We know better. Look at the facts. He was inviting the heckle to the point that he was like, what did you say . You guys dont want another two, trillion dollar tax cut . He has turned the State Of The Union into an interactive speech. It was difficult to sit through. It was a hyper partisan speech. These guys are whining about, oh. There was no unity. Marjorie taylor green was on the house floor wearing a maga hat. This was a happy warrior. He gave not only as good as hes got but he gave better. They call it golden Super Tuesday for a reason. This is a big one. There will be a rematch. We like that rematch. It is now up to donald trump to earn the votes in our party. Here is the simple truth. You cant love your country only when you win. Good evening. Once again, i am stephanie ruhle. Where 242 days out from the election and it has been quite a week. Donald trump is now the Presumptive Republican nominee and we saw a fiery state of the Union Address from President Biden. He touted his own accomplishments but he also made it clear. He was warning us about his predecessors record. My predecessor, a former republican president , tells you, quote, do whatever the hell you want. Thats a quote. A former president actually said that to putin. My predecessor, and some of you here, seek to bury the truth about january 6th. I will not do that. This is a moment to seek the truth and to bury the lies. Here is the simple truth. You cant love your country only when you win. My predecessor is determined to see roe v. Wade overturned. He brags about it. Unlike my predecessor, i know who we are as americans. With that, lets bring in our nightcap. I warn you, it is a spectacular one. We have molly jongfast, also of vanity fair correspondent and a host of the fast politics podcast. We also have the president and ceo of the Leadership Conference on civil and human rights and the former assistant attorney. The correspondent, christine romans, and mary, the editor of whats next, slate news daily podcast. I know you want to go first, molly. Already taking notes. Getting extra credit before we start. You first. It was clearly a big night for the president. What was your take away . First of all, i love to be right. For so long, i have been like, the guy is actually really good. You are going to be shocked. I was sitting there like, if i am wrong, this is going to be really embarrassing. I was really happy. I thought he did a great job. Some lines were really good. I thought his delivery was really good. But there were things that stuck out to me. Like, you cant only love this country when you win. He has said this before but it is a really good line. The only republican clapping . Mitt romney. So many times have we talked about things. The republican most likely to potentially endorse joe biden. Right. And one of the very few republicans who Still Believes in what we are supposed to be doing in this country. This larger democracy. So i thought that was very good. I also, when he said, if you dont want the money for your districts . We will take it back. That was amazing. I was looking at mike johnson and he couldnt clap, like the lead pipes. Taking the lead out of the water for children. He couldnt clap for, lets have every third grader in America Reading and lets expand tutoring. I am pretty sure everyone can give that one a round of applause. It really shows where trump has put the Republican Party and i thought that was really interesting. I know ahead of the speech, you really wanted the president to urge people to understand how important it is to protect democracy. There he was, in the room, standing before congress where the instruction happened three years ago. Do you think you got that point home . Oh, yeah. I just want to say, molly is always right. She has supported me. Just saying. And molly is totally right about what he delivered. To this point, he started with democracy in such an interesting way. It took me aback because he started with ukraine. I thought, waits. Weights. What is he doing . And then it became very eloquently clear that he was starting with this theme of democracy in the context of his subtheme, which was history. And it was history, not just history that we are in in terms of our period, but the history we are going to make. Because he is also underscoring, i may be older, but i am wiser. We will come back to that. But he linked it and immediately made it not just a formal policy issue, which is why i was surprised. I thought most americans dont vote on public policy. But he quickly brings it into january 6th and the insurrection, which is what sets up his point about, you cant just let this country love this country when you win. It is also what is at stake in terms of democracy. I will say, as someone else has said, i want to hear him say it. I want to hear him say that it is about our right to vote. I want to hear him say it. The john lewis voting advancement act. The freedom to vote act. Because the other point is the reason we have the big lies that are just lies, old lies, not even new lies about voter fraud. That great seth meyers set it up for the State Of The Union when he reminds us about all of trumps indictments. They tried to take an election and he is reminding us about january 6th but he is reminding us in a way that brings us back to the fundamentals of what lawmaking and leadership are and what protecting democracy is and that it is for all of us. And when he looks at the Supreme Court and the justices that are sitting there, okay. I was like. You didnt think you were going to get that out of joe biden. I did not. When he said, yeah. Supreme courts, women are not without electoral power. No kidding. Which was also a message to talk about. But it is what we all needed to hear because these are fundamentals of the first fundamental right we have ever had taken from us in the history of this country. And that was what he made clear throughout. But he pulled it back to, what does it do for us on an everyday living point . How has it changed our lives . You actually mentioned the one, stephanie, that i was going to say. He talked about our kids learning in school. He talked about the things that democrats have dropped the ball on. All republicans have done is weapons education and not made it about education for all of us. It is a weapon to divide us. He brought us back to what the government is supposed to do for us. Shouldnt everybody read. He did talk a lot about the economy. How do you think he did. I think last year when he talked about airline fees and hidden fees, that was in the speech last year and it was criticized. People feel terrible about the economy. He did it again, but trying to show, look. Wall street is at record highs. On the same day it hit record highs, he is talking about nickeled and Dimed Americans and what his policies are going to do. Big picture, small picture, but also the tax fairness, as he calls it. So i think he reset the table, on easley, with the agenda for a second term. I think he did well on the economy. I also think that people are starting to feel less terrible about the economy. The state of the economy is strong. The american perception of the economy is skeptical at best. Bingo. There is this big grand canyon that he has to navigate. To feel what is really happening great and i think, you know, yesterday he just reset the table for that conversation. He took us to the Kitchen Table and then he reset it. I like it. Well, he really made me feel like that was a huge part of this. Just. Besides saying that he was speaking too loud, they argued, how could he make this so partisan, so political . I think michael still said at the top of the show, Marjorie Taylor green was in full campaign gear. The last time donald trump gave a state of the Union Address, he literally gave a metal to rush limbaugh. So given that those are the arguments against President Biden speech that republicans are giving, is that conceding, he got that one. Lets be clear. It is not that he did something new here. He accepted the terms of the speech. Over the last decade, the speech has changed. You used to sit there and it was like going to church. That is not what it is like right now. Right now, some guy is going to get up and call you a liar. Marjorie taylor green is going to get up and where her maga hat. That is what the State Of The Union is now. Political performance. I think that is important to talk about because i think we have to linger a bit in how a lot of people work feeling before this speech. Nervous. We were feeling like, this is someone who is older and also this is a rerun. We have been here before. So simultaneously, dread and boredom. That is what we are going into the speech with. Dread, boredom, lack of enthusiasm. You were set up for a great night. But there was a low bar to clear, which he did. And i think that performance is really important. He really used the foils of the Republican Party and just stepped up to them. And i was thinking about the selection. The reset of elections. Falling in love with candidates. Maybe this is more how the Wall Street Journal Talks about this. You know what i mean . Like, make a decision and accept the tax benefit. Someone else talked last night and whether she had a high bar or a low bar, i think it is safe to say she did not clear. It was a republican response. Alabama center. Lets just share a bit of it. The True Unvarnished state of our union begins and ends with this. Our families are hurting. Our country can do better. I am almost afraid to continue because molly is going to set herself on fire. Obviously, her remarks were widely panned but it was the full alabama senator Tommy Turberville today who said, he was saying she did a good job. He said, she was picked as a housewife, not just as a senator , somebody who sees it from a different perspective. First of all, lets just say this. There is nothing wrong with being a housewife. She is not a housewife. She is a u. S. Senator. The how telling is this, that this is where republicans want to lead us to. You know, lets go back to that kitchen where that mother is, where that mother is, where should be flanked by her children. Is that the message they tried to send us last night . They are a mess. Everything that is not trump in this party is a mess. He is a mess, too, but at least trump is a thing. Everything else is not trump in the Republican Party but still trump like. They didnt have a lot of great choices. They liked her because she was young and a woman and didnt seem to crazy. And you couldnt put Marjorie Taylor green there. There are not a ton of choices and a lot of these republicans are retiring. I would say that was part of it. I thought it was a bad choice to begin with because alabama has this ibf stuff where the governor signed a legislation which still says that all of these people, completely crazy. It identifies you if you want to kill them because its good business. Its so crazy. So i think that she was the only choice they could find. She overacted. Look. The republican state of the Union Response is cursed from bobby tittle to marco rubio. They never can do it right. But this was next level. Christine, one group of voters that both donald trump and joe biden need to focus on, especially this week, are nikki haley voters. President biden, within the first two minutes of his votes last night, referenced ronald reagan. When you look at his remarks and when you look at katie britt, do you think did a better job trying to appeal to those voters . Where are those voters going to go . The president s speech, he was talking to democrats last night. Do haley voters who were looking for something for the president , do they find it . I dont know. I dont think they have it in donald trump slant at this moment. So what changed it for those people in the Middle Of The Road . The haley voters . I dont know that anything changed for them. I think they might still be in the wilderness. I think that is certainly true about who the president was speaking to last night and what nikki haley voters are probably thinking. I just have a different analysis of it, which is, this is a turnout election. 2020 was a turnout election. 2016 was a turnout election. So this is a question about both who has a desire to show up and then who can show up. And i am saying both of those things with intention because one of the things that the president needed to do that night, last night, is really energize his base. He needed to energize his base and i think he advanced the ball , if that is the Playing Field that he was on. And i think he was. The flipside is about who can. It is the fact that we have already seen this. We know that Voter Suppression laws have been working and they have been working on the very voters who are reliably democratic voters. It is a very intentional strategy that is often, as we know, in the rulings we see, including this ideological Supreme Court, saying, yeah. We cant let that stand. It is discriminatory because it is now front and center. There is a study that shows 14 million more voters of color would have voted if it wasnt for the removal of protections that we have created because of breaking the rules. But i say that because the truth is, if the president did his job and if donald trump keeps her performing the way he is performing, it is likely that some of these folks dont turn out. It is not just if whether they vote. Mary. I think this week, i had someone on the show and i was shocked at how bracingly honest she was. This reminds me of 2016. I am behind joe biden 100 . Like, how are you squaring this right now with the State Of The Union . She said, my spidey senses are tingling. This is looking really bad. It is all because of turnout. Can i say one thing . The pundit field complex. The mainstream media. The new york times. They ran so many pieces about how biden is old. I have been in this white house. I have talked to people. I think he is pretty sharp. And people are like, no, molly. You are just a partisan. And with sharp, i was like, yeah. He is sharp. So with a lot of this there was a narrative that the gop really gave us something to run with. But the enthusiasm factor, used to things. He does have a gen z issue. And they have had a historic turnout. 2022 was a big part of this. I will say this because we also should not lame them. We have to be careful about the narrative here. I just say that because i think a big part of what he was thinking about was, look. I am going to deliver some things that i care about and i think he communicated that. In eight months, young people have shortterm memories so we have time to get them motivated. Nobody is going anywhere. When we come back, republicans talking about The Good Old Days of President Trump and a lot of americans actually agree that things were better four years ago. How have they forgotten so much . When our nightcap in the 11th hour continues. With nurtec odt, i can treat a migraine when it strikes and prevent migraine attacks, all in one. Dont take if allergic to nurtec. Allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. Most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. Ask about nurtec odt. This is remington. Hes a member of the family, for sure. We always fed them kibble it just seemed like the thing to do. But. He was getting picky we heard about the farmers dog. And it was a complete transformation. His coat was so soft, he had amazing energy. He was a completely different dog. Its a nobrainer that remi should have the most nutritious and Delicious Food possible. Im investing in my dogs health and happiness. Did you know. 80 of women are struggling with hair damage . Just like i was. Dryness and frizz could be damaged hair that cant retain moisture. New pantene miracle rescue deep conditioner, with firstofitskind melting prov pearls. Locks in moisture to repair 6 months of damage in one wash, without weigh down. Guaranteed or your money back for resilient, healthylooking hair. If you know, you know its pantene. man excuse me, would you mind taking a picture of us . tony oh, no problem. man thanks. tony yes, problem. You need verizon. Get the new iphone 15 pro with tons of storage. So you can take all the pics vo tradein any iphone in any condition and get a new iphone 15 pro and an ipad and apple watch se all on us. Only on verizon. With nurtec odt, i can treat a migraine when it strikes and prevent migraine attacks, all in one. Dont take if allergic to nurtec. Allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. Most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. Ask about nurtec odt. My name is oluseyi nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. And some of my favorite moments throughout my life are watching sports with my dad. Now, i work at comcast as part of the team that created our ai highlights technology, which uses ai to detect the major plays in a sports game. Giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport. Four years ago next week, before i came into office, the country was hit by the worst pandemic of the century. Remember the fear, the losses, the crime and the murder rate, the raging virus that took more than 1 million american lives of loved ones . Millions left behind. A crisis of isolation and loneliness. Four years might not seem that long but in politics it is long enough to forget a lot of things. This week, 65 of voters told a cbs news poll that the trump economy was good. Just 38 said it was good under President Biden. The reason trump is leading overall in some of those polls is because americans are forgetting just how bad things were four years ago. Our nightcap still with us. Christine, personality aside, President Bidens economy is clearly outperforming Donald Trumps. Why do you think it do