| | | | |  | | By Charlie Mahtesian | With help from Ari Hawkins
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U.S. President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the U.S. Capitol House Chamber on March 1, 2022. | Win McNamee/Getty Images | LAUNCH POSITION — Joe Biden, like every other president for the past three decades, is likely to tell the country tonight that the state of the union is “strong.” The state of his reelection campaign, however, is another story. As Biden pivots toward running for a second term with his annual address to Congress, he begins in an especially weak position in the polls. Only three other post-war presidents had lower approval ratings than Biden at this point in their presidency — and two of them, Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter, went on to lose. Biden’s approval ratings have been underwater — that is, below 50 percent — since August 2021. The enthusiasm for another bid is likewise dim: 2022 exit polls in swing states like New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin showed two-thirds of voters didn’t want Biden to run for reelection. More recent polls from Washington Post-ABC News and AP-NORC reveal that even among Democrats, a majority would prefer that the president not run for a second term. While Biden can point to significant legislative achievements in his two years in office, he’s not getting much credit for them. Just 36 percent of U.S. adults say he’s accomplished a great deal or good amount, compared to 62 percent who say not much or little or nothing. Among independent voters, it’s even worse: two-thirds say not much or little or nothing. There’s no sign of intra-party opposition on the horizon — and the 2024 Democratic primary calendar has been altered in Biden’s favor — so there’s no Democratic challenge to worry about. And Biden’s only announced GOP opposition at the moment, Trump, is even more unpopular than Biden. According to the 538 polling average, Trump’s favorability rating is at 39 percent. That’s not the only data point on Biden’s side. He remains competitive, or leads, in most head-to-head matchups with prospective Republican rivals (not that it matters much since they have little to no value this far in advance of 2024). More important is the fact that there are two presidents whose experiences underscore the fact that weak polling at this stage is not determinative. There is Ronald Reagan, whose approval ratings bottomed out at 35 percent at this point before climbing back to a landslide, 49-state victory two years later. And then there’s George H.W. Bush who had the opposite experience. At this point in 1990, Bush seemed unbeatable — his approval rating was 81 percent. But things went straight downhill from there. His approval ratings were underwater within a year, and by November 1992 he managed to win just 37 percent of the vote in a three-way race. Happy State of the Union, however you choose to celebrate. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author on Twitter at @PoliticoCharlie.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | — Marty Walsh to depart from Biden Cabinet for job atop hockey players' union: Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is leaving the Biden administration to run the NHL Players Association, a person familiar with the matter confirmed. The former Boston mayor’s departure comes amid a wider shakeup within the Biden administration as it begins the tail end of its first term in office and prepares for a possible reelection campaign. A former union official — he previously headed up the Building and Construction Trades Council in Boston — Walsh will be returning to his roots in organized labor after giving some consideration to making another run at elected office in his home state of Massachusetts. — Michael Cohen to meet with Manhattan DA amid Trump grand jury: Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen said he will be meeting with the Manhattan District Attorney on Wednesday as a grand jury hears testimony regarding the former president’s involvement in a hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Trump could face minor criminal charges for trying to hide money paid to Daniels during his 2016 presidential run to keep her quiet about an earlier alleged affair. “It’s now the 15th time that I’m heading in to discuss this and several matters with the DA’s team and I am looking forward to it,” Cohen said on his podcast Political Beatdown. — Constituents call for Santos resignation: Dozens of constituents from Rep. George Santos' (R-N.Y.) district called on the beleaguered New York Republican to resign — or demanded House GOP leadership call a vote to expel him. They were joined on Capitol Hill by New York Democratic Reps. Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres, who've been leading the charge against the scandal-plagued freshman. Goldman and Torres filed a complaint urging the House Ethics Committee to investigate the congressman. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has suggested the House would take action if the Ethics Committee found wrongdoing.
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Rescue workers search for survivors on a collapsed building in Malatya, Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. | Emrah Gurel/AP Photo | EARTHQUAKE DEATH TOLL RISES — Search teams and aid poured into Turkey and Syria today as rescuers working in freezing temperatures and sometimes using their bare hands dug through the remains of buildings flattened by a powerful earthquake. The death toll soared above 7,200 and was still expected to rise. But with the damage spread over a wide area, the massive relief operation often struggled to reach devastated towns, and voices that had been crying out from the rubble fell silent. Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake and a cascade of strong aftershocks cut a swath of destruction that stretched hundreds of kilometers across southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria. The shaking toppled thousands of buildings and heaped more misery on a region wracked by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected, and he declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. Turkey was already grappling with an economic downturn ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in May. The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed over 800, with some 1,400 injured, according to the Health Ministry. At least 1,000 people have died in the rebel-held northwest with more than 2,300 injured, according to the White Helmets, a volunteer organization that operates in opposition-controlled parts of Syria and Turkey. The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.
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| | | | | | | | | | $690 Billion The amount of two-way trade between the United States and China which set a new record in 2022, according to figures from the Commerce Department. American exports to China rose by $2.4 billion to $153.8 billion while imports rose $31.8 billion to reach $536.8 billion as a result of strong consumer demand in the U.S. The last time two-way trade reached above its present value was in 2018. The value reflects how intertwined the American and Chinese economies remain despite escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing and “decoupling” efforts by both countries. | | | | | PIPE DREAM — While both Ukraine and Moldova were moved forward in the European Union accession process, the country of Georgia had their aspirations once again crushed over the summer of 2022. The news was a disappointment for the country — 80 percent of residents are in support of joining the bloc — and came as a surprise, considering Georgia is more affluent and has a lower corruption-perception index compared to both of the other countries. The inability to join the EU is explained in part by an Orthodox deacon whose experience in the Georgian court system has underscored deeper issues within the judiciary related to excessive government influence and corruption that has introduced new roadblocks to the country’s prospects of joining the bloc. Read Will Neal’s deep dive into the role that accusations against a priest are playing in Georgia’s dreams of joining the EU.
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021. | Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images | THE SOTU CURSE — It’s a nerve-racking night for the youngest governor in the country as Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Ark.) prepares to give the official GOP response to Biden’s State of the Union address, Ari Hawkins reports for Nightly. The coveted position signals the 40-year-old Sanders’ increasing profile in the party as the GOP seeks to merge the base’s supporters of former President Donald Trump and make itself more attractive to a younger demographic of female voters. And the speech presents an opportunity for the governor to appear in front of the widest audience she’s reached since she served as Trump’s press secretary. Yet delivering the party’s response to the SOTU puts Sanders in a potentially perilous spot — one that has sometimes left aspiring politicians worse for the wear, and even led them to be parodied on Saturday Night Live. Long dubbed the “curse” of the State of the Union, opposing lawmakers have generally struggled to match the high-energy speeches from the incumbent president. In some cases, the high-pressure moment in the national spotlight is said to have jinxed their political trajectories. Take for instance, former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, at the time a GOP wunderkind whose speech in response to former President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union was panned by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Like his awkwardly delivered speech, Jindal’s 2012 presidential run did not go well — he ended his campaign after frequently hovering below one percent in primary polling. There’s also Robert McDonnell, the former Republican governor of Virginia who gave the GOP response to Obama’s SOTU in 2010, just days after being sworn into office. He and his wife would later be indicted on corruption charges two years later, which, despite eventually being vacated by the Supreme Court, functionally ended his national political rise. And, of course, there’s Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams. Identified as a rising star in the party after narrowly losing her 2018 bid for governor, she was tapped to give the response to Trump’s 2019 SOTU speech. The national platform failed to give her much of an electoral boost — she went on to lose a second bid to become Georgia governor in 2022 by a 7-percentage-point margin. One of the biggest worries for pols (and their advisers) is the fear of a meme-able gaffe, a tripped-over word or an awkward phrase. That was the case in 2018 when Twitter users took note of Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), whose lips were said to be glistening after being slathered with balm. (He ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2020). Another memorable (or meme-able) moment came during Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) rebuttal to Obama in 2012, where he paused his response to take several sips of water while making direct eye contact with the camera. It came back to haunt him in 2016, when Trump used it to mock Rubio as a “choke artist.” For Sanders, it’s probably best not to think about all the things that could go awry. Better to just let it rip — and remain well-hydrated. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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