Meet the Press NOW — March 7

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington, where President Biden will soon deliver his State of the Union address. The stakes are high for the president, who will be speaking to millions of Americans for the first time since Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. And as Democrats are increasingly anxious about the president's political standing, and as Republicans are signaling they're going to make Biden's age and fitness a pillar of their campaign against him.

For those reasons, this is no ordinary address for the president. His remarks will be viewed not just as a State of the Union, but as the start of his arguments for reelection. So what can we expect tonight? Well, White House sources tell us the president wants to primarily talk about kitchen table issues, like saving people money, while also laying out his second-term agenda and striking a strong tone on reproductive rights.

Here's what White House Press Secretary Kareem Jean-Pierre said just yesterday. The president will outline an agenda that is about continuing to build on the progress that we've made over the last three years. The president has always been an optimistic person, as you all know. And even in the face of challenges that we have in front of us, he will share why he is hopeful about this country's future and why it is a mistake, it is a mistake, to bet against the American people.

Now, administration officials are also telling us today the president will announce an emergency mission to establish a port on the Gaza coast to get more humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in increasingly desperate need. We will have more details on that in just a moment. But for President Biden tonight, his performance is going to be just as important, if not more important, than the policies he lays out. Our NBC News poll last month had 76% of all respondents saying they're concerned about the president's mental and physical health for a second term.

That includes a majority of Democrats and 82% of independent voters. And ahead of today's speech, Trump campaign allies unveiled a blistering attack ad questioning if the president will live for a full second term. The Biden campaign called the ad, quote, a sick and deranged stunt from a broke and struggling campaign. Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping for a repeat of last year's address, where the president was sharp, forceful and quick to respond to Republican heckling.

Take a look. Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I'm not saying it's the majority. Other Republicans say, I'm not saying it's the majority of you.

I don't even think it's even a significant, but it's being proposed by individuals. I'm not politely not naming them, but it's being proposed by some. So, folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security Medicare is off the books now. All right.

All right. We got unanimity. One of the more memorable moments from last year, of course. Well, the president is facing the very real possibility of disruptions again tonight from Republicans on the issue of the border and from progressive Democrats on the situation in Gaza.

The big picture, folks, this could be the single biggest night in presidential politics for a while. It could also be the president's biggest audience before the election. As President Biden likes to tell his doubters, watch me. Well, millions of Americans will be doing just that tonight.

Joining me now on this very big day is NBC News senior White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell. NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor is on Capitol Hill. NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is in Amman, Jordan. And with me on set is NBC News senior business correspondent Christine Romans.

Kelly, I have to start with you and this big news coming out of the White House today. The president planning to make this announcement about Gaza to increase aid there. What can you tell us about this? I know you've been working your sources throughout the day.

What are they telling you? Well, Kristen, this will be an opportunity for the president to address one of the hot issues that has been a conflict he's been dealing with and one that has brought out a lot of passions and emotions in our country and around the world. He will lean in heavily to humanitarian aid, creating with U.S. military a gate, if you will, that would allow greater U.S.

humanitarian supplies to flow into Gaza. Part of what I expect we will be hearing from the president tonight is a very raw acknowledgement of the pain of what has happened in the Israel-Gaza war on all sides and at the same time, the extreme loss of life and hardship for the Palestinians living in Gaza and the concerns there. What more can the U.S. do?

The U.S., of course, still wants a temporary cease fire, wants hostages to be released and wants to work on flowing in humanitarian aid while Israel has a right to defend itself. But this will be a way for the president to answer some of the critics within his own party, some of the voices around the world. It's a significant opportunity for him to announce a new plan to demonstrate American leadership and at the same time really let the American people see how he feels about this issue and acknowledging it. We have seen many times on the campaign trail where there have been protests, whether they were in the room with the president or they were outside at events and so forth.

If that happens tonight, advisors I've talked to say the president is adept at handling those moments, wants people to be heard. They're, of course, not only lawmakers in the chamber, but each lawmaker has a guest. So those guests sit in a gallery out of camera view typically. And there could be those sorts of interruptions.

The White House is prepared for that. They expect that if it happens, the president will use his spontaneity, his ability to be quick minded in those moments. They argue much like the clip you played at the top, which was about a different subject. But that reacting in the moment, which they believe not only on substance is important, but it's also a way for the American people to see the president in a way that advisors see him, they say, in a longer format, not just quick clips that might be on the Internet, a long speech that will give him a chance to address big policy issues.

Kristen Kelly, we should remind our viewers, you have often been in that chamber when the president is delivering a State of the Union address. Take us inside tonight's challenges. Here you have a president who's running for reelection. He's in a deeper political hole than some of his predecessors heading into tonight's speech.

And the performance, as you were just talking about, is going to be as important as all of these policy issues. Right. One of the things advisors believe is that most Americans are not tuned into the president in a way that you and I are. It's our job to follow all of his speeches for most Americans.

They're seeing short clips. They're not paying attention with the same level of interest and seeing him in a longer format, which in many ways might go against sort of the shortened attention span that we're also accustomed to now. They want that moment to allow him to tell the story of the things that they believe he's accomplished, the things that he still believes are yet to be done and to draw the contrast between himself and his predecessor. I don't expect that the president is going to call out Donald Trump by name, but he will talk about the policies.

And when you think about the issue of age, which the White House readily acknowledges is one that is on the minds of American voters who are considering this. Expect to hear the kinds of things we've been hearing the president say in a recent appearance he did on late night TV with Seth Meyers, where he talked about old ideas versus new ideas that he argues his ideas are about the future and that his rival on the Republican side, his predecessor, is about old ideas, meaning things like abortion rights being taken away and concerns about voting rights access and democracy. So it is a chance to have kind of a stagecraft theatrical moment, a sort of wellness check on the president. In addition to a lot of substantive issues that he wants to talk about and an argument that he will make about the contrast between his vision and that of Donald Trump.

All right. Well, Kelly, you laid out all of the stakes for us with that. Let's go over to Sahil, who is on Capitol Hill, where the main event is going to take place. Sahil set the stage.

We know that the House speaker has invited a number of guests, as is customary. Who are the guests who stand out to you tonight? What do they tell us about his agenda? Yeah, that's right, Kristen.

Speaker Johnson has invited a pretty expansive list of guests for him to the State of the Union that point to the issues that he would like to highlight as President Biden speaks at that lectern. These guests include parents of hostages in Israel trying to draw attention to that issue. A freed hostage in Israel as well trying to convey his support and his party's unequivocal support for Israel. They include a Jewish student at MIT aiming to draw attention to the issue of rising anti-Semitism, particularly on college campuses.

It includes two police officers attacked by undocumented immigrants trying to draw attention to this nexus that Republicans have been pointing to of migrants committing crimes. Also, a mom of a child killed by an MS-13 gang. Same theme here. You kind of get the picture.

And a university president who opposes transgender athletes. Another issue that is popular among conservative lawmakers and conservative culture warriors in particular. Notably, Speaker Johnson is bringing the parents of Wall Street Journal's imprisoned journalist Evan Gershkovich, who's been imprisoned in Russia. This is something that raised eyebrows from Johnson's critics who argue that he's blocking aid to Ukraine, blocking the biggest thing he could be doing to try to confront and take on Russia.

I suspect we'll be hearing a little bit more out of that in terms of what Johnson intends to do going forward. Johnson has said, quote, While America's state of the union is sadly and he knows it. And companies maybe are not passing along some of their own cost savings. They have prices too high, and he's trying to root out places where they can lower costs for Americans in everything from housing to concert tickets to bank fees, lots of different things.

I think you'll also hear about tax fairness and he'll talk about tax fairness and talk about his budget next week and talk about starting to cut deficits, right, and tackle some of America's fiscal problems by raising taxes on corporations and rich people. And let's just delve into the tax portion of this a little bit because it's getting a lot of buzz. Do we have a sense of what specifically he's going to announce? He's going to announce some new taxes on large corporations, right?

He wants to raise that corporate minimum tax, right? He wants to raise that. Remember, in 2017, the Bush tax cuts from Trump, they were huge tax cuts, bigger even than companies have been asking for. He would raise that a little bit.

He would say that he would not raise taxes on anybody making $400,000 a year or less, but on billionaires, there'll be a tax. On millionaires, there'll be a tax deduction that companies can take off of those salaries that he get rid of that tax deduction. And for companies that buy back their own stock, he would quadruple the tax on those stock buybacks. So a lot of different ways, he says, that he would make it more fair, the tax code more fair.

Again, I think you'll hear a lot about fairness and how he's the guy on the side of families, and the other side is on the side of corporations and big interest. His biggest challenge, Christine, it seems to me, is this disconnect between the numbers and how people feel about the numbers. The fact that inflation has come down significantly just since last year, is there a sense that over time, people will start to feel it? What needs to happen in order for prices at the grocery store to go down?

So certainly the hope among economists and White House economists is that over time, people will start to feel it because wages have been rising more than inflation. But that disconnect is jarring. And those inflation scars, Kristen, are deep and they are fresh. And when you look at grocery prices, this is the number I really like to quote from January 2020 today, grocery prices are 25% higher.

So your grocery bill is a quarter more today than it was at the beginning of this crisis. And that's something people feel every week or so. So you can talk about a stock market at record highs. You can talk about a record big size of the American economy, record small business creation over and over again, all of these superlatives about the American economy.

But it comes down to those fresh inflation wounds and how long it takes people to start feeling a little better about things. And just finally, Christine, student loans has been a big issue for people all across this country. The president's canceled millions of dollars in student loan debts. And yet there's more he says he's planning to do.

Yeah. And there's a new program that he started. It's called the SAVE program where for people who qualify and sign up for this, you don't pay more than you can afford for how much money you make. And you don't have the interest growing more and more and more, even as you're paying the bill down.

And that in July, people will start to feel some real, real relief on that. He's going to talk about that again tonight. Remember, it was a, it was a campaign promise to cut all that student loan debt. And the Supreme court said, no, you can't do it.

He's going to talk about how he's found other ways to use the powers and the levers that he has to try to get some relief to people with these student loans. Well, I know that the economic piece of this economic message is just going to be a really significant part of the speech that people will be paying close attention to. So thank you for helping us understand it. Great to see you, Christine.

Really appreciate it. And special coverage of state of the union, the state of the union begins right here on NBC news. Now at 8:00 PM. Eastern.

We will be on the air until midnight with all of the highlights and analysis. And coming up, we have breaking news out of Nashville where federal law enforcement officials have just announced charges against an army sergeant for allegedly leaking military secrets to the Chinese. But first, throughout the hour, we'll be taking a look back at states of the union delivered by presidents as they were seeking reelection, starting with former president Ronald Reagan in 1984. The tide of the future is a freedom tide and our struggle for democracy cannot and will not be denied.

This is nation champion's peace that enshrines liberty, democratic rights and dignity for every individual. America's new strength, confidence and purpose are carrying hope and opportunity far from our shores. And welcome back. We're following breaking news out of Nashville where federal prosecutors have just unsealed an indictment against an army sergeant who they say transmitted sensitive military information to a co-conspirator in China.

NBC News investigative correspondent, Tom Winter joins me now with more. So Tom, what do we know? What's the latest here? Well, Kristen, the FBI arrested Corbin Schultz, who's apparently a sergeant in a U.S.

Army intelligence analyst this morning at Fort Campbell in Tennessee. The arrest is part of an ongoing investigation since June of 2022. And according to the indictment, Schultz has been stealing U.S. military secrets and providing it to a co-conspirator based in Hong Kong for approximately $42,000 in cash over that time period.

The list of what he stole is fairly incredible, including a, and I'm just reading from the information we're getting as it's coming in literally as I speak to you, air force tactics and techniques and procedures for the F-22 fighter aircraft. That's one of the most sophisticated military aircrafts anywhere on the planet. You're talking about techniques and procedures for certain helicopters as well as the U.S.'s capabilities and understandings of what would happen if China attacked Taiwan. The U.S.'s understanding of what that might look like from the Chinese side and what type of response could be there.

Obviously that could be potentially helpful to this co-conspirator based in China if he's sharing that information or in fact is a member of the Chinese government for the Chinese governments to understand what the U.S. thinks it will do would be obviously incredibly important. There's some other details and information in here as well, but he did possess a, obviously a clearance to access this information and appears to have been doing it all for cash. They don't explicitly say that he passed this along to the Chinese government, but we're still waiting for the 25 page indictment to be unsealed.

So we only have a limited amount of information from the press release at this point. He's expected to appear later either today or tomorrow in a court in central Tennessee. So that's the Nashville region. This press conference called just several hours ago, presumably following this arrest.

He was arrested on an indictment, meaning that this investigation has been going on for some time. And as I mentioned, I was arrested at Fort Campbell. So a more digging and information for us to gather. But Kristen, I think taking a step back here and looking at this in totality, we've had a week of potentially really troubling information involving the U.S.

military and its secrets. You remember earlier this week, we had the sentencing of for Jack Teixeira, excuse me, the guilty plea of Jack Teixeira. He was arrested approximately a year ago with sharing top secret, some very serious secret information online on the online platform Discord, which authorities were able to track him down to that. We had another member of the U.S.

military charged for sharing information over a dating app with somebody based in Ukraine, including what the U.S. was doing or knew about with respect to Ukraine, military capabilities and our understanding of what's going on in the conflict there. And now you have more information this time going to another potential U.S. adversary in China.

And this information appears to have been quite sensitive and also has to do with export control items. In other words, actual U.S. military technology and capability. So obviously a serious investigation led by the FBI's counterintelligence division and by the U.S.

Army's counterintelligence division. And will something we're going to continue to track here through the afternoon. All right. Well, Tom, I know this is just breaking and you gave us a really robust download, so we appreciate the great reporting.

Thank you for joining us. Coming up next, I'll talk to a Democratic senator who's at the center of action for her party on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail. Minnesota Senator and vice chair of Senate Democrats campaign arm Tina Smith joins us next. But first, a look back at President Bill Clinton's state of the union address in 1996 as he set a course for reelection.

The era of big government is over, but we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves. Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working together to meet the challenges we face together. Welcome back. As we mentioned, the president's state of the union address will carry extra significance tonight as he lays out his vision for a second term with a rematch against former President Trump now essentially set.

Of course, the fate of any second term Biden agenda will hinge on which party controls Congress. And Democrats are fighting an uphill battle this cycle to hold on to the Senate. 33 Senate seats are on the board this November. Democrats are defending 23 of them with a number of races in red leaning states and key presidential battlegrounds.

Joining us now to discuss this is Democratic Senator from Minnesota, Tina Smith. She's also vice chair of the campaign arm for Senate Democrats. Thank you Facing yet another indictment, this time being charged with obstruction of justice, you had previously resisted calls for him to resign. Does this latest indictment change your perspective at all, Senator?

Do you think it's time for him to step down? Well, look, you know, I'm deeply concerned about the allegations around Senator Menendez. I think that it is extremely troubling. To tell you the truth, what I am focused on as I think about my role in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is making sure that we that we win, make sure that Democrats win in New Jersey and that Democrats win around the country so that we can keep and even expand on our majority.

And that's where my that's where my focus is. Let me ask you this just to follow up. Do you believe the DSCC should provide financial support to Senator Menendez if he does decide to run for reelection? And of course, he hasn't announced that yet.

Yeah, of course he hasn't. Let's just be clear. He hasn't announced what he's going to do. We have two candidates who are running in New Jersey who have announced and who are working really, really hard.

And I'm going to let that process play out. And the Democrats and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going to make sure that we win. I would also say that New Jersey has elected Democrats at the federal level for many, many years. And I think that what we're going to be doing is putting our resources into the states where we need to.

I would point you to what happened this weekend in Texas, where we have a very strong candidate ready to ready to challenge Ted Cruz, one of the most unpopular Republicans in the country, who won in a nine person field, Colin Allred, with almost 60 percent of the vote. So there are lots of places where we're going to be looking to build our support and I believe protect and even expand our majority. Senator, just to be very clear, I don't hear a yes or a no. Are you willing to to go so far as to give a specific answer on that or you're going to wait till?

I mean, I mean, there's too many hypotheticals involved in that. And who's going to be the candidate? And we're just going to wait and see how that all plays out. But as I said, I don't expect that you're going to see the DSCC putting resources into New Jersey, which is a strong Democratic state where our Democratic candidates typically win.

Let me just get your reaction to Senator Sinema, who became, of course, the latest senator to announce she's not going to seek reelection. I want to read you what Senator Daines, the chair of the NRSC, said. He said, With recent polling showing Kyrsten Sinema polling far more Republican voters than Democratic voters, her decision to retire improves Carrie Lake's opportunity to flip this seat. What do you make of that?

What's your response? Well, that's a noble effort on the part of Senator Daines to put a pretty face on what is a very challenging situation for Republicans in Arizona. With Senator Sinema announcing that she's not planning on running, we have a very strong candidate in Arizona in Ruben Gallegos. And even the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee's own polling shows that Ruben does better in a two person race beating Carrie Lake, who is kind of the Republicans' worst nightmare.

Not only does she deny that Joe Biden won the presidential election, but she denies that she lost the gubernatorial election. So she's running for Senate and at the same time she's denying that she lost the governor's race. All right, Senator Tina Smith, we sure did cover a lot of ground today. I appreciate it.

Thank you for being here. Thank you. Coming up, the tough tasks ahead tonight for President Biden in both style and substance, plus the fallout from the new attack ad from a pro-Trump super PAC that the Biden campaign is calling a, quote, deranged stunt. The panel will be here to discuss that as we take a break.

A look back at President George W. Bush's State of the Union address as he sought reelection. For all Americans, the last three years have brought tests we did not ask for and achievements shared by all. By our actions, we have shown what kind of nation we are.

In grief, we have found the grace to go on. In challenge, we rediscovered the courage and daring of a free people. In victory, we have shown the noble aims and good heart of America. And having come this far, we sense that we live in a time set apart.

The stakes couldn't be higher. The interest of the nation and his own presidency is at stake in this single address. No State of the Union address in my 13 years in the United States Senate mattered more than this one. What's at stake is not just the issues being discussed, but the way he comes across.

He needs to be someone today who is authentic and real and belies all of the chatter about his age. Well, that sets us up nicely. That was Connecticut's senior Senator Richard Blumenthal talking about what is at stake in tonight's State of the Union address for President Biden. For more, I'm joined now by my great panel.

NBC News White House correspondent Mike Memoli, Stephanie Schriock, senior advisor to the Strategic Victory Fund and former president of Emily's List, and Jim Garrity, online columnist for the National Review. Thanks to all of you for being here. Really appreciate it. Mike, I have to start with you.

You have been at the White House working your sources. Set the scene. How are they viewing tonight and what are you watching for? Well, this is such a critical opportunity for President Biden to address what has been really the elephant in the room, the issue of his age.

We've been reporting on this for weeks now that I don't think I've ever spent this much time talking not about the substance, the policies that are going to be in the speech, but how it's going to be received, how the president is going to perform. The president has so often said when asked about his age, watch me. This is going to be the biggest audience he has until the Democratic convention later this summer to really show the country that he's up for the job. And they know that they've been looking forward to this.

What is also interesting, though, is because last year they were talking so much about how successful he was at parrying with the Republicans in the audience. They pointed to that to show that he is still sharp. He's still on top of his game. You almost wonder if they're now overcorrecting or setting expectations too high that they're almost going to try to manufacture a moment.

It works because it was spontaneous. And so if they're trying to set that up for tonight, it might not be as effective. That's a fantastic point. And we know, Stephanie, there will likely be a few hecklers in the crowd.

I would imagine so. To Mike's point, though, how important you kind of heard Senator Blumenthal talk about this, that authenticity factor. If there is a manufactured back and forth, it won't feel the same as it felt last year. What do you think he needs to do?

Well, I really hope that there isn't something being manufactured. I completely agree. It's got it's always got to be authentic. This is his moment where he gets to be Joe Biden in a chamber he is used to being in.

I mean, he is a creature of Congress. So he's got lots of friends in there and I think he just has to. We were just talking about that. It is.

It is everywhere. But I do think that, you know, he is going to need to perform. It is definitely the point of conversation. And I think he's in a good place to do that.

But, boy, the eyes are on him. Yeah, they sure are. Jim, we know that Speaker Johnson has advised his conference to have decorum. He has urged them not to interrupt and interject.

What are you going to be watching for tonight? And do you think that that could work against Republicans if there are too many? Well, Marjorie Taylor Greene has already said decorum is dead, which I think is almost throwing up the red flag for the bull. Get ready.

I don't want to speculate what Boehbert's going to do. You just got to know that there's going to be fireworks from the crucial folks who are, you know, basically look like they're auditioning to be a reality show folks. Let me actually step back and say, I actually don't think this is as huge a night as Blumenthal and some other folks are making it sound. It's a speech.

Joe Biden has given a million of these. As long as he doesn't trip all the way down the aisle, doesn't lose his place in the teleprompter and look around confused or something like that. Of all the things the president's got to do delivering the state of the union is actually not one of the tougher ones. You know, stick to your script, shake everybody's hand, take selfies.

And by the end of the night, things should be OK. It's interesting because this is an inflection point, as the term Biden likes to use so often in the way that the Biden team thinks about the campaign. Right. Usually this is an opportunity to set the agenda to talk about the policies you want to lay out.

But the Biden team has talked about how we think of Mario Cuomo. You govern in prose. You campaign in poetry. The mood of the country is now more receptive to hearing the argument of one candidate for another.

That's really at the heart of how the campaign views this speech tonight. And so they think he will talk about the same policies he's talked about the last few years. The voters will be actually more engaged into, you know what, let me think about this versus Donald Trump. The timing, of course, so pivotal coming just two days after Super Tuesday.

I was just thinking individual liberties in this country that have been under assault from MAGA Republicans. You know, Donald Trump appointed to the Supreme Court the justices that overturned Roe versus Wade. And after that, you've seen not only choice, but IVF, contraception, a whole host of things under assault. In addition to Republican legislatures passing similar legislation in states, the President is going to stand up for women's rights, stand up for families' rights, and fight to restore Roe versus Wade.

He's going to stand up for and call on Americans to join him protecting our democracy. This is a real high-stakes moment where democracy is under threat at home and abroad. You saw that on January 6th with the insurrection. Donald Trump defended those insurrectionists as patriots.

The President certainly doesn't think that they're patriots. He thinks that our democracy is on the line, and he will call on Americans to join him. And finally, he wants to keep the strongest economic recovery in the world going. 15 million jobs created under this President, the most in history.

Inflation is down two-thirds since last summer. Wages are rising. The racial wealth gap is closing. And he's got some concrete proposals tonight to continue to lower costs for hardworking Americans.

Ben, he's obviously now has a presumptive Republican nominee who he's running against, as you've been saying, former President Trump. Is he going to directly mention Trump's name tonight? Well, I don't think there will be any mystery about who the President is referring to tonight. But a State of the Union has a few goals.

The first is to level set where we've come over these past few years, how we overcame the pandemic and the supply chain crisis as a result of the policies that the President put in place. This caused a manufacturing revival across the country and 15 million jobs. So that'll be one piece of the speech. The second will be the President's forward-looking vision if he has the chance to serve again.

We've announced pieces of that today. He'll be taking on the cost of mortgages and providing relief there, for example. Healthcare costs. Insulin is capped at $35 for seniors.

Prescription drugs, $2,000 for seniors. He wants to expand that to all Americans. So his second-term agenda will be a part of the speech tonight, but also talk about what he's fighting against. And that's the assault on individual liberties, assault on reproductive rights, assault on our democracy, and just more tax cuts for billionaires and corporations that MAGA Republicans have been promoting.

So, Ben, I hear you saying we shouldn't expect to hear Trump's name, but President Biden is going to spend a good portion of his evening drawing that contrast. I think the contrast against the MAGA Republican agenda will certainly be part of the speech tonight. Let me get your take on what we heard from Senator Blumenthal. We just played it.

He talked about the high stakes of tonight. He said that, quote, what's at stake is not just the issues he discusses, but the way he comes across. Do you agree with that, given that polls do show, like it or not, polls show the vast majority of Americans do have concerns about President Biden's age and fitness to serve? Well, look, on age, you heard the President address this last week on Seth Meyers.

He and Donald Trump are about the same age. The difference is the age of their ideas. You know, the former President's ideas are from 50 years ago. He believes that Roe versus Wade should be overturned.

He did that. He doesn't believe that climate change is real. He's committing this assault on individual liberties across the country. President Biden wants to lead us into the future.

He made the largest investment in climate ever. He wants to restore Roe versus Wade. I think every day here at the White House, we see the President give extensive speeches and remarks and take tough questions from reporters. The average person in their daily life doesn't necessarily see that.

They're focused on other things. It's harder to break through in this fractured media landscape. But the President will likely have the largest television audience you'll see all year tonight. And so I think Americans across the country will hear his vision in a way that they haven't recently.

One of the big issues looming over tonight, obviously, the war in the Middle East. It's our understanding that the President is going to announce a new military mission to get more aid into Gaza. Can you tell us about that? Will that be a part of his speech, Ben?

Absolutely. He will touch on that tonight, Kristen. He'll revisit the events of October 7th and the terrorist attack that was committed against Israel. He'll talk about his work with the Israelis, with partners in the region, to make sure that humanitarian assistance is getting into Gaza for Palestinians that aren't part of Hamas and who are innocent civilians.

That hasn't been happening at the pace the President would like to see. Last week, he started airdrops into the country working with the Jordanians. And tonight, he will announce a new maritime humanitarian corridor where ships, which can carry much more than trucks, can get the level of resources that are needed into Gaza. All right, Ben LaBolt, thank you so much for joining us on this State of the Union night.

We really appreciate it. We appreciate all of your information and perspective. And a programming reminder, State of the Union coverage on NBC News Now begins at 8 p.m. Eastern.

We'll be on the air until midnight with all of the highlights and all of the analysis. NBC News Now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson right now. That's the wrap-up. Now get the scoop on what's been happening with Here's the Scoop, the new podcast from NBC News, with me, your host, Gavin Visugian.

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