PBS protection of President Biden’s State of the Union handle Tuesday night started with particular pleading for the president on the NewsHour, with co-host Amna Nawaz querying Sen. John Thune (R-SD):

NAWAZ: Properly I believe lots of people are ready to listen to on the financial system, as you recognize, that’s prime on Individuals’ minds, and whenever you have a look at the place issues are actually, unemployment is at a 50-year-low, inflation does appear to be cooling, proper? The brand new jobs numbers final week topped 500,000, far exceeding expectations. The White Home is arguing issues are getting higher and can proceed to get higher. Do you disagree?

(Not even the New York Instances gave Biden a go on his inflated claims on jobs and inflation, mildly fact-checking each claims.)

After Thune referred to as for extra bipartisanship from Biden, Nawaz insisted that President Joe “Jim Crow 2.0” Biden had in truth been greater than bipartisan:

NAWAZ: On the problem of bipartisanship, I ought to level out that over the past 12 months the President did meet with Republican leaders a number of occasions on the White Home proper? On pandemic aid and infrastructure. He really appeared alongside Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell at a serious bridge restore undertaking in Kentucky. Do you wish to see extra bipartisanship than that? That looks as if a fairly sturdy message over the past 12 months.

Minutes later, co-host Geoff Bennett posed the identical query in reverse to Kate Bedingfield, White Home Communications Director, who was requested why American’s aren’t shopping for what Biden is promoting:

BENNETT: Massive-picture query: Why aren’t extra Individuals feeling the accomplishments that President Biden is making an attempt to promote? As you recognize, there was a latest ABC Information-Washington Submit survey this weekend that discovered a majority of Individuals, 62%, say they don’t consider Biden has achieved a lot throughout his first two years in workplace. That is with unemployment at a 50-year-low. What accounts for that?

Earlier than Biden’s lengthy State of the Union handle started, Bennett upped the ante, referring to Biden’s “objectively historic achievements” in a query to Amy Walter of the Cook dinner Political Report:

BENNETT: And Amy Walter, as President Biden type of ticks by the laundry record of his objectively historic achievements, that is coming at a time when there may be rising dissatisfaction on this nation. There was a latest ballot that discovered greater than six in 10 Individuals consider that President Biden hasn’t executed very a lot….

Then Nawaz went to the present’s normal pair of political commentators, New York Instances columnist David Brooks and Washington Submit columnist Jonathan Capehart. Capehart was one-note on the purported nationwide epidemic of police brutality, utilizing the Tyre Nichols case to counsel all black contact with legislation enforcement was inherently dangerous.

CAPEHART: I am trying ahead to what the president may say with regard to, not simply on to the Nichols household, however to all these households across the nation, significantly African-American households, for whom interplay with legislation enforcement isn’t often a optimistic factor.

(You possibly can learn concerning the post-speech match from Capehart right here.)

As Biden ready to talk, the hosts set the scene with an indirect reference to a previous SOTU incivility controversy involving then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

NAWAZ: I consider the president will first hand copies of his speech to each Speaker McCarthy and to Vice-President Kamala Harris, as is custom. They may maintain onto copies of the speech as a result of that in itself has made for some memorable moments previously.

BENNETT: That’s proper. And the Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy stated he’s not going to tear up the speech this 12 months.

Whereas congressional reporter Lisa DesJardins would later liken Republican pushback towards Biden’s SOTU misstatements to a “barroom” brawl, the reference to former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s classless habits, ripping up Trump’s State of the Union remarks in 2020, was left imprecise, with Pelosi’s identify unmentioned.