Immediately after President Joe Biden wrapped up his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, MSNBC’s post-speech analysis largely focused on ridiculing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “weakness” and inability to control his own caucus.
According to the network’s liberal hosts and anchors, this was “the worst possible night” for the GOP leader as it revealed that he “has no power” within his own party. And Biden “understands” that, they insisted.
Republican lawmakers repeatedly heckled and cursed at the president throughout his speech, regardless of Biden’s attempts to offer up some bipartisan olive branches. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), naturally, helped lead the charge. The fur-clad MAGA congresswoman screamed “liar” when Biden factually claimed some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare, while another lawmaker shouted “bullshit.”
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At one point, McCarthy even attempted to quiet down his caucus when several members jeered Biden while blaming him for the ongoing fentanyl crisis. “It’s your fault,” one congressman shouted, prompting McCarthy to shush the heckler.
Calling it the “single most confrontational State of the Union address that we’ve ever seen,” MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell suggested that McCarthy was the night’s biggest loser, specifically due to Biden’s willingness to engage with the raucous Republicans.
“This is the worst possible night for Kevin McCarthy. The negotiation ended in that room with Marjorie Taylor Greene yelling at a president who took her on and handled it right in front of McCarthy,” O’Donnell said. “And McCarthy by the way, there is an isolated camera on McCarthy that’s going to show him saying ‘no, no, no’ every single time they did that.”
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow added that McCarthy tried desperately to hush his own members, leading O’Donnell to assert that the speaker has effectively been rendered powerless going forward.
“This is over for McCarthy,” he declared. “The year is over. He lost it right there in that moment.”
Joy Reid, for her part, proclaimed the speech as “Biden at his best” before blasting McCarthy for staying seated during several bipartisan applause moments.
“The parts where Kevin McCarthy could not stand showed his weakness in the caucus,” the ReidOut host proclaimed. “That he couldn’t stand up for democracy, for Ukraine, things that would have in the past been solid Republican issues. He could not stand up—remarkable.”
Anchor Alex Wagner was also unsparing in her commentary about the speaker and the lack of control he has over House Republicans.
“Biden understands the truth, which is McCarthy has no power in that caucus. He’s along for the ride and as much as he’s going to say, not all of you, the reality is that the madmen are running the asylum,” she observed.
“At the very end of the speech, Biden is making a sort of—in some ways, platitudes—towards what democracy means and that there is no place for political violence in America,” Wagner continued, adding: “The best Kevin McCarthy could do was applaud from his seat because… his Republican Party does not want to recognize democracy works, does not want to take subverting the will of the people off the table.”
