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Priyanka Aribindi: Its Thursday, March 7th. Im Priyanka Aribindi.

Juanita Tolliver: And Im Juanita Tolliver and this is What a Day where were officially strapping in for the reboot of the 2020 presidential election.

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah, I am usually not a fan of the reboots. We are just going to have to make sure that this one ends the exact same way the last one did.

Juanita Tolliver: The same ending would be good minus, you know, that little bit of uh insurrection on January 6th? You know, we can go without that part.

Priyanka Aribindi: Right you are. That is the update I will accept. [music break] On todays show, Nikki Haley and Dean Phillips suspended their presidential runs. Plus, scientists apparently learned nothing from Jurassic Park because they say that they are getting closer to reviving the extinct wooly mammoth.

Juanita Tolliver: But first, tonight, President Biden delivers his third state of the Union address ahead of this Novembers presidential election. And his audience isnt well, exactly all in on his vision for the country. Itll include the Republicans who are trying to impeach him through his son, Hunter. Axios reports that Republican House speaker Mike Johnson asked GOP members to maintain decorum, but its almost like he doesnt know whos in his conference. Like, have you seen these people? Have you met

Priyanka Aribindi: Laughable.

Juanita Tolliver: these people?

Priyanka Aribindi: Truly laughable.

Juanita Tolliver: The state of the Union is a huge platform with enormous stakes.

[clip of Cody Keenan] Because its the one time where you get a big audience and you can take like, however fractured the country is, or however frustrated people are, how confusing things are. You can tell a story that tries to get everyone kind of on the same page. Youre setting a course for the country.

Priyanka Aribindi: That was former Obama speechwriter Cody Keenan, who recently joined Inside 2024. That is the exclusive series for friends of the pod. Part of the challenge for Biden tonight is to show people that he has still got the energy for the job. And as Keenan says, he also has to convince the public that hes the right choice.

[clip of Cody Keenan] For the people out there and there are a lot who say, why should I vote? Why does it matter? Well.

Priyanka Aribindi: Right.

[clip of Cody Keenan] What do you care about? Because I guarantee you, you care about at least three things. And on those three things, I will bet you there is an enormous difference between the two candidates. And theres a way to set that all up in a way thats not partisan, not political, but that just makes it super clear. And thats the type of thing that I would expect to see.

Juanita Tolliver: Contrast, contrast, contrast. Thats exactly what President Biden is going to be trying to do with his state of the Union address. But Bidens also got to get his progressive base bought in and energized.

Priyanka Aribindi: Right.

Juanita Tolliver: And there are several key issues where activists will be listening closely to what the president says, from immigration to the war in Gaza and more. And we wanted to know what they were hoping to hear tonight.

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. We started first with abortion, which is a topic that weve covered extensively for the past few years on the show. Ever since the fall of Roe in 2022, abortion advocates on the state level have been fighting to protect and maintain a persons right to choose. In the audience for Biden tonight will be Texas OBGYN, Dr. Austin Dennard. In 2022, just after Roe fell, Doctor Dennard found out that she was pregnant. But during a checkup at 11 weeks, this happened.

[clip of Dr. Austin Dennard] I was looking at the ultrasound screen and realizing that our baby had a catastrophic diagnosis of acrania or anencephaly, which is the most severe form of neural tube defect that a pregnancy can have.

Priyanka Aribindi: That is a fatal diagnosis for a fetus. And Doctor Dennard found herself needing an abortion, but because she was in Texas, she needed to travel elsewhere to get that kind of care, and she described how careful she had to be given the states criminal penalties for anyone who assisted her.

[clip of Dr. Austin Dennard] I worried about whether or not we should be buying airplane tickets on our family credit card, because does that mean that my husbands aiding and abetting me?

Juanita Tolliver: Oh my God.

[clip of Dr. Austin Dennard] I didnt want to go alone. He wanted to come with me to support but was that considered aiding and abetting? Um, we were concerned about the safety of our family, too. If someone found out that I was going out of state for an abortion, were they going to come after my family, my children, would they try to take my license away?

Juanita Tolliver: On top of getting a fatal diagnosis for her fetus, now, she had to deal with the ridiculous, harmful laws that Texas has around seeking abortion care. No one should ever have to think about this stuff.

Priyanka Aribindi: Her experience and the experience of helping her patients who struggle to get important reproductive care pushed her to become more politically active. And tonight, shell be at the state of the Union as a guest of her representative, Democratic congressman and Ted Cruzs new Senate challenger, Colin Allred. Here is what she is hoping to hear from President Biden tonight.

[clip of Dr. Austin Dennard] Were at a time now in Texas where weve just hit rock bottom. We have no access to care. We are unable to get any sort of reproductive support. Abortion care is essentially abolished in our state. I hope he spends a significant amount of time talking about reproductive care, and that there can be change on the federal level, um because really Roe was just the beginning. So hearing him talk about reproductive care and how important it is for us to have support is going to be key.

Juanita Tolliver: Key and a very relatable topic considering the number of states in this country who are trying to push forth abortion bans like weve seen inTexas.

Priyanka Aribindi: Abortion bans and these continued attacks, I imagine Alabama and latest IVF rulings there have even more people interested in this. So certainly something people will be watching for.

Juanita Tolliver: Another issue progressives are watching is the war in Gaza. You may remember that the Listen to Michigan campaign was wildly successful on Michigans primary day. More than 100,000 voters cast uncommitted ballots as a way to pressure the Biden administration to take action to prevent more deaths in Gaza. Layla Elabed is the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan. Shes a Palestinian-American and longtime community organizer. She also happens to be the sister of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. She spoke about what it was like seeing the campaign exceed their original goal of 10,000 votes.

[clip of Layla Elabed] Just seeing that number rise up more and more throughout the night. I mean, it felt really exciting. It felt really surreal and it felt really, really emotional especially, its making me emotional now. [laugh]

Juanita Tolliver: And the movement gained more momentum this week. On Super Tuesday, the uncommitted campaign pulled in 19% of the Democratic vote in Minnesota, earning 11 delegates at the Democratic National Convention and a similar movement to vote no preference got 13% of Democratic votes in North Carolina on Tuesday and 9% of the vote in Massachusetts. Elabed says that she hopes that tonight, Biden will at least acknowledge the uncommitted movement and the strong numbers of these protest votes. But she also wants him to take it a step further.

[clip of Layla Elabed] I would hope that at the state of the Union, President Biden would no longer take the stance that risks our democracy, but take the stance of what is right morally and ethically, and be on the right side of history and call for the end of our military aid for Netanyahu to carry out his war crimes and to demand that we have a permanent and immediate cease fire now to save as many lives as possible.

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah, it seems like half measures arent going to appeal to the Listen to Michigan or other voters who voted uncommitted.

Priyanka Aribindi: Definitely. Another issue that has become very important to so much of the electorate is immigration. In a Gallup poll released last week, Americans actually said that it was the top issue facing the country, and immigrants themselves face some of the biggest stakes here. Here is Bruna Sollod, a recipient of DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. That is the Obama era program that protects undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children.

[clip of Bruna Sollod] Theres a very real chance that DACA could go away. Thats the reality that were facing when you have right wing attacks on programs that are so important to so many people.

Priyanka Aribindi: Sollod is the political director at the immigrant rights group United We Dream Action. Right now the legality of DACA is stuck in the courts. And last September, a federal judge in Texas ruled it unlawful. That decision is being appealed, and eventually the case could make its way to the Supreme Court. In the short term, Sollod is looking for President Biden to implement administrative policies that would help immigrants continue to support themselves here.

[clip of Bruna Sollod] There are things the Biden administration can do. Administrative policies to ensure that people are getting their work permits. A delay in a work permit can mean people are fired. Thats a very real thing that DACA recipients deal with when their renewals dont come in in time, a lot of their companies have to let them go. And so what does that look like when you dont have a job and cant pay your bills, cant support your loved ones. So there are administrative things that the administration can do to be supporting immigrants.

Priyanka Aribindi: But she also says that when she hears the president speak tonight, she doesnt want him to get roped in to talking about immigration in the way that Republicans have painted it, as just this crisis at the border.

[clip of Bruna Sollod] We know that oftentimes presidents who are running will go to the middle. Theyll try to go out after those voters. Especially when you think about President Biden, Im sure hes thinking about what who are the Never Trumpers, right? Like, are there folks that would vote for Biden? And so I think his strategy sometimes hes like, okay, well, I can look tough on immigration. The reality is that he actually needs to speak to the progressive voters on the left, the voters who time and time again over the last few years, whether it was 2018, 2020, 2022, turned out for Democrats based on a progressive agenda that actually excited people. Those were the same people that turned out and took to the streets when the Muslim ban came out under Trump, when DACA was being taken away by Trump, there were a lot of allies, a lot of voters who came out in support of pro-immigrant policies. And so for him to just focus on the border or to just use, again, talking points from the Trump administration, it doesnt work for the voters, the multiracial class of voters that he actually needs to turn out in November and needs to win.

Juanita Tolliver: Hey, dont forget about the ones who brung you, right? Like, I think that

Priyanka Aribindi: Totally.

Juanita Tolliver: was the tone of this entire segment. So I appreciate her for saying that. One last issue that we heard from activists on, student loans and the economy. President Biden promised to cancel the debt of millions. The Supreme Court blocked plans to make it universal, but Biden has canceled nearly $140 billion in student loans. And Braxton Brewington from the nonprofit Debt Collective said the president should tout that tonight.

[clip of Braxton Brewington] President Biden has really started to clean up the mass of student debt, public service loan forgiveness, income driven repayment. These types of programs that were not working under the Trump administration and were being held up even under the Obama administration.

Juanita Tolliver: But Brewington hopes that the president says that hes not done, and that hell continue to fight to end student debt despite obstacles from the court. On top of student debt, however, Brewington said that its important that Biden speaks to how America has become unaffordable for so many and that he pledges to address that.

[clip of Braxton Brewington] The truth is the economy doesnt work for working people. Wages are stagnant and way too low. We have a health care, housing and education system that riddles people with mountains of debt before they are able to do things like start a small business, or start a family or get a home. And so it would be great to hear an affirmation of the economy not working for working people. And then people are gaslit into thinking that this economy is great, when truly people are working 2 or 3 jobs to get ahead. People arent going to want to hear that.

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah, definitely something he will be needing to address because there are a lot of differing feelings about numbers and figures that we see versus how people feel in the real world.

Read the rest here:
Progressives Explain What They Want Out Of Biden's Big Speech - Crooked

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