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On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: Biden praises economy, spars with GOP in State of the Union
USA TODAY White House Correspondent Joey Garrison recaps President Joe Biden’s State of the Union. Plus, House Republicans ramp up investigations surrounding President Joe Biden, the death toll rises to 9,500 in this week’s Middle Eastern earthquake, Zoom will layoff 1,300 people, and USA TODAY NBA Reporter Jeff Zillgitt gives some context for Lebron James’ scoring record.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I’m Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Wednesday, the 8th of February 2023. Today, we look back at Biden’s State of the Union. Plus the death toll rises into the thousands after this week’s Middle Eastern earthquake, and LeBron James makes history.
♦
President Joe Biden used last night’s State of the Union to offer an optimistic message on the economy while sparring with Republicans on a number of issues.
President Joe Biden:
No president added more to the national debt in any four years than my predecessor. Nearly 25% of the entire national debt that took over 200 years to accumulate was added by just one administration alone, the last one. They’re the facts. Check it out. Check it out.
Taylor Wilson:
USA TODAY White House Correspondent Joey Garrison has the latest. Joey, welcome back to the show.
Joey Garrison:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Let’s start here. What was the overall tone from President Joe Biden?
Joey Garrison:
Well, I mean, from the outset of the State of the Union address, he tried to strike a bipartisan tone saying there are opportunities for Republicans and Democrats to work together. He challenged them to “finish the job.” There was a kind of a striking quote right at the beginning in which he said, “Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict gets us nowhere.”
But the evening, as the speech continued, proved to really underscore, despite the bipartisan rhetoric of the president, there’s real discord and a real angry, really division between the two sides. The most memorable part of this speech is going to be when President Biden brought up Social Security and Medicare and said some Republicans might want to cut those, or do want to cut those, and that prompted booing, and the President engaged on that. I think that’s going to be the most memorable moment of this speech of what we’ll be talking about tomorrow in the next week.
Taylor Wilson:
How did Republicans interact with Biden throughout this speech, and were you surprised at how contentious things did get?
Joey Garrison:
No, not really because Biden, I think really frustrated Republicans in recent weeks how Biden has been accusing them of wanting to cut these two pretty popular economic domestic programs, Social Security and Medicare.
President Joe Biden:
Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I’m not saying it’s a majority.
[Audio: Jeers from the chamber]
President Joe Biden: Let me give you… Anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I’ll give you a copy. I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.
Joey Garrison:
Backing up a little bit. This comes in the context of the debt ceiling standoff that’s going on, which I was on your podcast not long ago talking about. Basically, President Biden wants to raise the debt ceiling to allow the US government to fulfill its obligations. He wants to raise that without any conditions, just sort of the procedural way that it’s always been done in the past or usually done in the past.
Republicans are trying to get some of their long-awaited spending cuts as part of a debt ceiling package to raise it. So, however, the Republicans haven’t identified which programs they want to cut. So lacking a plan there. Biden and Democrats have gone on the attack, tried to raise fears among the public, saying, “Hey, they want to cut your Social Security and Medicare.” That’s frustrated Republicans.
Taylor Wilson:
So we knew the economy would be a big part of the narrative. What was the president’s overall message on the economy?
Joey Garrison:
Well, I think he had to walk a line here. So on the one hand, he touted 12 million jobs that’s been created since he took office, as well as an unemployment rate that is down to 3.4%. That’s actually the lowest in 54 years. But at the same time, there’s polling in, Washington Post/ABC had this pullout earlier this week showing that Americans still have anxiety about the economy, and more Americans believe the economy is doing worse now than when Biden took office.
So basically, these metrics that Biden has been touting hasn’t been reflecting the moods of the American people. So Biden recognized also in his speech that some people have not been benefiting, and he took the picture even farther talking about the long economic decline in the manufacturing sectors in the United States. It was a real blue collar appeal.
Taylor Wilson:
The parents of Tyre Nichols were in attendance, one of the more powerful moments of the night. What did Biden say to them directly, and how did he talk about these issues of police brutality and police reform?
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, I think you were right to call it one of the more powerful moments of the speech, and it drew what I thought was maybe one of the few times there was bipartisan applause. I mean, I think even in the last Congress, Republicans, some were on board for some sort of policing reform; however, they weren’t able to cross the finish line on that and it stalled in Congress. So the President Biden cited the words of Tyre Nichols’ mother, who you said was at the crowd, about describing her son had a big heart and there is a purpose with his unfortunate and tragic death.
So President Biden called on Congress, and I’ll give you the remarks here, “Something good must come from this. Let’s do what we know in our hearts we need to do. Let’s come together and finish the job on police reform.”
Taylor Wilson:
Joey, did we get any clues about Biden’s decision to run or not for another term?
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, I mean, I think he really set the stage here for what we’re all expecting to be an announcement, not this month. I would say, looking later in the spring, either March or April. Biden has said he intends to run, but hasn’t formally laid out an announcement. He threw out a lot of proposals like codifying Roe v. Wade and banning assault weapons, capping insulin at $35 per person nationally. Right now, it’s just for seniors. He wants to do that. So these are all popular proposals for Democrats, not so much want proposals that have a chance in a House of Representatives run by Republicans. So I think we saw him with sort of a wider vision there. There’s no doubt that a lot of the tones and themes that you heard tonight, again, sets up his announcement I think that you’re going to hear later this year.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Joey Garrison. Fantastic insight as always. Thanks so much.
Joey Garrison:
Hey, thanks for talking to me.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
House Republicans are set to ramp up investigations of President Joe Biden this week. The newly empowered majority is involved with a number of Biden-related probes, from border security and the withdrawal from Afghanistan to Biden’s classified documents and his son Hunter’s laptop. Today, the House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on how Twitter handled news reports surrounding the laptop, which included some of his business records. The panel is looking into potential attempts by Hunter Biden to influence his father’s politics through business deals in Ukraine and China. President Biden has denied benefiting from his son’s deals.
♦
At least 9,500 people are now dead after this week’s earthquake on the border of Turkey and Syria, and more than 6,000 buildings have collapsed in the region. Turkish President Recep Erdogan has declared a three-month state of emergency in southern provinces. In Syria, aid organizations say recovery efforts will be difficult because of damaged roads. The country has already suffered in recent years, amid a civil war. Thousands have been rescued alive from the rubble. That includes a baby whose mother appears to have given birth beneath the rubble. The newborn baby’s umbilical cord was still attached to her mom, who died in the collapse. The baby was the only member of her immediate family to survive. You can read more on USATODAY.com.
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Zoom has announced plans to layoff 1,300 employees representing about 15% of the company’s workforce. Zoom soared into the spotlight during the pandemic as a go-to video call platform for businesses and social life. But its CEO Eric Yuan said the company made mistakes as it grew rapidly. Zoom grew three times in size over a two-year period to manage demand. The CEO also said he was accountable and that he plans to lower his salary for the coming year by 98%. Zoom is the latest tech company to lay off massive numbers of workers. Google’s parent company Alphabet, recently laid off 12,000 workers, while Meta and IBM have also let go of thousands in recent months.
♦
LeBron James is now the all-time leading scorer in the history of the NBA. He passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar last night for the honor. USA TODAY NBA Reporter Jeff Zillgitt puts the accomplishment in perspective. Jeff, thanks for hopping on the podcast.
Jeff Zillgitt:
Yeah, man, exciting times.
Taylor Wilson:
Exciting times. So LeBron is now the NBA’s all-time scoring leader. Jeff, he’s already won four championships. He has all kinds of MVPs. How does this particular accomplishment compare to some of what he’s already done?
Jeff Zillgitt:
It’s almost like a lifetime achievement award. He’s one of the five best players to ever play the game, and for some people, he is the best player. But in addition to his talent, he’s had some incredible longevity, consistency, and availability throughout his career. Then it’s no surprise now, when you add up all those things, that he passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and that record had stood for nearly 40 years.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. You mentioned Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, some of the biggest names in the sports history that he’s passed to get here. Do we expect anyone to even get close to catching him or to breaking this record again?
Jeff Zillgitt:
There’s two parts of this story that I’m really fascinated by. The first part of it is LeBron is going to continue playing. For how long? We don’t know. But just recently after a game, he indicated he has at least a few more years left in him, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down scoring-wise. He might not be the athlete, and have the athleticism that he once had, but his basketball IQ, his ability to shoot, still score at the rim. …He’s averaging 30 points a game this year at 38 years old. No one has ever done that. So it seems he’s got a couple more seasons of at least 25 points a game, that’s going to push him over the 40,000-point total. I’m not sure there’s a player playing today that is going to pass LeBron James.
Taylor Wilson:
You mentioned some of what LeBron is doing this year, seventh leading scorer this season. It’s not just that he’s 38. He came into the league 20 years ago. It’s been two decades of high, high level pro basketball on his body, deep playoff runs. How’s he doing this at this age?
Jeff Zillgitt:
Maybe earlier in his career, he was taking more mid-range shots, and then as the analytics movement of the NBA started to gain traction and realized the three best shots in the NBA these days, a three-pointer, a shot at the rim, and a free throw. Then we start to see LeBron really – especially at the end of his Cleveland 1.0 days and his Miami Heat days – become more proficient from this three-point line to the point where he could shoot 40% on threes, which is a great number.
But also you started to see him add a few more things to his game, the low post moves, that baseline fade-away jumper that he has that is really difficult to defend. Then the one thing I noticed is, look at LeBron today. He doesn’t look all that different than he did 10 years ago. His business manager had once said that LeBron spends approximately 1.5 million a year on things to take care of himself, whether it’s heat therapy, cold therapy, massage therapy, dieticians, personal chefs, weight trainers, on-court trainers, all these things. LeBron has invested not only the money, he’s invested the time to put himself in this position where he can play at this level at this age.
Taylor Wilson:
Wow. Yeah, a little bit of the Tom Brady experience in basketball here. All right. Jeff Zillgitt, great insight on a historic day for the NBA. He covers the NBA for USA TODAY Sports. Thanks so much, Jeff, really appreciate it.
Jeff Zillgitt:
No, thank you for having me on for this one.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every morning right here, wherever you get your pods. I’m back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.
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