--- title: The State of the Union: First Reactions from TIME | TIME description: From tough talk on Obamacare to tepid foreign policy talk, TIME reporter's discuss their first reactions to President Obama's State of the Union speech. canonical: https://time.com/video/A205iJRc/ og:title: The State of the Union: First Reactions from TIME og:description: From tough talk on Obamacare to tepid foreign policy talk, TIME reporter's discuss their first reactions to President Obama's State of the Union speech. og:url: https://time.com/video/A205iJRc/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/A205iJRc/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The State of the Union: First Reactions from TIME twitter:description: From tough talk on Obamacare to tepid foreign policy talk, TIME reporter's discuss their first reactions to President Obama's State of the Union speech. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/A205iJRc/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The State of the Union: First Reactions from TIME > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The State of the Union: First Reactions from TIME [Watch (HLS stream): The State of the Union: First Reactions from TIME](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/A205iJRc.m3u8) (9:37)  _Published 2014-01-29. From tough talk on Obamacare to tepid foreign policy talk, TIME reporter's discuss their first reactions to President Obama's State of the Union speech._ --- Jul 27, 2023 4:09 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Five Years of Obama's State of the Union](/video/kvaKb5nc/) ### Five Years of Obama's State of the Union [GOP Ad: Obama’s Foreign Policy Is on the Ballot](/video/oOtXdOD3/) ### GOP Ad: Obama’s Foreign Policy Is on the Ballot [State of the Union's Best Tweets](/video/1no6UlUz/) ### State of the Union's Best Tweets --- ## Transcript >> My first sense of it was the President was pretty fired up and engaged in terms of delivery, clearly recognizes this is an important speech for him, quite obviously, but also, we're going to now go on a hunch as news people do for the news in the speech because there wasn't a great deal new in terms of programs or rhetoric, but there were some things. So, I'm rejoined by my colleagues, Bobby Ghosh, and Rana Foroohar, and Michael Scherer. Michael, start with you. Just tease out the news. What did he say that we either didn't know about or that significant that will be rattling around Washington tomorrow? >> Programmatically, I don't think there was much. I think what might the surprising takeaway I took is I thought it was reminiscent in a way of the late George W. Bush State of the Unions, which turned into sort of pep talks. He was trying to back up the country. I think a lot of these, even though he talked about the difficulty Americans were having and the challenges we faced and what he wanted to do, it was very much a back up the country, make us feel like we're headed in the right direction, which makes sense going to election. I think the other thing that I didn't expect or maybe should have been expected was the going on offense on Obamacare, taking it straight, the most partisan moment of the speech where he basically dared Republicans to keep voting against Obamacare, saying he's gonna make the case, so that's just politics. That's nothing to do with anything and trying to discredit it out of the bat. >> And challenges him as he did with the Republicans during the campaign and he said-- >> That's right. >> in the past, to say if you got something better to replace it with ,-- >> Give it to him. >> bring it forward. >> And Republicans are preparing things. >> Yeah. >> I mean, there won't be as comprehensive, and he'll criticize that he'll say it doesn't count, but Republicans are aware of that criticism and are actually concerned about it and are trying to find a way as they move into the selection season to blunt that criticism because they know it's coming from Democrats. >> Okay. You're watching there, the president departs the hall saying goodbye, kind of the reverse of his entrance, stopping and touching a few hands and greeting various people. You can watch that while we continue to discuss. Rana, there were some things about retirement security that I think programmatically are a little bit new. Some of them were teased out. If you're someone either a citizen concerned about the economy, a business person thinking about the climate, what was in there either new or important for you? >> Well, I don't think there was anything tremendously new, but there was a real connecting of the dots of some of the things that he's spoken about before. The importance of manufacturing, the importance of cheap energy and the shale gas revolution in fueling manufacturing and the jobs that could be created from that industry, and also the fact that we need to retrain our workforce in order to equip them with the skills to work in these new jobs. I think what we didn't hear a lot about unfortunately was corporate tax reform and entitlement reform, which is still one big reason that business isn't investing and doing more to really help spur growth. And I'm sure that you're gonna hear some Conservatives talking about that. >> Right. >> Bobby, I was struck as I told you about Iran, both saying that he would veto sanctions bill, not a surprise, but something usually you hear president's adviser say they'd recommend to be though the president drew that as [ unk ]. He also kind of extolled sanctions and sort of suggested that sanctions and diplomacy had been as big a deal as anything else, and the diplomacy is a bit of an emphasis, and I think some people will focus on bringing Iran to where we are now with the possibility at least of the deal. >> The sanctions, Bob, he suggested, he and the people around him have suggested before, they've been making the argument that sanctions has what brought Iran to the table. The Iranians, of course, are arguing that more centrifuges has brought-- what brought the Western powers to the table, and you can argue that square or round. But you're absolutely right, coming out and saying that he will veto any new sanctions proposed by Congress might have been directed as much to fellow Democrats as to Republicans, but he's trying to sort of head them off at the pass. I'm not sure that's enough to stop them because there's a lot of political ground standing to be enjoyed if you're one of the senators backing the sanctions, and I suspect they will at least continue, pro forma, to put forward with that, and we've discussed that as well earlier. On the whole, from a foreign policy, I find it to be quite disappointing. I would say, not very much that was new. He seemed to be checking off a few boxes as he went along. Some of it was a little farfetched to the notion that under his administration they've been promoting democracy around the world. He didn't mention Egypt, a place where there's not been so much promotion and very little democracy. As we said at the top of the hour, he mentioned only in passing Asia. So the big Pacific pivot has not happened and doesn't look like it's going to be a big part of his thinking this year going forward if this was his setting out his foreign policies, and it's still very much where America's foreign policy has been for decades, which is in the Middle East, Iran, Syria. He didn't mention the humanitarian crisis, which is epic now, but he mentioned Syria a few times. He did bring up the fact that Al- Qaeda was reserved into many parts of the world; although, he offered more real fresh prescription on that. More drones, I think, is the bottom line there. >> I thought it was notable that early in his speech, he had sort of China card line where he said we're better than China. We can beat China, which is a very kind of populous play, actually polls very well. We know from the 2012 election, Americans were actually very concerned about China and see that country as a-- >> Yeah. He said that. I think he said that for the first time in a few years, China is not the number one destination for investment, America. So, of course, the thing is that it was American investment that was previously going to China. >> I understand. >> Some of that-- >> I wanna congratulate the formats we've gone. I think the longest anyone has been covering State of the Union without using the phrase laundry list. So that's-- >> Great. >> In that regard, unless I missed it, unless my word search failed, he did not mention Russia. >> He did not. He'd mentioned en passé. He did mention Ukraine, one just throwaway line there, which I took to be a little jab at Vladimir Putin, but I don't think Putin is particularly susceptible to things like that. He talked about Sochi and the Olympics and that was the closest he got to mentioning Russia. And, you know, no real, apart from that, draw a line at the top. No real mention of China either. >> Right. So, Michael, obviously, one of the things we talked about, the toughest notion of executive action saying he'd work with Congress. Overall, in terms of tone and emphasis, would you say this was a speech where we see the president leaving the hole now, so we will have the Republican response in its entirety coming up in just about 5 minutes. Overall, would you say the speech is more in terms of reaching out to Republicans or more drawing lines in confronting them? >> You know, I think there's a lot of talk before the speech about how this is a year of action from the White House, but how we're gonna take these objective actions. You know, I think you added up, and I haven't done this, the laundry list of what he said, he's gonna do by himself versus what he was asking Congress to do with him. The stuff he's gonna do by himself is much smaller in scope and importance-- >> Sure. >> than what he was still asking Congress to do. There's really-- He's really limited. He can talk and talk, pretend like he's the guy in charge of everything, but there's not much he can actually do, and he didn't really offer that much new. So I think it was a combative speech more than it was a conciliatory speech, but at the same time, he was very clear, he needs Congress. >> Right. >> I think that that's true in the economic front too, the big stuff, tax reform, entitlement reform, you really need to have buy in. You know, the things that are near and dear to his heart like the growth of manufacturing, retooling secondary education. He spoke a lot about, but again, these are sort of at the margins. The big picture stuff requires Congress. >> What would you say, all three of you, the biggest moments of reconciliation of bipartisanship? Israel got a bipartisan applause. Were there other things you heard on foreign policy? >> On foreign policy-- ­- national security, the-- >> On foreign policy, not so much. Of course, there's the usual, you always expect bipartisan applause when the military is invoked-- >> Right. >> in any way shape or form. I think when Afghanistan, the fact that withdrawing down or something that is whether it reflected something of that whole or not is universally popular in this country. Beyond that though, there was a moment of realism, I thought, on his part when he said that the negotiation with Iran might fail. That too just like the vetoing, the idea that he would veto any new sanctions, that too was a little bit surprising, but it's a realistic admission of what most of us have known. He didn't say what would happen if that-- if the negotiations would fail. >> You know, there was a lot of clapping too of points where he invoked the American dream and social mobility and the importance of that, and I think-- >> Or diplomat against the American dream. >> Or diplomat against-- although, you know, I mean it depends on how you go about it. We know that inequality actually decreases social mobility, and that, you know, how we deal with inequality is often a very partisan issue, but you heard a lot of clapping about the idea that we wanna increase social mobility in this country. >> The way he talked about energy and that was interesting, you can see it evolving over this address is the Congress since he came in. Remember in that first address, he called, I think, oil yesterday's energy, and now he was really-- >> Right. >> championing his all- of- the- above strategy, the shale gas-- >> He needs it to make manufacturing work. >> He focused more on gas and oil. I don't think he was actually praising oil in that section, but there is-- there is definitely a shift and part of it is just because of what's happening in the country right now, but a shift in how he talks about fossil fuels. Doesn't mean he doesn't still do the partisan job at the end, you know-- >> Right. >> the line global warming is a fact that was highlighted of course by John Boehner doing nothing behind him to applaud that fact. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The State of the Union: First Reactions from TIME","description":"From tough talk on Obamacare to tepid foreign policy talk, TIME reporter's discuss their first reactions to President Obama's State of the Union speech.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/A205iJRc/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-01-29T07:25:47.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/A205iJRc.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/A205iJRc/","duration":"PT9M37S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/A205iJRc/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```