The Duran Podcast
Biden delivers dark and angry State of the Union
All right, Alexander, let's discuss the state of the union address yesterday evening from U.S. President Joe Biden. What are your thoughts, Alexander, on Biden's very angry, it seemed, very angry state of the union or campaign speech or, I don't know, I didn't really get much out of it, but what are your thoughts? Well, I'd buy it at the state of the union. Well, my means you take away watching and listening to it and seeing all that was going on around it is that the state of the union is bad because the way the president behaved, that the way he conducted this speech, I mean, it was more than astonishing for me personally, it was absolutely horrifying and it started in this incredibly angry, aggressive way, trying to link up the Republicans with Putin and taking this very aggressive stance, criticizing his predecessor, as he did repeatedly throughout the speech, flag it effectively implicitly criticizing the Supreme Court. Now, the state of the union address is a ceremonial event, it's required, by the way, by the constitution of the United States, it's supposed to be an event where the country comes together. Obviously, it does have a political aspect, a campaigning aspect, if you like, that's not inappropriate, but it's never the case, or at least it's never been the case that I know of, that the president actually uses the state of the union address to abuse, and that's the only one I can come up with, abuse in this angry, aggressive way, his political opponents within the United States. Now, he mentioned right at the start of the speech, two presidents, one was Franklin Roosevelt, the other was Abraham Lincoln. Now, as it happens, I have read, in my past, previous, you know, when I was studying American history, I have read every single speech that each of those two presidents delivered as president. And I've also, by the way, read and listened to some of Roosevelt's, you know, interviews and things that he did. There's a few of them. I haven't heard all of his radio addresses, but they never made speeches like this. And, you know, in Abraham Lincoln's case, he, of course, was speaking during an actual civil war, but he never attacked his opponents. He didn't even personally abuse the other side in the civil war in the way that the president did that Biden did yesterday. He was never abusive or aggressive in this matter, manner. And as for Roosevelt, yes, he could be very strong and tough, but he was also always charming and often humorous. There's nothing like this in this speech. This came across to me as frankly an angry old man, furious with everybody around him, incredibly abusive, making the divisions in America, which as president, his purpose ought to be to try to heal. He's making the division speaker. And what it showed to me, what it told me is that he doesn't accept the legitimacy of the other side at all. The other side in the political, in the political arena, he doesn't understand what democratic politics actually is. And I was just trying to imagine what the media in the United States would be saying today, if his predecessor, Donald Trump, had ever, had ever delivered a speech like this, it was a shocking speech. And one which, you know, whatever we get into a real crisis in America, a real political crisis in America, well, you could almost say that this speech basically set the scene for it. I could use stronger words. Is it me or does it seem like the only way Biden can get through long speeches, speeches over five minutes? Is if he's angry, is it me or do you get that impression? That's the only way he can't. It seems like he can't speak in just a level, middle tone kind of delivery. You're absolutely correct. He loses it. He has to get amped up. He has to get amped up is the word that I'm looking for. You are completely correct. And by the way, somebody who's had to look after a person who was at the end of their lives, I mean, our grandmother, who was at the end of her life, and who was suffering from the mental conditions that come upon many of us as we grow old, and who also experienced something of that, something of that with my mother as well. I find that entirely, you know, it's exactly the same. I mean, they were always very angry with me, because it was their only way of trying to retain any degree of focus. And that's what we saw yesterday. But of course, you can understand that and forgive it in any other person, but not in the President of the United States. If the only way the President Biden can retain focus is Mike amping himself up in this kind of manner, then all I can say is he's not right to be President of the United States, and the American people must vote for someone else. Okay, so let's talk about some of the foreign policy geopolitical details, not because we are a geopolitics channel. So let's start off with your thoughts on on what he said about Putin, Russia, Ukraine, and then we'll also talk about his, his idea initiative for Gaza, the building of a port or a pier. That that was pretty much his, his foreign policy part in the speech. He did mention China towards towards the end briefly as well. But I think that was it for foreign policy was Ukraine, Putin, Israel, Gaza, and a little bit of China. So let's start with your thoughts on what he said about the pressure. Yeah, on Ukraine, Putin, Russia, he didn't say anything that he hasn't already said many times. What made this whole thing incendiary? I mean, really, really ugly was the way in which he was basically trying to weaponize that issue again against his political enemies in the United States. He was not accepting, you know, that there are legitimate differences and different points of view. He was basically saying, well, you know, we're almost at war with the Russians. They gave us very careful to say that there would be no boots in the ground that American troops would not be committed, but given how angry he is, who can, who can rely on that, who can actually assume that that is so given how angry he seems to be. But he's primary purpose in what he said about Ukraine, which wasn't very much, by the way, he didn't really talk much about foreign policy overall in this speech, unusual for the president, for a president of the United States, delivering his state at the union address, by the way. But anyway, he didn't talk much about foreign policy. He didn't really talk much about Ukraine, Russia or Putin, not compared with what he's just done in other speeches. His primary purpose or so, it seemed to me, was to try to use that issue, to try to paint his opponents into a corner and to make it look like, you know, they're on boots inside and that they're somehow disloyal to the United States. I'm going to make a guess here, by the way. I mean, this is my own view. I think that any Republicans who might have been wobbling on the issue of support for Ukraine must have come away from this speech, absolutely furious. We can already see the anger for many Republicans, and I think it will probably harden opposition in Congress to aid for Ukraine, not weaken it. But anyway, I didn't think he said much there. What he said about China, again, absolutely boilerplate, Biden's staff, he threw in Taiwan, but it was very much said in passing. And what he said about Gaza is again, the words of a president, a Democrat, who's facing a very difficult election, and who knows that he has to manage this issue and is trying to find some way to sort of square all the bases. He doesn't want to be a pro anti-Israel. He doesn't want to support the Israelis too straightforwardly. So he comes up with this, frankly, barfetch plan about building a port and all of that kind of thing. It's all going to happen. It's not achievable in the kind of times to timescales that he is saying. So I mean, it was, I thought again, more a rhetorical device to try to appease voters in Michigan. And again, I think if you look at the speech overall, what he said about Gaza, it struck me, you're right, by the way, it's about the only foreign policy initiative that he actually announced. But to the extent that it was a foreign policy initiative, it will impress no one, it will annoy the Israelis. And I don't think it will win any votes. Yeah, foreign policy-wise, he had nothing really. Nothing. He delivered nothing of substance, nothing of vision, nothing. Except for this idea about building a port, that's it, which when you take a step back and think about it, it makes zero sense. We're going to build a port to deliver humanitarian aid. We're going to build a port in Gaza. I was just like, what is he talking about? Well, exactly. What is he talking about? That is exactly. By the way, I thought on terms of domestic policy, it was pretty thin. I mean, he didn't announce some things. But I mean, there was some of the things that you would expect from a campaigning president. But it really didn't get the sense that his heart was in any of that. And it was all very thin on detail and very thin on substance as well. And of course, inflation is not his fault. The economy is doing magnificently all of that sort of thing, which again, I don't think impresses anybody. But all of that not really said with much conviction either. The only part of the speech, by the way, which I thought he really was in terms of domestic policy, that he was talking things, substantively about was Rowan Wade. And it seems to me that he's going to launch on that. That was my own sense. Yeah, he gave the game away at the beginning of his speech when he said something along the lines of, if I'm smart, if I were smart, I would I would go home right now, or I would leave right now. I mean, he kind of, he kind of indicated that the goal of this state of the union is to just get through it. You know, he was like, if I was smart, I would not give this speech. I would just go home and forget about it. But here I am. So let's try to get through this speech without having any type of freeze or meltdown or something like that. So yeah, it was just an interesting way for Biden to open up the state of the union, kind of like an admission as to what the goals are. Actually, it's very bizarre thing to say if you think about him. But I mean, you're absolutely correct. But there we go. I mean, you know, the one big achievement that he achieved last night perhaps was to actually get through it or which he did. But of course, antagonizing his opponents, political opponents, treating them as enemies, infuriating the country or much of the country. Some people, of course, will be thrilled by this. And essentially appealing to the fears and insecurities and also the ambitions of his increasingly narrow left, left, left progressive electoral base. I mean, I can't imagine independence would have been impressed by this. And of course, Republicans of the country must have been furious. Oh, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, just a final thought. You know, the two, the two people, at least, when I saw the speech, the two people that he recognized, the lawmakers that he recognized during the speech was Lindsey Graham, Neil Kahn. So he mentioned, he gave a shout out to Lindsey Graham, who was joking around. So he said, hey, Lindsey, said something to Lindsey Graham and Nancy Pelosi. And he mentioned Nancy Pelosi. I mean, those are the two people that he mentioned by name during the speech that are lawmakers. And I think that kind of lets you know as to as to where Biden sits in all of this, the neo-cons and the neo-lips, I mean, right, right there, there it is, that's fine. Yes. That's his strength. That's those are the people that. But also, they're the sort of people that he considers are part of the legitimate political scene in the United States. Anyone outside it, as far as he's concerned, doesn't belong in the political system. I mean, that that was the takeaway I I got, as I said, it doesn't understand democracy. Well, perhaps it does understand democracy, but it has a distinctly menacing tone, which I think is completely incompatible with a democracy of peace, which of course, the United States is supposed to be. Yeah. A final quick question, what do you think the Putin administration and the Xi Jinping administration are saying after watching the state of the union? Those shrug their shoulders and say this Biden again. I mean, by now that I think they've worked him out and understand just what an angry old man he is, and they weren't that, you know, they'll say, you know, we just got to keep going doing what we have to do and keep our fingers crossed that he doesn't do anything really bad. But, you know, they'll say to themselves, well, this is just Biden again. Yeah. And the Europeans, what do you think they're saying? He says, I'm not going to walk away from Ukraine or we're not going to walk away from Ukraine. I listened to that and I say, they're going to walk away from Ukraine. Exactly. Well, the Europeans are in the middle of a gigantic humongous meltdown at the moment, because they sense that America is just drifting away and nothing in this speech is going to reassure them. All right. We will end it there. The doread.locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, but she telegram rock fin and Twitter X and go to the doread shop. 15% off t-shirts. Take care. [Music]