'He nailed it': Republican strategist reacts to Biden's speech

Last night wasn't all deadly serious.

One of the other objectives

for the president last night,

of course, was possibly

the top line objective,

which everyone I'm talking to says he met

is to prove that he is

fit for a second term

I know it may not look like it,

but I've been around a while

where you get to be my age,

certain things become clearer than ever.

All right.

Our panel joins us now.

Democratic Congresswoman

Debbie Dingell is back with us,

along with New Yorker

staff writer

Evan Osnos

and Republican strategist Sarah Longwell.

Evan, I want to start with you.

Only because you spent so much time

kind of profiling the president.

What did you see from him last night?

He clearly was basking in the moment

and he came to do a task.

It seems like he executed on it.

Yeah,

I think from the moment

he left the White House,

you saw it a little skipping his step.

He got his way over there to the chamber.

First thing he did

is he says hello to everybody on

two feet, including congresswoman,

including Congressman King.

You know, look, he is he

draws energy from a room like that.

He sort of gained

some speed

over the course of the evening,

gave a long speech, gave it well

and stayed longer probably than anybody

expected him to.

Look, the bar,

as we know

last night, was to say to Americans,

I can do this

I've got the vigor,

I've got the precision.

And look,

there are flubs along the way

that's inevitable.

But this is about giving.

There were a lot of Americans

who weren't sure

what they were going to see last night.

And I think a lot of people

came out of there feeling reassured.

Congressman, what do you think

he said to independent voters?

I mean, they're

sort of an increasingly small slice,

but a lot of them came out

and voted for Nikki Haley.

Clearly, there are

people in your state of Michigan,

other swing states.

What do you think

the president gave to those voters

last night?

Well, first of all, I agree with 70.

He did a great job.

And I, I

as you know, I told you last night,

I thought he would do a great job.

That audience is his element.

And I wasn't surprised

at how long he stayed because he

you know, he lives in a bubble

and they don't let him talk to people.

And he had all of his friends there.

So he was happier.

But I think he also laid out a vision.

He laid out his vision for the future.

He did.

You know,

I think one of the things

all of us have not done

a good job

about is talking

about what we have gotten accomplished

in the last three years.

He reminded people of all of the things

that we've gotten done

called Republicans on some of it

like lowering

prescription drugs

and the infrastructure bill

and the money out there.

And, hey,

most of you didn't vote for it,

but you're taking credit for it. Now.

That was one of my favorite lines.

But he laid out his vision.

And I think

it is a very stark choice between another

four years of Joe Biden

what he wants to do,

how he's going

to support the middle class,

how he's going to

protect people's

freedom, starting with women's

rights and women's freedom

and very much in

that democracy was at stake

and made it wasn't afraid to call out.

You're right.

You didn't use Donald Trump's name,

but he told people and reminded them

they were proud that they overturn

Roe versus Wade.

They won a national abortion ban,

that he wants to repeal the Affordable

Care Act, that his boot and friend

and I could go on.

I think that was a very excellent speech.

And clear, stark

contrast the country needs to see.

Sarah Longwell,

you've talked to a lot of

Republican voters

and voters in general

about what they expect

from President Biden.

And we were talking yesterday

about how

they had set the bar incredibly low.

What is your view

of how he performed last night

and how it's going to be received

by some of these voters?

Well, you can tell how well he did by

how annoyed Republicans are this morning

at last night.

You could just see how upset they were.

And I think look, for a lot of voters,

they think the stakes

are incredibly high.

And I think the fear has been

that Joe Biden can't hit

you know, can't manage

where the stakes are like

isn't good enough

to to take us through this moment.

And last night,

what he said

was for the Democratic base

but how he said it was for swing voters

who needed to see

that this guy was all there,

that he could do the job.

And I told you yesterday

when I was on the show,

the Republicans have made a mistake

because they set the bar at dementia.

And that if look,

if that's what dementia,

I hope that's how I have dementia.

When I'm older

because he was on his game, the energy

and he did the thing that I think

Joe Biden is particularly good at,

where he sparred

with the Republicans

he he somehow managed to have it

be incredibly political.

He managed to be going

right at Republicans,

but often was also like joking

with them, smiling at them,

egging them on a little bit.

And it gave this balance to the speech

that I think

just worked really well for him.

And it was offense. It was offense.

He's been leading this shift

change the tone.

And I think he nailed it.

You could see Lindsey Graham

at one point,

you know, laughing at him

in the audience. Right.

It's like he's almost forgotten

that they were friends

for so many years before Lindsey

Graham was suddenly very close

to Donald Trump.

There was one particular moment that he

he basically adlibbed

because of something that happened

on his way down the aisle.

He encountered Marjorie

Taylor Greene in a read

Make America

Great Again

hat and a button

with the name Lincoln Riley on it.

She, of course, was there,

the nursing student in Georgia

who was killed

by an undocumented immigrant.

He took the button

and then he did this from the dais

Lincoln, Lincoln, Riley,

an innocent young woman who was killed

by an illegal That's right.

But how many have thousands of people

being killed by illegals?

To her parents,

I say

my heart goes out to you

having lost children myself, I understand

even I've heard

from a number of Democrats

already this morning that they didn't

love the way

the language that he used,

that he said illegal There

you've known him a long time.

Is that authentic to him?

What was he doing there?

You know, in some ways

that was a moment that could have gone

a lot of different directions.

He did use a word that did bother people.

Immigration advocates

don't want to hear him

use the word illegal.

What he did

do, though, was take a moment

and acknowledge

the suffering of that family.

He put it in personal terms.

He said, I've known

I know what it means to lose children.

And you'll notice

it was over in a matter of seconds.

It was not ceding the ground

to Marjorie Taylor.

Greene was not losing

command of that space,

which is really important.

You know, in some ways,

the measure of a moment like that

is if you turned off the TV

and turned off the sound on your TV,

and you were just

watching the people in that room,

who would you think

came out of there confident

and in control?

And I think Joe Biden

ultimately was able to

manage

what could have been a very volatile time

Yeah.

I mean, and Sarah,

we know that the House speaker had

basically told everybody to behave.

Do you think that

that effectively happened?

I mean, what

how do how do swing

voters perceive kind of what Marjorie

Taylor Greene did there?

Well, like I said this yesterday,

look, any time Joe

Biden has the opportunity

to do a split screen

with Marjorie Taylor Greene,

he should take it because these swing

voters, these sort of

right leaning, independent,

soft Republicans,

they don't want to be

in a political coalition

with Marjorie Taylor

Greene and people like her

and I think the stunt

that she was pulling, wearing a hat

like what he did

was he met her at her stunt

and he called her on it.

And I think it was a little unclear

what he was saying.

And I think that actually

it matters

less about sort of the specific word

to use than the fact

that he sort of got into it

with Marjorie Taylor Greene

and he did the thing

where he acknowledged

her family and made it

put it in personal terms.

And so I think he got through that

just fine.

Congressman,

can you take us down onto the floor

in terms of the way that that, frankly,

our politics have so deeply divided us?

I mean,

there were

we had reports here at CNN last night

that there were

members of the escort

committee for the president

who refused take photos with him

on the way in.

You've seen increasingly

kind of those divisions on display.

How does it feel different?

I mean, you've seen so many of these now.

I'm not somebody that I talked

to Marjorie Taylor Greene screaming

matches with the debate

on the Capitol steps once or twice.

But I think you talk about this.

I mean, me,

I think she should be

talking to everybody I was struck

last night.

I've never seen Republicans won.

They were behaved.

I mean, other than Marjorie

Taylor Greene.

And I wasn't quite sure

what the dissenter in the gallery said.

Yeah, that seemed quite not quite square.

They just said they were very careful.

There were a couple of moments

where when they're

talking about IVF

and some of the women got up and quickly

sat down.

And I've never seen such a disciplined

group of Republicans

that were responding to nothing.

I felt that I was on the aisle

talk to those guys all the time

and that it wasn't

they were uncomfortable last night.

It was very clear

that they were uncomfortable.

There were people that agreed with

some of the things

that he was saying then.

And I'll tell you what I've never seen.

You know,

normally security boxes,

you can't get off the floor.

Publicans were out of there in 2 seconds,

so that president stayed another hour.

There was a Republican

to be found on that floor.

It is.

I mean,

I'm glad you sort of

laid it out like that

because, I mean,

I've covered State of the Union addresses

since George W Bush.

And honestly,

usually there are many moments

in speeches

where both sides

will stand up in terms

of cheering for the country as a whole.

Really a sign of the times.

Congresswoman Dingell,

thank you so much

for spending some time with us

this morning. I really appreciate it.