second time. it was all too laid out, of course, in a fiery state of the union last night that the white house and analysts are calling a much needed win for the president. a cnn poll shows six out of ten americans who watched had a positive reaction to his speech, and even oddsmakers have now upped the odds for biden's reelection after the nationally televised speech. joining us live now to talk about last night its impact and roadmap for the campaign. doctor nolan higdon, professor of history and communication at cal state east bay. doctor higdon, thanks for joining us. >> hey, thanks for having me. >> hey, so how would you describe the biden who showed up last night, i think, you know, the biden who showed up yesterday really, surpassed a lot of the expectations. one of

the things that the biden campaign has been doing in recent months is they've been reducing the amount of public appearances by biden, which i think a lot of people interpreted as biden being unable to speak publicly due to the, you know, critiques of his age and such. but the biden came out last night at the state of the union, seemed energetic, you know, really turned the speech, i think, more into a campaign rally, comparing himself to his predecessor and donald trump, and so it really seemed like a president who was on message and well prepared for the speech they ultimately gave. >> yeah. and let's not forget, sometimes when expectations are pushed down so low, you know, it's easy to come out and look great because you exceeded expectations, which he certainly did here. but what do you think he succeeded in doing? how did he make his case for four more years? >> i think the case that, biden was trying to make, you know, first off, was talking about what he wants to see congress do

within the next year, particularly around immigration, abortion, ukraine, but then also, you know, trying to tell the american public that any frustrations they have with his first time he really tried to blame on on the republicans and i was sort of, struck by a lot of the improv of biden, when, when the republicans were booing him, for example, biden would stop, get off the speech and start to question them, he seemed like someone who was in control, wanted to make sure the public left, blaming the gop for any complaints they have over the last four years. >> yeah, yeah, he was ready to spar. and in fact, we have one such exchange. so let's go ahead and roll that. >> in november, my team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators. the result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we've ever seen . oh, you don't think so? oh, you don't like that bill, that

conservatives got together and said it was a good bill. i'll be. darn. that's amazing. >> i mean, he seemed feisty. he seemed funny, and he was sharp enough to get in there that, oh, conservatives got together and thought it was a good bill. i mean, that was a lot packed into one there. what did you think? >> i thought that was, you know, some of the best, biden we saw. and i think that's true of a lot of politicians when they're able to, you know, appear authentic. and, you know, all indications were that was not a part of the speech. that was biden being biden, in that particular moment. and i think, that'll at least be something that folks can point to when they get these critiques about, you know, biden's unable to give speeches or whatever the critiques are, however, having having said that, you know, we do live in such a hyper partizan culture that i think supporters of the democratic party will see a lot of the positive things we've discussed here thus far. but i'm sure his, you know, critics and the conservative party will will point to how he, you know,

misspoke about lake and riley's name or, you know, inserted since you bring that up, can i just also ask you with regard to that, he made what was seen as kind of a regrettable choice of words. >> he, in response to maga congresswoman marjorie taylor greene, he used the word illegal to refer to an undocumented immigrant accused of murdering a georgia nursing student there. he's getting criticized on the left for that, too, right? i mean, is that a big deal at all? could it alienate some groups? >> i think that, you know, that's a huge deal in leftist circles, you know, referring to undocumented immigrants as illegals is, you know, something that conservatives consistently use. but but liberals, you know, find as tantamount to a form of, of hate speech. i wasn't really clear, though. biden said illegals so quickly. i don't know if he was imitating the language from marjorie taylor greene or if that's a terms he uses, i was a little confused by the way he, said that sentence, so i'm sure you know, he will be

working with his team to make sure that that is not uttered in future speeches. >> yeah, because that is a firm that his own administration, you know, has advised agencies not to say. but overall, i think the response is positive. and former san francisco mayor willie brown, who is of course, close to mr. biden and supporter, had this reaction. >> so there should not be any conversation about his age if he's doing the job, if he has the vision on as biden has to solve the problem that needs to solve. >> so do you agree with that? do you think this gets rid of that? you know, monkey on his back with regard to age? or do you think this only lasts until the next lapse or gaffe or misspoken moment? >> you know, i think we often use age as a proxy for people's, you know, concerns about his cognitive abilities. now, it's not to say there are any problems with his cognitive abilities, but i think when critics say age, they mean cognitive abilities. and whether

it is age or cognitive abilities, we do live in a, in a democracy. so i think all of these things should be discussed, should be covered. you know, always, though, on a substantive, respectful way. so i disagree with willie brown that the conversation is over. but i do think, for, you know, biden's supporters, this is a speech you can point to. where biden, you know, did not seem to show, you know, horrific, cognitive abilities. in fact, he seemed to really dominate the stage, know the issues, be able to improv, so i think in that sense, this is something supporters can point to. >> and i noted that he even seemed to own his age. right? he embraced it, joked about it, and made it work for him so that he did handle well. last night. i want to talk to talk to you about the opposition now because as is tradition, the opposing party that doesn't have the white house always gets that televised rebuttal. and this year, republicans chose the junior senator from alabama, katie britt. she blew up really blew up on social media afterwards. so let's go ahead and show you why president biden

inherited the most secure border of all time. >> but minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations. he halted construction of the border wall, and he announced a plan to give amnesty to millions. we know that president biden didn't just create this border crisis. he invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days. president biden's border policies are a disgrace. this crisis is despicable, and the truth is, it is almost entirely preventable. >> okay, i don't know where to begin there. i think the content of what she says is pretty typical of her party, but the style and manner and tone in which she said it, that seemed to have been what people were

focused on, right? what is the response? >> well, i think, you know, you know, i guess one of the first things i'll say and this this goes to katie britt, but anybody who has the unfortunate position of giving a response to the state of the union, usually your response is drafted before the state of the union speech. so it's a response really in name only. usually you're just giving kind of a speech right after rather than an actual response to what was heard. but but having said that, i'm assume that the republicans picked katie britt because she's younger. she's a woman. she endorsed trump, so in that way, they're trying to, compare her as the opposite of biden, which which they think conservative voters will support. but but having said that, her her message and this is a reflection of the party on immigration, they're really trying to find where they stand. i mean, a lot of her critiques of biden's immigration policy, biden was willing to sign and that that immigration bill. and i think

it's closely related to, one of the kind of elephants in the room is, is the lack of discussion about, abortion or what happened in her state of alabama, with, the childhood, personhood. and so i think that the republicans are really trying to fight messaging. and i think katie britt, unfortunately, was put out there to a national audience to speak for a party that really hasn't figured out what their message is in some of these key issues. >> all right. i see what you did there. and doctor higdon, i do appreciate you sticking with the content of the of the subject rather than discussing her. some people put it acting skills or high school drama skills, i don't know, but that's up for tiktok and twitter to digest. thank you very much. always appreciate the conversation. >> always a pleasure. thank you. >> all right. take care. coming up a big change for hundreds of thousands of high school students. the sat exam is going

digital starting tomorrow with students and parents need to

>> welcome back. if you've taken the sat test before, even very recently, you know you needed those number two pencils to bubble in the answers. but starting tomorrow, those days are over. the most commonly used college admissions exam will now be entirely online. joining us live now is maddie steiner, senior director at compass education group. that's a test prep service based in marin county, maddie, thanks for your time. >> thank you so much for having me. all right, so this changed. >> going digital is not new, but it's been in the works for quite some time. but i think tomorrow is the big day. what was the rationale for this change. >> so this was really about

bringing college board signature product into the 21st century. we've had paper based assessments forever in a day, and there have been other assessments like in the form of the gre and the gmat, graduate school exams that they found have been far more efficient to administer, shorter and generally just more user friendly for students. so that's what impelled, i think, the original intent for redesigning the test. >> all right. so tell us about some of the big differences for test takers. obviously no more pen and pencil, but what else? >> yeah, i think probably the biggest win for students is the fact that the assessment is so much more abbreviated. so it used to be three plus hours. now it's two hours and change. and the reason they're able to shorten the assessment is because it's adaptive, meaning that each section math and verbal, depending on how a student performs on an initial module or phase, they are then routed to a secondary module or phase that changes or adapts based on that prior performance.

so the exam is a bit smarter. now it really figuring out where to place you and serving you up questions that are better suited to your abilities. >> oh, so if you can already answer the super hard questions and got them right, they're not going to pepper you with five more simple questions and waste time. then you go on to other things i see, i see, i see, okay, are the sections still the same? like reading math and pretty much in the same levels? >> oh yes. you remember those days? i took the assessment with analogies and all kinds of fun stuff, yeah. verbal and math are still reigning supreme for the sat, so no big changes there. one thing that is nice about the new assessment is that students aren't divorced from their calculator at any point. so the last iteration of the sat, you had to give it up. now you actually have either the use of your own calculator on the math section or you can use a computerized calculator and then on yeah, yeah, which is awesome. and then on top is that

computerized calculator as good as like the ti 84 or whatever it is that kids put all their formulas in? you bet. actually, we're super stoked about it. and it's going to make access to that kind of, technology way easier for students, regardless of whether or not they could have afforded calculators like it. >> okay, but tell us, do you still have to go to a test site? it's not like you can do it from your home computer, right? >> right, i think college board would love to eventually get to a place where they can safely and sanely administer assessments from students homes. we saw kind of a brief glimpse of that during the pandemic years with with apps and things like that. but no, you are still going into a test center or your college board is also hoping that more and more schools will sign up to perhaps not only be test centers for their communities, but for their individual students. >> but do you show up at the test center using their computers, or do you have to get yourself a laptop and then bring it to the test center?

>> that's a great question. so it's a mix a lot of sites are going to have computer labs or school issued laptops that students can use. in other cases, there are specific provisions where students can bring home or bring their devices from home into that environment. and it's pretty a wide variety of things that can be used. >> but if you brought your own, for example, is there a way to ensure no cheating, so to speak? >> yes, yes. so what's really interesting about this new test too, is you are actually using an app called blue book to log in to the test center and as soon as that happens, it basically shuts down all other functionality on your computer and it downloads. yeah, yeah, it downloads the, the, the basically the test questions onto your computer. and students are going to be taking questions that are completely different from one another in the same room. so you can't like snipe or cheat off of one another. okay, look, i think testing after

being optional since the pandemic, but now it seems to be making a comeback. just recently, dartmouth, yale, i think brown all announced they're going to start requiring it again. right. so i guess my question for you then is how can students best prepare and would you say, even if you're not applying to one of those elite schools, even if you are applying to an optional school, should you still do it these days? >> i think it's safe to have an assessment or two under your belt so you don't foreclose on applying to certain schools that either in the future go on to reinstate the testing requirements. or as we've often seen there might be an underlying spectrum of preference even among test optional schools for these scores. so as far as advising, i would say treat these exams more like a marathon than a sprint. use consistent practice with things like official practice tests that college board even releases for free, and get used to the environment. play around with this digital testing

center. see what it's like so that way you develop ■a kind of automaticity when you sit in for exam day. >> all right. hey, that's an sat word right there. maddie steiner, thank you so much with compass education prep. appreciate your insight. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> defying the odds to chase a dream. one woman's relentless pursuit of education is the focus of a powerful book, and we're sharing her story on international women's day. she

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talk to your doctor. thanks, mom. be in your moment. ask your doctor about ibrance. a pfizer product. welcome back. today is international women's day, a celebration of the women's rights movement. in honor of that, we are sharing the story of a young woman who has defied adversity in her pursuit of education and empowerment. you can read all about it in the book defiant dreams the journey of an afghan girl who risked everything for education. it tells the story of sola mahfouz or mahfouz, as she grew up in afghanistan under taliban rule,

but refused to give up on getting an education. sola is joining us live along with her coauthor melina kapoor. sola and melina, thank you both for coming on the show. >> thank you for having us. >> okay, i have to brag a little bit about you guys, so try not to get embarrassed. sola is a quantum computing researcher at tufts university near boston. and melina, you are a redwood city native and student at stanford, two amazingly accomplished women. so perfect guests for us. international women's day. like sola, you are the afghan girl in the title. tell us about your growing up female in afghanistan and what that meant in terms of education and everything else. >> sure, so when i was 16, i did not even know how to add and subtract. and that was because when i was 11 years old, a group of men came to our door and threatened us if we continued to going to school and from that day on, over the years, i left home only a couple of times a year. and whenever i did, i had

to wear the suffocating burqa that covered me from head to toe. but meanwhile, my brothers were going to school and they were. i could see there were thriving academically, and i felt jealous. and i felt my life meaningless. and so i was 14. i started learning english, and then i went to study, like using khan academy to study math and science. and in two years, from not knowing how to add and subtract, i went to like college level calculus and physics. and i had like those questions of, you know, why we exist, why the world exists. and so that's what led me to continue study, and eventually come to the us. and as you said, i'm a researcher at tufts university, and defiant dreams is about that journey. >> wow, that is amazing that you were able to use outside resources when you didn't have that official channel of school to still accomplish your learning goals. how did you get to the us? >> so, i mean, i had to take the

sat, applied for schools and i was able to accept it. but even like when i applied to go to kabul embassy to get the us visa, student visa, i was denied in one minute because the officials didn't think that i'm going there to study. i was just immigrate. so it was like hard. like every step that i took there was like, like hundreds of problems that emerged. but i was stopped. >> you solar, which is amazing. melina how did you two meet and end up saying, hey, let's be coauthors on this. >> so we actually first met, during covid. so in the beginning, we weren't even able to meet in person, but solas told me the stories of her life, and i started to write them down, and that became the basis for this book. and then we were eventually able to meet in person and develop this really close friendship, i think built on, our shared cultural, similar cultural background, but also our shared passion for this

issue, and, and really, i think i was drawn to this story because of course, solar's journey is incredible. she smuggled herself across one of the most dangerous borders in the world to take the sats. she managed to make it to the united states, but it's also the story of millions of girls in afghanistan today who are continuing to be denied that basic human right of education. >> you know, it wasn't always like this for women in afghanistan, was it? >> no, it wasn't. and in the book, you know, we really try to talk about this theme of mothers and daughters and the fact that there are many mothers in afghanistan who have experienced more freedoms than their daughters ever will. one example of this is solar's mother, who was actually a student at kabul university and then a professor, but she had to watch her own rights be stripped away and then the rights of her daughters as well. >> my goodness, has it been become even worse. i mean, i know it has, but can you talk about what it's become since the us pulled out in 2021? what it's like now for the girls and women

still there? >> yeah, i mean, there are denied, they can't go to school, they can't go to work. they basically imprisoned at home. and, it's just every day it's getting worse and worse and it's just now over 75 degrees, the taliban issued, to, to strip away all women's rights. and it and it's in every day there's a new decree to restrict women's rights. >> you know, i assume you two are telling these stories, milena, because as you want to inspire people to help the women of afghanistan. is that right? what can people do? >> i think the most important thing for everyday people to do is continue to tell these stories and keep the stories of women in afghanistan and girls in the headlines, because what we saw is after the taliban took over in 2021 and the world's attention turned away, that's when they began issuing these 75 different edicts that, you know, on one hand, ban women from school and work and going on the

street without a male guardian, but also took away basic markers of their identity. see the fact that women are now banned from beauty salons, women are now, banned from calling in to television shows or radio shows, and they basically are now shrouded in these burqas and, you know, only define the way that the taliban wants to define them. so we need to continue sharing stories essentially, look, so this is an incredible story. and now, of course, you're a quantum computing researcher. what do you hope to accomplish in that field, definitely continue my work. hopefully one day quantum computing will be a reality. and the algorithm that i'm developing now can be run on it, but i really wanted to tell my story was to, you know, to be heard, to be acknowledged as a woman and as an afghan and, be at the center of the conversation and not be pushed into the margins of history. >> congratulations. thank you

both so much. we'll take a srt break and be right back

>> david: tonight, several developing stories. the united flight skidding off the taxiway in houston. the engine and part of the wing on the ground. also, the storms headed into the northeast, millions in the path. fresh off his state of the union address, president biden is asked, will he debate donald trump? the scare for 166 passengers and crew aboard that united flight from memphis to houston. the boeing 737 max 8 landing at george bush airport then off the taxiway. what the passengers saw and heard.