Good morning! Congressional aids say phones rang nonstop yesterday morning with pleas from tweens to save TikTok. No dice. A House committee passed its anti-TikTok bill unanimously, 50 to 0. There’s a good chance that later this year TikTok is either banned in the U.S. or has a new, non-Chinese owner.

PRESIDENCY

🗨️ “The state of our union is strong and getting stronger”

Picture this. You’re the president of the United States. You’re about to deliver the biggest speech of your career. You get into your 20,000-pound, hermetically sealed tank that’s dressed up to look like a Cadillac. Your 42-car motorcade pulls away from the White House for the 2-mile drive toward the Capitol.

The Context: President Biden arrived in the House chamber to roaring applause. Members of both parties hounded him as he walked down the aisle. Some for face time, others for FaceTime.

Dozens of Democratic women wore white as a symbol for, as their pins said, "Reproductive Freedom." One Republican -- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene -- wore a MAGA hat in violation of the House's prohibition on non-religious headwear.

The Content: President Biden immediately came out on the attack. His speech was more political than most of these addresses. But he spoke for 67 minutes. That left plenty of time for policy.

• He hit his unnamed "predecessor" 13 times

• He defended his job creation record and falling inflation while pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy

• He unveiled his plan to build a port in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid.

By tradition, members of the president's party (D or R) stand and clap at every second sentence. Rumor has it that Democrats are still standing there, clapping dutifully. The out party prefers to sit and pretend there's no speech at all. That was particularly difficult last night for Speaker Mike Johnson (R). The speaker gets the unenviable position right behind the president. He had to look interested. But not too interested.

• A man in the gallery upstairs shouted down, yelling at the president. He was removed and arrested. A guest of Rep. Brian Mast (R), the man is a Gold Star father whose son was killed during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Republicans called Biden's speech afterward "nakedly partisan" and judged it too loud, too fast, and punchy and uneven in tone.

The Response: The Senate's youngest woman, freshman Sen. Katie Britt, gave the Republican rebuttal to Biden's speech. She offered a few zingers on his age ("Our Commander in Chief is not in command") and résumé ("actually been in office longer than I've been alive"). She defended IVF, saying Republicans "support continued nationwide access" to the treatment. But even some Republicans thought Britt's delivery was a tad overdramatic.

2024

❎ Nikki Haley for president Rematch 2024

Picture this. You’re the president of the United States. You’re about to deliver the biggest speech of your career. You get into your 20,000-pound, hermetically sealed tank that’s dressed up to look like a Cadillac. Your 42-car motorcade pulls away from the White House for the 2-mile drive toward the Capitol.

The Context: President Biden arrived in the House chamber to roaring applause. Members of both parties hounded him as he walked down the aisle. Some for face time, others for FaceTime.

Dozens of Democratic women wore white as a symbol for, as their pins said, "Reproductive Freedom." One Republican -- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene -- wore a MAGA hat in violation of the House's prohibition on non-religious headwear.

The Content: President Biden immediately came out on the attack. His speech was more political than most of these addresses. But he spoke for 67 minutes. That left plenty of time for policy.

• He hit his unnamed "predecessor" 13 times

• He defended his job creation record and falling inflation while pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy

• He unveiled his plan to build a port in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid.

By tradition, members of the president's party (D or R) stand and clap at every second sentence. Rumor has it that Democrats are still standing there, clapping dutifully.

The out party prefers to sit and pretend there's no speech at all. That was particularly difficult last night for Speaker Mike Johnson (R). The speaker gets the unenviable position right behind the president. He had to look interested. But not too interested.

• A man in the gallery upstairs shouted down, yelling at the president. He was removed and arrested. A guest of Rep. Brian Mast (R), the man is a Gold Star father whose son was killed during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Republicans called Biden's speech afterward "nakedly partisan" and judged it too loud, too fast, and punchy and uneven in tone.

The Response: The Senate's youngest woman, freshman Sen. Katie Britt, gave the Republican rebuttal to Biden's speech. She offered a few zingers on his age ("Our Commander in Chief is not in command") and résumé ("actually been in office longer than I've been alive"). She defended IVF, saying Republicans "support continued nationwide access" to the treatment. But even some Republicans thought Britt's delivery was a tad overdramatic.

POLITICS

🔵 The first rule of politics? Spring for that extra $10 domain name. President Biden keeps talking about "Bidenomics,” but his campaign somehow didn’t buy Bidenomics.com. A Republican-aligned group took advantage of that political malpractice. Now, instead of pushing Biden’s economic message, the site does the opposite. Does this matter in the end? Nah. But campaigns are made up of thousands of little decisions like this. And those decisions add up.

🔴 The U.S. Navy demoted Rep. Ronny Jackson (R) from rear admiral to captain. Jackson was the military physician to Presidents Obama and Trump. A Navy investigation found he got a little loosey-goosey with prescriptions while heading up the White House Medical Unit. The move knocks about $15,000 off his annual military pension.

🔴 Former pro wrestler Dan Rodimer (R) came within 3% of winning a Congressional seat in Nevada in 2020. He was just arrested for murder. Rodimer allegedly beat a man (a bit too hard) who offered his stepdaughter cocaine at a hotel. Five months after losing his 2020 race, Rodimer announced another campaign… in Texas (complete with a fake accent that was completely different from how he sounded in Nevada).

🔵 He's not ruling it out! Florida hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1994. But moderate Rep. Jared Moskovitz (D) isn't ruling out a run for the job in 2026. Moskovitz has strong bipartisan cred for serving in Gov. Ron DeSantis's administration. That might help make him the Democrat's best bet in a state that's only getting more Republican.

⚪ Rumor is they’re in. Centrist group No Labels is expected to vote today to push forward with their long-planned presidential “unity ticket” featuring one Democrat and one Republican. Next step: find actual candidates.

🔴 The Republican Senate candidate in super Democratic Maryland, former Gov. Larry Hogan, says he won’t vote for Trump or Biden. He wants a moderate alternative. This strategy risks turning off pro-Trump voters. But this is Maryland. That group is far outweighed by moderate suburban Democrats who liked Hogan as governor.

TRIVIA

President Biden gave his State of the Union address last night (obviously). Sen. Katie Britt gave the Republican response. But four people have given a State of the Union response and, later in their careers, an actual State of the Union address. Which four presidents were they?

Hint: The opposition responses began in the 60s.

WORLD

🇸🇪 Sweden: Swedish neutrality lasted over 200 years. World War I? Neutral. World War II? Neutral. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the straw that broke the reindeer’s back. Sweden’s flag was raised at NATO HQ yesterday as the kingdom officially became the 32nd member of the mutual defense pact. Sweden’s submarines and supersonic fighters will beef up NATO’s presence in the Baltic Sea — the closest sea to Moscow.

🇰🇵 North Korea: The U.S. and South Korean militaries are conducting their annual joint training drills. The 11-day exercise is twice the size it was last year. And North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un took that personally. He views the drills as a rehearsal for invasion. His military responded by holding a few drills of their own, which he kindly visited.

🇺🇸 United States: On the order of NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, 1,000 National Guard troops and State Police officers are now on guard at NYC subway stations. Hochul says they’ll keep watch and randomly check bags to fight off a growing crime rate.

BRIEFS

• Indirect Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks in Cairo ended with no deal but will continue next week as Ramadan nears

• Alabama IVF clinics are resuming operations after Gov. Ivey signed an IVF protection bill into law

• Expelled NY Rep. George Santos (R) announced he will run for Congress again, this time in a neighboring district

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed the military chief he just fired as his new ambassador to the U.K.

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will visit Trump in Florida today, but won’t meet with Biden

• Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told the Senate Banking Committee that the Fed isn’t far from cutting interest rates

• Colossal Biosciences says it's found a way to bring woolly mammoths back from extinction

• The FBI arrested a Chinese former Google engineer for AI-related “trade secret theft”

• The struggling New York Community Bank received a $1 billion investment from former Trump Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin

• A New Mexico jury found the “Rust” film armorer guilty of involuntary manslaughter for accidental on-set shooting death

• A federal judge ruled the Minority Business Development Agency is violating the Constitution and must begin serving white people

QUOTE

SNACKS

🏆 Oscars: The 96th Academy Awards are Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. For the first time in over a decade, the movie nerds look poised to hand the Best Picture win to a movie people actually watched.

🚙 Cars: EV company Rivian revealed two upcoming new, slightly more affordable models. The R2 SUV will cost $45,000 and the R3 crossover will cost a mysterious “less.”

🥊 Boxing: Mike Tyson, 57, will step out of retirement in July to box Jake Paul, 27, live on Netflix. That is… some age gap.

ANSWER

Since the opposing party began giving a rebuttal in the 1960s, we’re looking for four presidents who have served since then. Probably not coincidentally, none of these guys gave a solo response (those are often career killers). All four of these gents took part in group responses of varying types.

1. Gerald Ford — 1966, 1967, 1968 — Ford was in Congressional leadership for ages before lucking into the presidency due to Watergate. He took part in the first three SOTU responses.

2. George H. W. Bush — 1968 — Senior here was serving in the House at the time. He was one of 16 Republicans who took part in this.

3. Bill Clinton — 1985 — Slick Willie was the up-and-coming thirtysomething governor of Arkansas in the 80s. He did well here but nearly destroyed his career a few years later with his horrible keynote speech at the ‘88 DNC.

4. Joe Biden — 1983, 1984 — That’s right, our man Joe helped (large groups of) Democrats respond to Reagan’s addresses over 40 years ago. Dude’s been around for a while.