Good morning! Facebook and Instagram crashed yesterday morning. In response, the company was forced to issue a statement on X. That had to sting.

Elsewhere, a civilian Air Force employee is charged with leaking classified info to a woman on a dating app. This poor schmuck fell for doozies like “Dear, what is shown on the screens in the special room?? It is very interesting.” Careful out there, gents.

PRESIDENCY

🗨️ The state of our union is presumably going to be “strong”

Heads up: extra long, extra entertaining story coming in hot.

It’s that time of year again. Once upon a time, in a dark pre-Netflix world, it meant all the good TV was canceled. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case. Adjusted for population, only about half as many people watched the State of the Union address last year as in the 1990s. We have better options now.

The joint session: No matter. Tomorrow evening, some dude (that’s the Sergeant-at-Arms) will loudly introduce him and President Joe Biden will walk down the aisle in the House chamber while getting hounded by attention-starved politicians who just waited in line for seven hours to get a good seat for five seconds of televised glory.

The Speaker of the House has to invite the president, by the way. This is the House chamber, after all. There are rules on who can speak. That’s usually not a problem, though.

Biden will arrive at the giant pyramid of chairs dais and take his place in front of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President Kamala Harris (who’s technically president of the Senate). This is a joint session of Congress. So the entire House and Senate will be there. Most of the Supreme Court usually shows up, too. And the Cabinet. And the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The designated survivor: Everyone who is anyone in power is there. Except for that one person — the designated survivor. In case you’ve never seen the show about it, one member of the president’s Cabinet stays away in a secure location, you know… just in case the entire Capitol blows up and kills everyone inside. So they can become president. Anyway…

The Style: Presidents have put on this show for longer than any of us have been alive. What politician doesn’t love a camera? The core practice is mandated by the Constitution:

• “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union…”

But it hasn’t always been this way. The first two presidents gave it as a speech to Congress like today (but presumably without the TVs). Thomas Jefferson (#3), ever the shy guy, just wrote Congress a letter instead. That remained the standard operating procedure until the early 1900s when presidents realized they could interrupt an otherwise beautiful Thursday night.

The Speech: This thing takes months to write. Presidents often practice in the White House theater room. The goal is to lay out their policy agenda for the year ahead while celebrating the successes of the recent past (“We did good. Now let’s go do even better!”). Presidents try to draw attention to their priorities, particularly the more popular ones. If they can get the American people on their side in The Big Speech™, Congress is more likely to support those plans, too. At least that’s the thought process.

Like much of American political life, the State of the Union address is an exercise in partisanship. Members of the president’s party will stand up and clap constantly. Members of the opposing party will pretend they’re getting a root canal.

The Guests: One way to get people from both parties to jump up and clap? Good guests. Every member of Congress gets to bring one guest, who all sit in the gallery upstairs. The president and Congressional leadership bring more. And the president gets to work his into the speech. These are typically people who represent a relevant political policy or someone who’s in the news for a touching personal reason.

The Response: If you were bummed about only getting one speech tomorrow night, good news! The opposing party gives a rebuttal to the president’s address. It’s typically given by someone seen as a rising star with strong future potential. This year, it’s freshman Sen. Katie Britt (R). Sure, it’s an honor to be selected. But it’s also widely seen as the worst job in politics.

• Per the Washington Post, "You're following the president who has the best theater, the best visuals, and live audience. Then you cut from that to a direct-to-camera speech that often looks like a hostage video."

These days, they also usually have someone else give a second rebuttal in Spanish. And, not to be outdone, sometimes congressional sub-groups (left, right, or center) give another rebuttal no matter the president’s party. It’s turning into a speech extravaganza.

Uuuh so what’s Biden going to say? We’ll have to watch to find out. Expect him to focus on his strengths and some of his new economic policies (more on those below). He’ll likely also have to hit on immigration (he’s at 28% approval there).

One line he’s likely not going to pull from the archives? President Gerald Ford’s brutally honest assessment from 1975 that “The state of the Union is not good.” Yeesh.

POLITICS

🔵 Joe Biden did what we all expect incumbent presidents to do and won the Democratic contests in all 15 states last night. But, in a bizarre upset, some dude named Jason Palmer won the Democratic caucus in the U.S. territory of American Samoa. He defeated Biden 51 to 40. No, not percent. Palmer won 51 votes to Biden’s 40.

🔴 Donald Trump all but sewed up his third consecutive Republican presidential nomination last night. Results are still trickling in. But the former president appears to have won 14 of yesterday’s 15 Republican primaries and caucuses. Nikki Haley narrowly won Vermont (the nation’s most Democratic state).

Barring the apocalypse, Biden and Trump will win enough delegates to secure their respective party nominations later this month.

Elsewhere:

• California: Rep. Adam Schiff (D) will face retired MLB player Steve Garvey (R) in the race for U.S. Senate. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s protege, Rep. Katie Porter (D) fared poorly in this race. In the 30th congressional district race, Boy Will Not Meet Congress. Actor Ben Savage got just 3.7% of the vote.

• North Carolina: Controversial (spicy?) Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) will face Atty. Gen. Josh Stein (D) in the race for governor.

• Texas: Sen. Ted Cruz (R) will face Rep. Colin Allred (D) in the race for U.S. Senate this fall. With several races headed to runoffs — including the Texas House speaker’s — the outcome of the Texas legislative civil war is TBD.

🔴 The Supreme Court’s ruling is out on Trump v. Anderson, otherwise known as the “Can states (like Colorado) kick Trump off the ballot?” case. At issue is whether states can, under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause,” boot him for his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Per the court’s unanimous opinion, no — that’s up to the federal government. He must remain on the ballot. While the core decision was unanimous, justices disagreed on who should enforce this clause in the future. The majority opinion said that power lies with Congress.

🔴 “Halo” composer Marty O’Donnell is running for Congress as a Republican. He wants the Republican nomination in the battle to take out Rep. Susie Lee (D) in a slightly Democratic congressional district in suburban Las Vegas.

⚪ Democrat-turned-independent Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema won’t run for a second term this year. She was probably going to lose, so this will save face (and a lot of effort). Sinema took a moderate turn a few years back and left the Democratic Party in 2022. The likely candidates to replace her are Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) and former reporter Kari Lake (R). Which side benefits from her exit? Likely nobody. Sinema was pulling in an equal number of disaffected moderate-ish Ds and Rs.

🔵 Surprising no one but the people who keep asking about it, former First Lady Michelle Obama will not run for President. Her office says she’s supporting the Biden/Harris ticket.

TRIVIA

Most Supreme Court decisions that make the news are contentious and divide the court along ideological lines. But the court’s liberal and conservative justices agree on more than you might realize. Last term, what percentage of Supreme Court opinions were unanimous?

WORLD

🇺🇸 United States: Bipartisan lawmakers want to force TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to sell the service. They consider the app’s association with the Chinese government a national security concern. If their bill becomes law, ByteDance would have 180 days to sell TikTok before U.S. app stores and servers are banned from hosting the app.

🇭🇹 Haiti: Soldiers were deployed to defend Hati's main airport as armed gangs attempted to seize it. These gangs control an estimated 80% of the capital of Port-au-Prince and, days ago, busted out thousands of prisoners. They were likely attempting to prevent the return of Haiti's (acting) prime minister, who's believed to be abroad seeking help.

🇺🇸 United States: Strike Force. His words, not ours. President Biden announced the "Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing" to tackle high prices brought on by alleged "unlawful business practices." He also wants to cap credit card late fees at $8 (the average is $32). Opponents of that policy say credit card companies will have to raise interest rates in response, hurting everyone.

BRIEFS

• Taylor Swift urged her fans to vote for “people who most represent you,” in a bland Super Tuesday message

• Target is launching an Amazon Prime competitor with free same-day shipping at a promo rate of $49 per year

• Because of course it did, Bitcoin hit an all-time high price of over $69,000 before tanking again

• Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team voted to unionize in college sports first

• France became the first country in the world to enshrine the right to an abortion in its constitution

• Jeff Bezos overtook Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person with a cool $200 billion fortune

• After a backlash, the VA quickly backed off its plan to ban the famous WW2 photo of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square

• The European Union fined Apple $2 billion for app store abuse after Spotify complaint

• Parents everywhere are thrilled as CBS announces an NCIS prequel show called “NCIS: Origins”

QUOTE

SNACKS

💡 Games: If you’re still playing Wordle or are maybe addicted to the entire slate of New York Times word games, there’s a new kid on the block. The Times debuted Strands earlier this week. It’s like Letter Boxed, only good.

🎤 Music: Taylor Swift caused an international incident. Neighboring countries are ticked at Singapore for paying her up to $3 million per show to perform exclusively in Singapore on the Southeast Asian leg of her tour.

⚾ Sports: RIP Oakland. The MLB’s soon-to-be Las Vegas Athletics released renderings of their planned stadium and it is… certainly something.

ANSWER

We’re in the middle of the Supreme Court’s 2023 term. The last completed term was 2022. That year, nearly half — 48% — of their 58 opinions were unanimous 9-0 calls.