finish the job that he has started. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIDEN: Because the soul of this nation is strong, because the backbone of this nation is strong, because the people of this nation are strong, the state of the union is strong.
LEE (voice over): President Biden seizing on major primetime address to a joint session of Congress to reflect on the past two years --
BIDEN: The story of America is the story of progress and resilience.
LEE: -- and lay out his vision for the next two.
BIDEN: Let's finish the job.
LEE: Biden describing an inflection point for the country, arguing that the U.S. economy has made a turnaround.
BIDEN: Two years ago, the economy was reeling. I stand here tonight after we created it with the help of many people in this room, 12 million new jobs.
LEE: But the COVID pandemic is now in the rearview mirror --
BIDEN: Today, COVID no longer controls our lives.
LEE: -- and also touting some of his major legislative accomplishments.
BIDEN: I signed over 300 bipartisan pieces of legislation since becoming president.
LEE: A notable difference from Biden's last State of the Union Address, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy seated behind the president.
BIDEN: And the new speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.
(CHEERS)
LEE: At times stoic as Democrats applauded the speech --
BIDEN: Our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken.
LEE: And at other times, visibly trying to quiet his colleagues as they heckled Biden, including on the topic of entitlement cuts.
BIDEN: Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I'm not saying it's a majority.
Let me give you -- anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I'll give you a copy -- I'll give you a copy of the proposal. Look --
LEE: Still, the president insisting that he will work with the other party.
[05:05:03]
BIDEN: There's no reason we can't work together and find consensus on important things in this Congress as well.
LEE: Foreign policy also in the spotlight following the dramatic downing over the weekend of a Chinese spy balloon, Biden only making a passing reference to the incident and instead emphasizing America's readiness to compete with China.
The guests invited to Tuesday night's speech by First Lady Jill Biden painting a story of some of the president's top priorities and challenges over the past year.
Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., a reminder of how much the war in Ukraine has tested and dominated Biden's second year in office.
BIDEN: We're going to stand with you, as long as it takes.
LEE: Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was violently attacked in his home and raised alarm about political extremism.
BIDEN: That's such a heinous act. It should have never happened. We must all speak out.
LEE: And the parents of Tyre Nichols, a man whose death after a violent beating by police officers prompted outrage and grief across the country.
BIDEN: Let's commit ourselves to make the words of Tyre's mom true, something good must come from this.
All of us in this chamber, we need to rise to this moment. We can't turn away.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: And those moments where Republican members heckled the president particularly when he accused them of wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security -- well, White House officials feel they couldn't have choreographed that better, that it helped paint that contrast they wanted to make. And now, the president hits the road to Madison, Wisconsin, to sell the message that he painted last night and we see in the coming days will help pave the way for the re-election announcement that we expect to see in the coming weeks -- guys.
LEMON: All right. Thank you very much, MJ Lee. Appreciate that.
HARLOW: President Biden also talked about kitchen table issues, stuff you talk about at home, right? He talked about junk fees, the hidden extra charges on things like hotel rooms, airliners tickets, and entertainment. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We're going to ban surprise resort fees that hotels charges in your bill. Those fees can cost up to $90 a night at hotels that aren't even resorts. Wait, the idea that cable internet and cellphone companies can charge you $200 or more if you decide to switch to another provider. Give me a break.
We can stop service fees on tickets to concerts and sporting events and make them disclose all the fees up front. And we'll prohibit airlines from charging $50 round trip for a family just to be able to sit together. Baggage fees are bad enough. Airlines can't treat your child like a piece of baggage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That line.
Let's bring in CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans.
When the child thing and airplanes, I was sort of like nodding. But this is something that folk from both parties can totally get behind. Can they do this, though?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's so interesting. This is the president trying to tell the American family, I feel your pain, right? You are being nickled and dimed and I'm trying to give families breathing space. This is a bill called the Junk Fees Prevention Act. It's proposed legislation, the president trying to get both parties behind it.
And you can see what it targets there -- airline fees for sitting together with your kids, early termination fees for TV, phone, internet services, surprise resort and destination fees.
And this is an endeavor that the White House began back in October when they told all the agencies go find egregious fees, find the ones that appear to be unlawful. In the terms of banking fees, there were some banking fees that the Consumer Financial Protection Board found were unlawful and banned right away.
So they are trying to get rid of the extra costs for American families to show people, look, we know you get a lot of higher costs, we're trying to help.
HARLOW: Uh-huh. So one thing we heard the president tout was record job creation, right, millions upon millions, and improving -- not where we need it to be, but improving inflation. But the polls show people don't feel it. They are pessimistic about Biden, they're pessimistic about the economy. And this is something Don challenged the White House, Kate Bedingfield on yesterday on that interview, was how does he change those minds? Do you think he did that last night?
ROMANS: You know, it remains to be seen. He's going to go out in the country now and sell the State of the Union address. He had a big audience yesterday. And he said, Poppy, the word job or jobs 23 times. We counted.
And he also pointed out rightly that there is record job creation in his first two years in office. You can see that there are 12 million jobs created. In President Trump's first term, it was about 4.5 million. And other presidents have lost jobs in the first couple of years.
But people just don't feel it. I think that there is exhaustion and wariness after the last three years of inflation and supply chain snafus, and, of course, death toll from COVID.
[05:10:02]
So that is kind of the tone that the president is trying to strike. But clearly trying to show empathy for families because he knows a lot of families aren't feeling an improving economy.
HARLOW: And real wages haven't caught up. Christine Romans, thank you very much.
COLLINS: All right. For more perspective on last night's speech, I want to bring in our CNN political analyst Zolan Kanno-Youngs, White House correspondent for "The New York Times."
You know, Zolan, as the heckling going back and forth, Biden leaned into it, he almost seemed to relish going back and forth with Republicans.
ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It is something that the White House in talking to White House officials after the speech, they were excited about. Look, there has been a strategy since the change in dynamics in Congress after the midterms. The Republicans taking over the House obviously makes it more difficult to pass legislation. We all know that.
It is also somewhat provided the White House a little bit of a change in strategy here that they favor. And that is that they now have a foe to contrast their economic policies with. I should say not all Republicans are proposing to cut Medicare, to cut Social Security.
COLLINS: Most aren't.
KANNO-YOUNGS: Most aren't. But the fact that you just have say Senator Rick Scott proposing a plan like that, the White House is now pointing to that and you saw President Biden lean into it.
This isn't just at the State of the Union, it goes back to a speech that he made in Virginia as well. And it will be a strategy that they use moving forward.
They have been looking for a foe to contrast their economic policies with and now again with a broad brush, they -- you saw him lean into that yesterday. You know, often coming into office, President Biden preached unity, he breached bipartisanship. And a change of dynamic to be willing to have a heated debate even publicly yesterday.
LEMON: And I'm going to play another moment where he got heckled and he leaned into it. Let's play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans, want Medicare and Social Security to sunset.
I'm not saying it is the majority.
Let's me give you -- anybody who doubts it, contact my office, I'll give you a copy, I'll give you a copy of the proposal. That means Congress doesn't vote. Glad to see -- I tell you, I enjoy conversion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I wonder if it just worked out that way, but most things in Washington don't work out that way, or if it was designed to set him up to heckle him and to lead him down the primary rose path and say okay, gotcha. And then he answered what they are booing about.
KANNO-YOUNGS: No, absolutely. It is interesting that moment there too because in the days leading up to this speech when you talk to White House officials, they advised that he wouldn't lean in and kind of engage in those kind of heated debates with the Marjorie Taylor Greene or other Republicans, because they expected the heckling. But also I think President Biden when you have seen his previous speeches whether on foreign or domestic policy, he has shown that oftentimes he does what he wants, leaves in to his instincts even if it wasn't to the advice that his advisers gave at that point.
HARLOW: What does it say about Speaker McCarthy's control or lack of control over the party that he had to shush them a number of times. He went in directing them to act civilly and we saw a number of times just there, Marjorie Taylor Greene saying you lie. And what was it, 2012 Obama's State of the Union -- yeah, that was such a big deal.
COLLINS: Shows you how times have really changed.
HARLOW: That is my point. Such a big deal when one member of Congress yells --
KANNO-YOUNGS: And just the state of -- we often talked in the first two years of the divisions in the Democratic party when Biden was trying to pass "build back better," that slate of legislative bills. But you showed the challenge for Speaker McCarthy when it comes to trying to rein in his own party. Yesterday was said that the divisions are still there. And we have seen little evidence that he will be able to do it at least in the weeks to do.
COLLINS: All right. Zolan, thanks for getting up early with us.
LEMON: Having watched it and sat there during Trump's, it just makes -- Nancy Pelosi was always pretty much in control of the folks. It makes him look like he doesn't really have power over his caucus.
COLLINS: Remember that one time when Trump was delivering an address and she kind of went like that when they were trying to boo something he said? So there have been moments before where even Pelosi herself -- she had a different grip on her caucus than McCarthy does, but he told them beforehand, he asked them to be gracious and not essentially do what they did last night.
[05:15:04]
LEMON: There was a lot of shh, shh going on.
COLLINS: Yeah.
LEMON: Yeah.
COLLINS: All right. Zolan, thanks for getting up early with us.
Also last night, there were several moments of the guests that you saw President Biden brought, including Tyre Nichols' parents. They were in the audience. President Biden told Congress, quote, do something about police reform.
The big question this morning, though, is there any path forward?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Joining us tonight are the parents of Tyre Nichols. Welcome.
(APPLAUSE)
There are no words to describe the heartache or grief of losing a child. But imagine -- imagine if you lost that child at the hands of the law.
Here is what Tyre's mother shared with me when I spoke to her, when I asked her how does she find the courage to speak out.
[05:20:09]
The faith of God, she said her son was, quote, "A beautiful soul. And something good will come of this."
Imagine how much courage and character that takes. It's up to us, to all of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That was the president addressing police reform with invited guests RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, the parents of Tyre Nichols, who recently lost his life at the hands of police in Memphis.
CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers is here with us this morning. He's a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives.
And we're so happy to have you this morning. Good morning. Thank you for coming on. I appreciate it.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning. Thank you for welcoming to your balcony.
LEMON: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: Listen, I hope that what she says comes to fruition with her hopes for this, that something good will come out of it. And the president pressed Congress to pass the George Floyd Policing Act. He did not go as far as people wanted him, including Gwen Carr. Eric Garner's mother said, I wish that he had gone further, but this is the beginning.
The George Floyd and Policing Act would restrict chokeholds, creating a nationwide database for police misconduct.
Do you think any of this will happen?
SELLERS: No. I don't think any of this will happen, and the tragedy that the Nichols family will live with is the tragedy that we all will, that you go from George Floyd to Nichols to who will be next. There will be another family who gets a knock at the door who says that your loved one was brutalized by your law enforcement, your loved one was beaten or had a knee to the throat. Or a shot in the back or whatever it may be, these things will continue to happen mainly because what you saw yesterday.
That's the frustration people have with American -- the American political scene. That you have people standing up and clap at your pain and trauma. And then they don't to anything when they go to work the next day. And we're not going to get any action out of the United States Congress on anything tangible to change or reform the police in this country.
HARLOW: Why? It is not all Republicans that are opposed to it.
SELLERS: So that is a good question.
HARLOW: Why is it so intractable?
SELLERS: I think there are a couple of things. One on the policy front, when you talk about things like qualified immunity, for example, that's a true policy argument.
HARLOW: Some Democrats didn't say that.
SELLERS: And there are a lot of us who say, well, let's limit qualified immunity. Let's -- there's a little give and take there.
HARLOW: Tell people what that is. I mean --
SELLERS: So, I've been kicked out of court a lot of times on qualified immunity. Basically it is when a law enforcement officer commits an act and then they say I had the reasonable belief or fear that my life as an officer was in danger.
LEMON: And we should say you are also an attorney.
SELLERS: Yeah, I'm also an attorney. And sometimes it is one of the more bogus I just woke up and put myself in the line of danger arguments that is made, but yet that is a blanket immunity for law enforcement. But uniquely enough, one of the sticking points on criminal justice reform is the database. And right now, you can be a law enforcement officer and fired in Memphis and go join the police force in Nashville, Tennessee, or Columbia, South Carolina, where I'm living now.
And so we need to have a database of bad actors. But the fact is I was in a room with Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham and many of these families. And you can see that Tim Scott wanted to get this done.
But he did not have the fortitude of other members of his caucus to get it done even on a limited scale back basis. And that for me is the upsetting part. And it is even more tragic because you don't want the next knock at the door or the next hashtag to be sellers. And that is what a lot of black folk feel like. You don't want to be the next hashtag or have a family member that is that hashtag and that's a very real fear.
COLLINS: Yeah, and the next guest at the State of the Union for that reason.
It's this weird moment sometimes when the guests are there to see where -- to have them come this soon after and the mother was so gracious. When she got up and she was saying thank you to the members of Congress, it was just remarkable to see them having that kind of composure.
LEMON: Dignified, yeah.
SELLERS: They shouldn't have to do this. That is the entire purpose of this discussion this morning. Like there should not be a Black mother and father that have to come, just recently a week ago burying their child and begging him to take action. And then you clap in my face and you go to your respective caucuses and you don't do anything about it.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, as much as we push, I have no faith that it will pass, but it doesn't mean that I won't continue to come to work. That is the struggle, that is the cycle that we're in.
My biggest fear is that the Wells family is here now, who will be there next. And there definitely is going to be a next. There is only justice when it happens no more.
LEMON: Can we get to the Republican response last night?
SELLERS: Please.
LEMON: OK. Because it was Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivering the Republican response and she claimed that Biden was hijacked by the woke left wing.
[05:25:01] Let's play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS (R), ARKANSAS: Every day, we are told we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags and worship their false idols, all while big government colludes with big tech to strip away the most American thing there is -- your freedom of speech. That's not normal. It's crazy. And it's wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: What did you think?
SELLERS: I didn't think that this was a bad response. I think that it will be consumed by right wing media. I think that is what she wants. I think today on all the conservative talk shows, it's going to play a lot.
But it was utterly weird. It was as it she took every Republican talking point and hot topic in word and just put it all together in one speech. And if you close your eyes, this is a speech that Marjorie Taylor Greene could give. This is -- this is a speech which is the one of the reasons that the Republican Party has this fundamental inability to grow beyond that uber conservative base.
I don't know necessarily what she was talking about or what American she was talking about. I said it sarcastically, she done a great job of banning the word of Latinx in Arkansas and examining their AP African-American curriculum and tackling the issues that are affecting pocketbooks of people who live in Arkansas.
So the speech lacked a lot of substance but it is what Republicans want to hear.
LEMON: Does it though? I was wondering why they picked her considering what happened -- they got trounced in November when at least the Trump right wing of the Republican Party, the Republican establishment and Republican conservative media trying to minimize Donald Trump in the corner, why pick Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
SELLERS: First of all, she didn't mention Trump the entire speech.
COLLINS: She did mention Trump at the end though talking about --
SELLERS: She mentioned -- she didn't say his name, though. She said the former president. But it was kind of -- that was also kind of weird. She didn't --
LEMON: She was his spokesperson, why would they --
SELLERS: Because there was nobody else up there to do it, I don't believe. I don't think --
COLLINS: I think a big part of it is that she is the youngest governor and Biden -- she talked about -- (CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Yeah.
COLLINS: But what was interesting with that is Biden's speech was so lively, he was so fired up which is sometimes unusual for him, but hers was a little more muted.
SELLERS: It was. But she is 40, I think the youngest American governor. And Biden is getting up there in age to say the least. So you saw that contrast.
But it's -- I think that the 20 percent of the country that will eat this up or the 20 percent who choose who the Republican nominee is, the rest of us look at that and say, look, you are talking about banning freedom of speech and you all are the ones taking books out of classrooms here. You are talking about engaging in culture wars. You all are the ones who don't say gay and passing legislation, which is nothing but rooted in culture wars.
She's going to have a hard time breaking out of that bubble. But for those who didn't know who Sarah Huckabee Sanders was or what she stood up for --
HARLOW: They do now.
SELLERS: -- they do now.
HARLOW: Yeah, Bakari, thank you very, very much.
SELLERS: Thank you.
HARLOW: Ahead, we are going to be joined by the parents of Tyre Nichols. They were at the State of the Union last night. Their hope for what could come from their tragedy.
LEMON: And we have to talk about what happened overseas, that devastating earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria, leaving nearly 10,000 people dead. A live report from Turkey on the desperate search for survivors, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
