Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for McClatchy, joins Cheddar News to discuss all the topics President Biden has to juggle in his State of the Union address.

None of the Above 

Biden's Ukraine Balancing Act in the State of the Union

Welcome back everyone together, you will have special coverage of the State of the Union address and baker machado in new york. President biden addressing the nation in an incredibly fraught moment tonight, that's because inflation is at a 40 year high Russia has invaded Ukraine and oh yeah, there's still the pandemic with us. Biden's speech has to be both confronting all those ills facing americans but also chart a path forward that as his party prepares for a potential bloodbath come november here with more, let's bring in Francesca Chambers. White House correspondent over at mcclatchy Francesca. Great to see you as always. Now, we just learned just a few hours ago that President biden is going to announce tonight that Russian aircraft is gonna be banned in the U. S. Airspace. But broadly, how do you sort of think this is a difficult act for the President to sort of walk address in Ukraine? We'll also sort of ensuring that much of the speech is really centered tonight on domestic concerns because we know at the end of the day that's really what americans care about. Yeah, no pressure as you lay out all those challenges for President biden tonight, the White House says that this isn't the same speech that he would have given even a few months ago and that while national security has always been a focus of state of the Union addresses, it will be even more so now because of the crisis that's taking place in Ukraine and we would expect tonight that the President, well again, talk about us humanitarian assistance, military assistance to Ukraine and the West and how they are really rallying behind sanctions against Russia right now. How much, again, as you point out, how long he spends on that in tonight's speech, we'll just have to wait and see because we all so know that he does want to talk about the economy and want to talk about legislation that he would like Congress to pass also. Okay, so let's talk about that for a moment because the President is expected again to push for more of his his economic agenda here. But really there's been no any indication right now, if anything happening in Congress, his biggest potential social achievement would be the build back better bill. But that's stalled in the Senate. And joe Manchin has basically said it's dead. So does the White House see a path now to sort of address these issues in election year or given the fact that it is an election year? Nothing likely is gonna get done here. Well, the White House says that the President still sees a pathway here and that he'll push tonight for some of those elements that we just outlined. He is going to push on prescription drugs. He's going to push on childcare. We also expect the President to push for a national paid family and medical leave program again tonight. But to your point as to whether or not it can get done, even if there is agreement on some of the key points of that, we don't know that the sticking points have have been resolved or if they can be resolved in the in the next few weeks and months here. You also have to remember that the President, the Senate, they're gonna be working on the Supreme Court nomination to and there will be a vote on that likely before they head into an easter recess. So again, as we talked about Russia and Ukraine and these other domestic priorities, there's just a lot for the present. I want to focus on tonight, but also for the Senate in Congress over the next few months. You mentioned the Supreme Court here, no doubt the President's going to talk about potential Brown Jackson's nomination. The historic nature of that is that the major win that the president needs, especially when it comes to democratic voters. Given the fact that yes, he did have, he basically did promise that he was going to nominate a black woman to be on the Supreme Court. Is that's gonna be the thing that sort of re galvanizes democrats back to him here. He did promise that at a south Carolina debate during the presidential primary. And when you speak to folks like congressman Clyburn who helped push him to do that, they do believe that this is this is something that will show the party's base that president biden is quote unquote keeping his, his promises to them. But again, as you head into the midterm elections, there's there's so many other things that the voters are concerned about like inflation like the economy like Covid 19 and how how much credit they give him for putting a black woman on the Supreme Court uh and and come out and vote for that as compared to some of these other big ticket items. We just don't know yet Francesca as we were just talking just a few moments ago and as our viewers can see in the House chamber right now, very little masks being worn right now at the state of the Union. The White House, we should also know dropped its mandate for fully vaccinated people to come to the White House. We know with what happened in Virginia recently with Glen Duncan winning that race. He basically really relied on a lot of suburban voters regarding covid enclosures of schools and really hit terry mcauliffe. The democrat in that race. Do you think Covid was a reason that basically that that democrats have to push the reset button on all of this? And that's why you're not seeing masks right now in the chamber because democrats know that this might be a losing issue for them come to the midterms. Well and I think you touched touched on this a little bit earlier that the C. D. C. Has since changed its guidance on masking and in in the Washington dc area there is a much lower prevalence of spread at this point. And so when you look at that masking plus the White House also changing its guidance on masking. You're also seeing Congress follow suit here. But you do see tonight in the chamber that there is social distancing that they have been required to test negative for Covid 19. And as we can see from some of the lawmakers in the room, they're they're they're not having a problem. Many of them saying saying hello to some of their colleagues. And and as you noted, the president may also greet greet folks with a handshake or a hug or a backpack when he enters the room. Also, All right, Francesca. Chambers White House correspondent over at mcclatchy. Always good to see you Francesca. Thanks so much.