 It's March the 2nd, 2022. It's Wednesday, it's 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing. Time for What Now, America. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. Today's title is Biden's State of the Union, Much to Report. This was President Biden's first State of the Union address, and we're going to discuss that with my esteemed guests, Jay Fidel, Karen Buzzard, and Cynthia Lees and Claire. Winston Welch is out on assignment. So good morning, everyone. Good morning, Tim. Morning. Let's get to it. Jay, straight to you. President Biden's State of the Union address. Did he have success of trying to unite the polarized GOP from the Democrats during his speech? And if so, to what degree was he successful or not successful? I don't think he had much effect on the GOP. A lot of them didn't come. And some of them came and rolled their eyes. I like when they do that. Where it's been a bill, they're never, ever, ever going to vote for the Republicans in the Senate, especially they're never going to vote for them. And so when they do, they roll their eyes. And our media caught that. So we had a number of eye roll shots there. So I think on the other hand, he wasn't really talking to them. He was talking to the public. He was talking to the country. He was talking to the world. He was talking to Europe for sure. He was talking to Ukraine. He was talking to Putin. And that was appropriate. And that was a success in terms of uniting. Did I watch a different State of the Union? I could have sworn I saw all the GOPs rise enthusiastically and clap quite enthusiastically to his address about Ukraine. Oh, yeah. I'm getting to that. Oh, sorry. OK. The most successful part of the speech was the first 15 minutes, maybe, where he focused on Ukraine. And that was really well done. And you could see there were standing ovations on pretty much everything he said. That was good. It's good to bring the Ukrainian ambassador there. That was good. And what he said was uniting. It was uniting for the country, because most right-thinking people, I mean, most right-thinking people are in favor of his policies on Ukraine. And of course, Europe was impressed. I talked to a European show this morning, and they were impressed. Putin was watching it, I'm sure, although some say he doesn't watch television. I don't believe that. So all in all, that was the mark of success for the speech. I thought there were some other things, though, that were not particularly successful. On the other hand, you got to do it. For example, my reaction was, gee, all these points, some of them failed initiatives on and on. A lot of little points about a lot of little issues that really are embarrassing in terms of the results so far. And yet, I mentioned this to my walking buddy this morning, and he said, no, no, you have to cover everything. This is the State of the Union. It's good, bad, and otherwise. And you have to cover things, because if you don't cover things, then somebody says, how come he didn't cover that? So we had to. So all in all, I would say it was positive. All in all, I would say it was, it made my heart pound there at the beginning with Ukraine. Some of the other parts did not make my heart pound, but he was doing the responsible thing. He was addressing the issues. He had good advisors. He had good points to make. I'm not sure that it changes the world. Okay, well, that's the second part of my question. And that is, if Winston was at the table right now, I'm sure I'd hear optimism of politics. And that's the question. Did his address about Ukraine and the matter that it is unifying both sides of the aisle, is that an entree for other issues that possibly the GOP can rally around later in the address? Joe Biden thought there was. Yeah, no, it definitely could be. I mean, we've got to start somewhere, pinning the blanket down, so to speak, you do one corner, then you do the other. And this was definitely a corner to do. And it was a corner that may have, salient effect on other issues. At least some of them, at least some of them anyway. I guess I was impressed with that. I was touched with that. I was touched what he said. I was touched with the fact that America seems to be united in this matter. And although a few ridiculous remarks by Trump and his friends, most right-thinking people are in complete support. So yes, I think it was positive for Biden, for America, and for that matter, for the Congress. Whether it has a big effect on things I don't know, because, you know, Putin has the stage today. Putin's giving his state of the East in Europe today, and he's relentlessly heading on down to Kiev. And he's going to do a lot of destruction today. It's not clear whether all the negative reaction he's getting makes a difference for him. And a lot of people, a lot of commentators, despite, you know, the optimism that Biden showed last night, are worried about a larger conflagration in Europe, including, as I mentioned, I talked to a European this morning. Europe is afraid of a larger conflagration. Europe is afraid of World War III now. And then they have, you know, reason to be afraid. And we need to be aware of that. So, you know, the sanctions are a good idea, his view of it, his expression of it in the speech, his summary of how the sanctions are having a significant effect on Russia, all that is good. But whether, you know, the city on the hill will remain in a leadership position, whether the EU and NATO will stay close together, these are questions that are not answered. And, you know, in a week or two, we'll find out more. And his speech will be only one of many things that affect public and international opinion on that. All right, thank you, Jay. Karen, to you, you know, Jay just mentioned something, questions that are not answered. And the question is, did Joe Biden really connect the dots to the American public of what they might expect as far as consequences as a result of this Ukraine-Russia conflict? Did he prepare the audience well enough to say, you shouldn't be expecting, for example, higher gas prices or results of inflation in other areas that we couldn't imagine? How do you think Joe Biden did with prepping the United States audience to some of the fallout of this conflict? Well, I think he did mention that there could be higher inflation and gasoline prices as a result of the conflict. So, I mean, he didn't go into great depth, but he did mention it in passing. But I have to say that, you know, I think this speech, he's at a critical point in his presidency. He only has something like 57% approval ratings. And I think this speech showed people why we elected him to begin with, which was civility, particularly as it was highlighted against Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Beaubart who decided to kind of hackle him during his part in the speech where he mentioned his son having died related to a war injury and heavily booed, which was interesting because in the past, I don't think they were booed before. There were several rallies in the speech by the, I think the immigration policy, when he mentioned that, the Republicans stood up. When he mentioned the police, fund the police, they all stood up. So there were kind of other points of agreement in the speech. You could see what the Republicans, I didn't expect that, you know, it's become the norm that they don't really stand up for most points. But I used to, interestingly enough, in a formalized teach public speaking, and I would give this speech an A because I think he did an excellent job of rallying, rallying the troops as it were. And going into the speech, I was like, oh no, I have to listen to this because, you know, I felt really kind of depressed about the country. And I wasn't looking forward to hearing it. And when I came out, I was very, very impressed. You know, I think he really lifted the spirits and it made me believe that he should be more in the public limelight. I think he kind of decided to get out of the limelight because of the me-to-ism of Trump, you know, Trump me, me, me, me. And so he thought he would, you know, kind of stay out of the limelight more. But I think this speech showed that, you know, he can do an excellent job if he is kind of presented. He's kind of been sidelined a lot by groups that he has tried to put forward. So I think overall it was an excellent speech. And I think the second part was also very good because I was very impressed. I didn't really expect any kind of depth in his talking points because of the time. But he did seem to hit all the key points. The only point that I came away thinking he didn't address was climate change. Yeah, you know, let's take a little moonwalk back in history when Barack Obama was giving the State of the Union speech. And I forget the congressman's name where he said, you lie. And if you recall, you know, for a week, that topic or that outburst was received both by the GOP and Democrats. And this particular representative was severely treated, you know, harshly. Almost to the point of being censored, but that didn't happen. You expect anything or any out, any out, you know, fall out from Marjorie Taylor Greene's outbursts? Well, I think she's already been pretty marginalized, as it has, she's been taking up all her committees except for not being reelected. I'm not sure what else they can do to her. But I did see a comment by one of the other congresspeople that said that she didn't, she wasn't in the same human race as the rest of us, which I thought was pretty dumb and comment. Well, Mitt Romney's comment about, I have morons on my team after CPAC took place this weekend, that was quite a telling remark. Right, it was. A friend of mine said this would have been an opportunity for Joe Biden to call out those Pompeo and Trump as labeling Putin a genius and a really shrewd, smart guy and really very unpatriotic comments. Was this the opportunity for Joe Biden to do that or does he always take the high road? Well, having to probably speaking, this is called the ceremonial speech and the focus of a ceremonial speech is positive. You never hit the negative in a ceremony. You know, the goal is to uplift, make people feel good. So it's not the time to bring up disagreements or points of negative points. So in that sense, I don't think this would have been appropriate in this speech. OK, good points. All right, thank you, Karen. Cynthia, to you. Joe Biden mentioned some sanctions against Russia's, certainly prohibition of Russian airplanes in US airspace. He really didn't mention a whole lot about the swift banking prohibition. Do you have any thoughts about the sanctions that have been placed thus far and Joe Biden's ability or inability to highlight them during the State of the Union speech? I think he did. He talked about the financial without getting specific about every single one of them. He talked about the financial sanctions that are going to be devastating to Russia. And he went into some good detail about how it was going to affect Russia and even Russian citizens. And I think he even made the point that it's not our goal to hurt Russian people. We just got to make this stop. I can't remember exactly how he said it. But something that struck me in the middle of the speech when he put attention to Merrick Garland and said that the Justice Department is now starting a new task force to investigate people that have misused COVID funds. And then afterwards, the person who gave the Republican response was Iowa Governor. And I can't remember her name, shoot. But at any rate, she's been audited for misuse of COVID funds. She had to repay $450,000 because she used it just to pay staff and other miscellaneous things. And I thought, wow, you can't even try to write that stuff. It just happened. And I thought, oh my gosh, how many people noticed that? I didn't. Thank you for bringing it up. I did not catch that. Another thing that I loved was when he was talking about when he was kind of touting some of the things that he has done, like the rescue plan and the bipartisan infrastructure. And that was a big thing that everybody stood up. And that was a great thing. And then he looks over and he looks straight at the Republicans when he said, and some of you have already been touting these things back in your home states. And I thought, oh, subtle. I love it. Well, OK. You got me on that. Almost got me to shed a tear on that. Let me ask you this. He did mention a chief prosecutor. Isn't that really in the backyard of the Justice Department to investigate fraudulent or end or gouging as a result of COVID-19? Where do you think that came from? I think he's going after price gougers because there's been so much complaint about it. And I also think that part of it Was Merle Garland on board with that? Well, he would have to be in order for it to happen, right? I would hope so. So I know that I think anyway. I don't know. I should say I think I think that part of the reason we have some of these high prices right now, it's not exactly inflation. It's corporate America trying to make a buck again off of American people. And they see the opportunity to raise these prices with all kinds of excuses and blame it on inflation. I blame it on corporate greed myself because at the time when the gas prices, just to say, were going off the charts up, the price of a barrel didn't really go up. So where did they justify that raise in the price? And I liked that Biden said he was releasing. What was it? 60, some odd can't remember. 50 million barrels. 50 million, thank you. Barrels of reserve to help try to bring some of these prices down. I don't think it's going to work because he's got to get through to corporate America first. And the oil and gas guys, they're all multi-billionaires trying to become trillionaires. And so I don't know how much effect he might have, but I'm glad that he's at least looking at it and trying to go after it. Well, I mean, that's the number one thing he's taking hits on as far as criticism. And that is the rising price of gas. So 60 million, I hate to say it. It seems like a drop in the barrel. Doesn't seem like much. Should he have gone for more or more cooperation from other countries to increase supply, particularly from the Middle East? I didn't see any mention about Middle East and their cooperation in this speech. No, there was an article in the paper this morning about how OPEC said it was not going to open this spigot. Interesting. OK. It's a big push right now by the oil and gas companies to get Biden to remember, he froze a lot of the pipelines. He wouldn't let them go forward to get them to go back to using coal and oil as a lot of the environmental groups are concerned that this is going to be used to go against the environment. Right. Do you think any of the criticism? Either by GOP or otherwise, is well founded because we are going to see a massive increase in gas prices at the pump. And do you think it's warranted for some of the criticism if he doesn't go back to some of these oil supplies? I'm hoping that what's going to happen is it's going to make people turn to renewable energy sources. I'm hoping that it's going to force people away from oil and gas. It's going to come up to see there are other options out there. We don't have to be stuck with these guys paying their banks and their CEOs, billions of dollars every year. And so I'm really hoping that people are going to start changing the way they think about oil. Instead of going back to more, I'm hoping that Biden just pushes and pushes and pushes the climate change renewable energy stuff. So I have something funny that I want to share. Since it was a positive speech and all right, we're doing positive things about it too. So last night on Stephen Colbert, those nighttime comedy shows are the things that have made me survive Trump and get through all this political nonsense. So he says it was inspiring to see such a moving moment. I'm going to read it too, because I want to make sure I get it right. When he says such a moving moment of bipartisan unity when he recognized the Ukraine ambassador, Oksana Markinnaova. I'm not getting her name right, sorry. But at any rate, he says it was a moving moment to see a bipartisan unity, especially considering that the last time Congress stood up that fast together, they were the ones fleeing a fascist invasion. All right, Touche. Oh, how appropriate. How appropriate. Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Cynthia, as always. Hey, Jay, President Biden touched on the economy. Specifically, he talked about the job creation growth that we've had. And he mentioned the Intel opening, plant opening. I think it was a $20 billion commitment in Ohio. Did he hit the points, or did he connect the dots on the economy and success there, but its correlation to inflation? Well, you know, it's a priorities thing, right? It seems to me that it's aspirational on the notion we should have manufacturing back in this country. And he's talking a lot about that, and that's encouraging. And I think he can do stuff about that, even on a proclamation level, and certainly on a rhetoric level, to have entrepreneurs start plants again. And the supply chain problems has accentuated that. And inflation has accentuated that. If we do it in this country, we can sort of tolerate the inflation. And if we get careful about the Fed, and we raise the rediscount rate, that will help on the inflation. So I guess the point is that economics with all of these things is an art, not a science. We never have learned how do we exactly control all this. But he's got some smart guys around him. And he is attending to it. He is aware of it. He's not doing stupid things. He's awake. He's alive. And so that's the message I got, that he's working on it. And who knows what will happen. We may be in for more inflation. Probably will be. And it'll be a struggle to open up plants in this country, but he wants to. And so all of that is right thinking. And conceivably, he's able to make some real progress on both sides of that. He made a specific mention. I think this has been going on since Jimmy Carter all the way through all the presidents. And that is the Made in America banner that often has flown in the air to make Americans feel better. We know that Made in America, sometimes the engine could be made in Europe. Yet the door handles are made in Iowa. Yet the card now is labeled Made in America. What about that point of Made in America? Does that strike a nerve? Does that really, is there a real commitment from the Biden administration to do that? Some things can be, should be, Made in America. Other things cannot. I mean, I read this morning that we're the largest suppliers of lithium for batteries, right? And batteries are increasingly important in our world. One of the largest suppliers of lithium is, guess what? Why are you sitting down? Ukraine, Ukraine. So if we lose our relations with Ukraine, and we will, if Putin becomes the dictator there directly or indirectly, we're going to have trouble with lithium. We may have trouble with lithium out of other places, too, like China and Africa and Africa. So we have to be mindful of the supply chain, things that you mentioned, that we live in an interdependent world, and we have to have the geopolitical connections, the foreign policy connections to be sure that we have all this. One of the interesting things is a battery component. I want to say it's the blue material. What is that? Manganese was being mined by an American company in the Congo. And they were also in coal in the United States, and they were losing money in coal. And the Chinese came around and wanted to buy them. And there was opposition voiced to the American government. And ultimately, money talked, and the Chinese bought the company. And that was a major supplier of important rare earth. So we could have done better on that. The government has to work with private industry to assure that the interdependence works and that we have the supply lines. Otherwise, it won't be made in America. No chance it can be made in America. Yes, the components are international, but ultimately we can be at the top of the manufacturing chain. And I think that's what he's talking about. That's what I'm talking about anyway. OK, thank you. Karen, President Biden in his address indirectly acknowledged that there's polarization. Sorry, it was cobalt. Cobalt, yes. Cobalt in the Congo, yes. OK, thank you. Karen, I think he indirectly acknowledged that there's great polarization between the GOP and the Democrats pertaining to his agenda. But he did cite four specific things that he thought should not be any kind of debate about. And that all parties should agree that these things should be looked at and bills passed. And those were the following items. The opioid crisis in support for recovering addicts, funds for mental health, funds for veterans health care due to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the last one was funds to continue the cancer moonshot efforts. Is President Biden correct on that? That the GOP will rally around those four topics and approve pending legislation? Well, one would think they were non-political topics. They all have to do with everyone's health. But given their past background where they politicize every issue, it's hard to say. Particularly, I think there's a mental health crisis in the United States that's not been addressed with all these people on the streets and nowhere for them to go. There's no kind of ability to solve that problem. So I think he rightly points out those are critical issues. But I don't know about how much the GOP will get on board with them. OK. Do you think that those topics would be, if they're not now, the opening door, if you will, to further legislation? Similar to the Ukraine rally of support in unity? It could be. I mean, one would think they're kind of neutral issues in the sense that they're not politicized as yet. So I guess time will tell because it's hard to know. But one thing I did want to mention to Cynthia's point earlier about the economy, one thing that hasn't been addressed is the Federal Reserve's policy, which is creating the inflation. I don't know if you noticed in Sunday's New York Times, Warren Buffett announced that his company had made $90 billion profit. And the reason they made the profit is they're taking the money that's being given to them by the Federal Reserve, the stimulus money for the banks and the corporations. And they're using it to buy it. He said he's planning to use $144 billion of the company's cash to buy back shares of his own stock to drive the prices up. This is the kind of thing that is really out of control that people aren't aware of that I didn't hear Biden address. And no normal person gets 0% interest rates on loans now. But these billionaires are making out like bandits. Well, that was certainly the case with the corporate rate cut. There was an assumption that capital improvement would be purchased by corporations and certainly wage increases that they would use as a result of the tax cut. Yet by and large, it went to buying back their own stock and increased compensation for CEOs. And let me add that you spoke earlier about the abuses over the federal funding and the crisis. That's peanuts compared to the notion that they're using this money to buy back their own stock. That phenomenon has a much greater effect on the national economy. Bingo, absolutely, Jane. I'm a little surprised it's Warren Buffett because he's pretty conscientious about not accepting certain corporate giveaways. And he certainly was one to spout off about the fact that taxes do need to increase. The corporate tax rate and personal tax rates need to be increased for the 1%. So I'm a little surprised that his name came up on that. Well, he was proud of this buyback of stocks. So not only did they come up, but he was tweeting it as a plus for his company. Well, that means there's going to be a lot of happy executives. What can I say? All right, we're almost out of time. Cynthia, you get the last question on this topic. And that is, what was your assessment of the address? Give it a rating. Give it a score. I am with Karen. I gave it an A. I also was like Karen, kind of going, OK, well, I was worried. I was really worried because I thought, what if he blows it? Oh, my god. Throughout the thing, I sort of white-knuckling my chair, going, oh, please don't blow it. Just don't blow it. Just don't blow it. And then about halfway, I started to really lighten up. And once I saw him look over at the Republicans and say, and some of you have already gone back to your states and touted this stuff. And so I thought, OK, maybe he's going to be all right. And by the end, I was really encouraged. And I thought he did a great job. And I started thinking about a couple of Trump's state of the union addresses when he was in office. And I just thought, I hope every single person in that in Congress sitting there, right, must have been struck by the difference, especially the ones that have been there long enough to know what presidents were like before Trump and then during and now after. And they're seeing this resurgence of integrity and honor that's coming back. Does that affect the American public? I think so. I do. And I don't know about the Republicans because I watched the Republican response. So the Republicans watched that part. And she just lied and said a bunch of stuff that wasn't even true about Biden and the things that he said during the speech that I watched the speech. He didn't say them. And she's the same one, like I said, who is in trouble for funds. But I want to finish with a really beautiful story about Ukraine, if it's OK. By all means. There is a picture they found. They cut it on film and I watched. It's so beautiful. This Ukrainian grandmother is out there. And you can tell she's older. She's kind of stupid, you know, and she's just cussing out this Russian soldier. And I mean, she has given him what for. And when she's done, she hands him a bunch of seeds and tells him to put them in his pocket. And then she tells them that they are sunflower seeds and she can't wait to watch the sunflowers bloom from his dead corpse after he falls dead on the ground in Ukraine. And I thought, you go, grandma, that was horrible. You know, it's said that you don't mess with Ukrainians. That's that's an old that's an old saying and I'd have to concur. All right, Cynthia, thank you. We're going to go around the corner here around the table very quickly and get last thoughts. JTU, last thought. Well, it's, you know, over the years, a state of the Union messages have become theater. And there was a certain amount of theater. The young boy, for example, with diabetes and drug prices and it was his birthday. That was true theater. To a certain extent, the Ukrainian ambassador was theater. But on the other hand, people watch it just as they watch television in general. A lot of people watched it. It had an effect, I would say, on balance and a positive effect. I wouldn't give it an A, but I would give it over a B, maybe even a B plus in terms of the effect, not only on the American people, and to some very limited extent, maybe on Republicans going forward. You know, the price of bipartisan, the benefits of bipartisanship are obvious and he made that clear. And then, of course, the world. And I think that's the most important point of all. He was speaking to the world. He was speaking of America, the city on the hill. America, you know, the moral beacon. We're back, sort of thing. And he never mentioned Trump's name once. And so I think the people in Europe were probably encouraged by what he said, by the gentleness and the kindness and, you know, the morality of it. So I think he did as good a job as he could have done in the circumstances, but we can never forget that we have a divided country and it's been going down the side for all the years of Trump, if not before, but especially during the years of Trump. And so while we see the tipping point in Europe, which could go either way, regrettably, we would be in so much better shape to be able to focus on that and deal with that as the one primary issue and not have to deal with the nonsense that goes on in government and in the political divide. So all in all, I'm encouraged, but it's not that, it's not a sweeping encouragement because I know at the end of the day, we'll have to face the same problems we had to face the day before. All right, Jay, thank you. Karen, your last thoughts? Well, I think that here before he sort of seen the presidency as an ensemble act by including all the different factions in the Democratic Party under his tent, but maybe this suggests that he needs to step out more and show what he can do because I think he really can rally the troops if he appears in the press a little more and shows that he's a leader that has the morality and the sense of honor that the previous president did not. Good point, thank you. Cynthia, we've got a timer over time, but your last thought. I'm still gonna be promoting Ukraine right now and I'm gonna quickly give you two short quotes. One, this one is from President Zelensky. To the world, what is the point of saying never again? For 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Baben Yar, at least five killed, history repeating itself. And his wife, this is, I love this quote, it's so beautiful. Her name is Olena Zelensky and she with her husband have both refused asylum in the United States. And she's- Jay, your disco- Hi, Jay, go ahead, Cynthia, keep going. So at any rate, she says, I will not panic and cry. I will be calm and confident. My children are watching me. I will be next to them and next to my husband and with you. I love you. I love you, Ukraine. Alrighty, thank you for ending with that. I'd like to thank our guests for this very, very important topic. And I'd like to thank Jay Fidel, Karen Buzzard, and Cynthia Leeson-Clair. Thank you for joining us on What Now America? Join us next Wednesday at 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Apachele, your host, and we hope to see you then. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.