c-span, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> tonight, president biden delivers his first address to congress since taking office 98 days ago. he suspected to talk about what his administration has accomplished and what is next for the country. a much smaller crowd will be there under 200 people -- will be there, under 200 people. often, members of the congress and senate attend the address. shortly, we expect the president and the first lady to depart the white house to the capital. it should be noted that tonight is the first presidential address to congress during the covid pandemic. after the president's speech,

republican senator tim scott of south carolina, a potential 2024 presidential contender, will deliver the gop response five minutes after the conclusion of president biden's speech. immediately following that, we want to hear from you. what resonated with you in resident biden's address, -- president biden's address, the republican response, what you were hoping to hear that you didn't. that is live here on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. good evening from washington. thanks for joining c-span for president biden's first address to congress. this address follows an early legislative victory. the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan. it is reported president biden will be discussing two new plans tonight. number one is an infrastructure bill. the other is the american families plan and $1.8 trillion proposal.

the president will be on the road all week promoting this proposal, as well. here's a look at who is going to be in the house chamber tonight. only 80 members from the house will be there at a 435. 40 democrats and 40 republicans. cash out of 435. -- only 80 members from the house will be there out of 435. 40 democrats and 40 republicans. 60 senators. 30 democrats and 30 republicans. chief justice roberts and general mark milley. this is a little bit late in an administration to give a first address to congress, isn't it? why the delay? >> it is. i think that the biden administration needed to figure out -- needed to figure out how

some sort of address would be possible in the pandemic. they turned around in his first 100 days in office. they've got that timing paired nicely with a large number of congress members vaccinated. it is a much safer time to do it then when he took office. it's a lot later than what a lot of predecessors did when they addressed congress. we should expect president biden to go into much more detail about his achievements so far in office as well as the big packages he has been able to pass or planning to hopefully pass in the future. all of that we should expect tonight. >> as we noted, he is doing this address after a pretty major legislative victory, the coronavirus relief plan. >> he is. and i think that is the kind of timing the white house had planned exactly for.

this speech is going to be a lot of president biden discussing what we've done so far. he's going to come in and say he inherited a nation in crisis. and that he is now hoping it becomes the america it once was. back to a roaring economy. he's installing a lot of these different plans. combined $6 trillion -- a combined $6 trillion. he will say it will be a huge driver of the economy. a huge job creator. the timing is good for him. he wants to talk about how we are nearing the end of the pandemic. how the vaccine distribution under the administration has been really effective. faster than some even expected. all of that, we can expect. >> have we heard anything about the gop response? >> we have.

senator tim scott, a republican from south carolina, will be giving the republican rebuttal. it's a huge deal. when you have the opposing party give the rebuttal speech, it indicates the person giving it is someone that a party really does see as the future of the party, an emerging leader. you have to note he is the only black republican in the senate. i think that is key right now with a lot of the issues we are seeing across the country. he is spearheading the republican side of police reform talks. he has taken on a lot of what we've seen regarding on racial unrest in the party. he will also discuss the vaccine. he will credit the credit administration -- the trump administration and credit operation warp speed. he will also talk about how some

of the past packages passed under the trump administration helped set up america and the economy to do better. conflicting of course with what the biden administration is going to say. >> and of course, tim scott has a major role in the republican convention -- had a major role in the republican convention this past summer. you have an axios sneak peek everyday that is sent out. you are reporting that for the first time president biden will meet with the so-called big four in congress may 12. >> yes. he will. this is the first time president biden is having these key leaders come to the white house to sit down with them. he's had multiple lawmakers from both parties come to the white house. we haven't seen house speaker nancy pelosi. senate majority leader chuck shumer or senate minority leader mitch mcconnell or kevin mccarthy all come together to sit down with the president since he took office.

we will be having that meeting early next month. unclear what the biggest driving issue is. we predict that is going to be his two main packages he's trying to get through congress right now. his infrastructure plan, for the part he calls traditional structure and the american jobs plan, then the human infrastructure plan, the american family plan. those are the biggest priorities right now the biden administration is focused on. that is a big part of what we will hear in the speech tonight. >> as someone who covers congress on a daily basis, how would you describe the relationship among the big four today and congress' relationship to the biden administration? >> it is more fraught than ever with regards to the relationship between the big four. unfortunately it's been a casualty of the polarization that we've seen in our country. this is evident under the trump

administration. very much so now as well. we do not see these leaders conversing together often. there's a lot of deals about bipartisanship. president biden ran on unity. but we don't often see leaders from both parties have discussions until it is untenable not to. when we talk about a lot of the discussions for reaching across the aisle, it's not happening on the leadership level at least at the beginning. we haven't seen many conversations yet. it's been tough. it's been really hard for the administration to continue to live up to its pledge to ridgecrest the aisle -- reach across the aisle to make these bills bipartisan. we are not seeing a lot of that in congress. congress' relationship with the white house is mixed. both parties are optimistic that they are at least talking. we've seen republicans go to the

white house. president biden has invited a lot of people from the republican party to talk to them on some of these key packages. so far a lot of these discussions haven't been fruitful. we saw the american rescue package pass with no republican support. that was a very partisan bill. they are hoping the infrastructure plan will be different. time will tell. he has very old ideas. the numbers on this are not very appetizing to republicans. there's a long way ahead if they are going to go down a bipartisan route. we will hear a lot of that unity bipartisanship tonight. though a lot of folks are skeptical whether that will end up being the reality. >> the speeches at 9:00 p.m. eastern time tonight -- speech is at 9:00 p.m. eastern time tonight. we will be going live at about 8:35 p.m.. how does tonight feel different

them past -- than past presidential addresses to congress? >> the first layering thing to mention is the size of the audience, only 200 people in the chamber tonight for the speech. there's normally far greater than that. a few hundred. you are not seeing the hustle and bustle on the hill you normally would. it's very limited because of the friend emmett -- because of the pandemic. that adds a different air to the speech and really reminds you of, we are still in the pandemic, fighting the coronavirus, we still have some ways to go before we are done with it. that's one big thing. another is, after having president trump in office for four years, and republicans and democrats, he's going to come in tonight and say it's time for big government again. it's time for the government to get much more involved in spending. to reorganize the social order

of our country. that's really what he's doing with this american families plan. it's a very different type of conversation we've had or seen from a president for some time now. a lot of different things are going to be set on that podium. it's going to be a parent when washing tonight. >> that picture on your screen was a statute -- of statuary hall. that is usually full, crowded with media and members of congress. -- wall to wall with people. it is not at this point. thanks for being with us. also with us is greta brawner. what do we have? >> things look different for the president's first joint address. there are a lot of firsts to go along with them. the democratic congresswoman from california tweets out, "for the first time ever, two women

will be sitting behind the president of the u.s. as he delivers the joint address to congress tonight." she notes when she first come to congress in 1997, she was one of only 56 women in the house. there are now 122. she says this is progress, this is history. the speaker told reporters that the speech, typically, they would be 1600 people in the house chamber for the speech. but because of the pandemic, only 200 will be in attendance. leadership will not be there -- some leadership that will not be there is congressman steve scalise. he says he will not be attending because he wants to give other members who have not had an opportunity to attend this joint session a chance to do so. however, the hill notes senator mitch mcconnell, the republican

leader in the senate and kevin mccarthy of california, the republican leader in the house will be attending tonight's joint session. how people got tickets. the hill reported it varied i caucus -- by caucus. republicans described theirs as first-come, first-served. democrats had a lottery system. there will be first-timers, like ashley hinson, representing iowa's first congressional district. it's her first term. she noted on twitter she will be attending the joint address on wednesday. she says she hopes he will lay out actual solutions to the many challenges facing iowa families, farmers, and small businesses right now. there will also be veterans of the congress in attendance, including eleanor horton.

>> mary kate kerry is the professor at the university of virginia, also a former speechwriter for president george h w bush. we spoke with her about authoring a presidential address and what the goals of such a speech are. >> president biden will be more focused on what his future goals are than anything that's been accomplished so far. the usual decision that has to be made is, should it start with foreign policy and go to domestic, or start to domestic and go to foreign? that completely depends on the strength of the arguments and the priorities they've got. it changes from year to year which one goes first. generally you start with the weakest and go to the strongest. or you can start with the strongest and peter out and try to rescue at the end.

i'm a big fan of starting strong. because you've got people with remote controls on your hand -- on their hand on the other end. >> is it a political speech? >> it can be. some presidents make it more political than others. one of the ways that can be done, and one of the most interesting things about this speech is something president reagan started, which is the everyday american, that is how you can get stories and humor, people crying, standing ovations, things like that, for what otherwise would be a legislative laundry list. some presidents made those people much more political. tied to the policies the president was advocating for. others, president reagan started -- if i were advising the present

this year, i would say keep it as nonpolitical as you possibly can. go with first responders. people doing great things to save us from covid and get our country running again. hopefully it will not be political this year, but you never know with these presidents. >> who is the audience for these speeches? >> there are several audiences here. you've got first of all the people in the room and congress. he speechwriter -- a speechwriter's idea of a good time us to try to get as many standing ovations as possible and as many as you can, where half the room stands up and the other half doesn't, forcing both sides to stand up, things like that. that is great fun for a speechwriter. be on the people in the room, you've got the cameras going into every american's home. millions of people watch this domestically. you've got the press corps, who

are the talking heads who are going to wreak havoc. or even at night for the people who didn't watch it live and they want the bottom line take away. in the final one is internationally, our enemies are watching, especially the foreign policy part of the speech to see what the president's priorities are going to be. >> how do you go about writing these speeches? what are the nuts and bolts of it? >> a speech like this is considered a great honor and it will be price. [laughter] -- a booby prize. [laughter] nobody wants to write it. a call goes out to all the cabinet agencies for them to send in, if they could have one paragraph in the state of the union or the address, what would it be? the speechwriter gets a deluge

from all sides. what you really need to say is this. everybody sends that in. he speechwriter sits down with the president and says, what do you want to say? a lot of it is a big decision between, what do you want to say and what do people need to hear? and how are we going to get them to listen? that starts coming together. the speech writer draws up a first draft. before it goes up to the president, it goes to the cabinet agencies. and everybody starts fighting, fact checking the numbers, saying what the budget is. all those comments come back to the chief speechwriter, who then reconciles all the competing notes.

once the president sees it, no one else can change it. >> you were very comes a mentor he about president biden's inaugural address. -- complementary about president biden's inaugural address. you said he used greek rhetorical devices. what are those, and should those be deployed in this speech? >> yes, every good speech going back to the ancient greeks and ancient romans used the same three devices -- ethel's, logos, and pesos. -- ethos, logos, and pathos. ethos is building up credibility so you want to listen to him. that would be president biden talking about his years in congress and how he wants to work across the aisle with friends who are still there. logos is when you build your case with facts, factoids,

tidbits, maybe even an anecdote or two, if they are absolutely proven to -- proven true. things that are evidence. you want to persuade using evidence. the third is pathos. that is used at the end of the speech. that is emotional appeal. a call to action. people in the gallery will be examples of pathos. those are the three things in unison that speeches employee. -- employ. a mix of listening to your head and your heart. >> that was a portion of our conversation with mary kate cary of the university of virginia. we don't know how long president biden's speech will be. here are some recent examples. donald trump, 60 minutes in

2017. barack obama, 51 minutes, 2009. george bush, 49 minutes, 2001. bill clinton, 55 minutes, 1993. >> you noted senator tim scott will give the gop response tonight. he put out this video ahead of his remarks. >> senate minority leader mitch announced south carolina senator tim scott will deliver the republican response to president biden's joint session address. >> we should be blazing a path so the next generation has more success and more opportunity than my generation. >> he has enormous respect within the party. >> one of the strongest leaders in our republican senate conference and inspiring and unifying leaders in the nation. >> senator tim scott's video ahead of his remarks.

his staff sent out this video of them pumping him up for tonight. take a look. >> let's go, senator, let's go! [cheering] ♪ [applause] >> senator tim scott's staff was a little fun before his gop response after the president's joint session remarks. nbc notes the senator is expected to say that this administration inherited a tie that had already turned -- tide that had already turned. he will thank former president trump and operation warp speed and the trump ministration -- the trump administration. we will hear from the former president. to hill reports president trump is going to give a live interview on foxbusiness morning after the first congressional address tomorrow.

>> greta also spoke with vanessa beasley of vanderbilt university about how a president can project unity in a presidential address. >> when you think about all the sources in ways the american people are thinking about their shared identity, the president's voice represents a singular institution that supposed to represent the interests of all the people. presidential speeches have this cultural value where they give us a sense of we are supposed to be when we are at our best. >> how does that apply to the president's first speech to a joint congress? >> the need for national identity that is unifying and for an idiom that invites people in has never been greater in an annual message to congress or state of the union. that is for three reasons. this is the first speech that allows the new president to talk specifically about his or her policy priorities. it is a forecasting speech.

saying this is what matters to me. it invites bipartisan cooperation to meet the goal. it's come to represent one of the very few moments we have to see all three branches of government together. so the way cooperation is represented visually has become very important. likewise the way has been represented visually has become increasingly important. the last thing i'd say about this moment is in this particular year, it is a reclaiming of the space, a reclaiming of the sacred halls of congress and a reclaiming frankly of the purpose of the government. >> how do you think president biden should go about for training that sense of american identity -- per train -- portraying that sense of american identity? >> everyone understands it is the elephant in the room. that the threat of violence might not be completely over. it really has to be an

explicit invitation to come together with a clear why. why is it worth getting past the grievances and concerns of the past? >> what do you make of president biden's rhetoric style? we saw it in his inaugural address. what's your take on it? >> i see him approaching what we call a very traditional return to the rhetorical style of a president. it's meant to reassure people. after the previous president had a tendency not to sound like a president. that was a point of pride for him and his administration. i see a conscience return to a calming reassuring way of what this is -- of this is what a president is supposed to sound like an supposed to do as opposed to the overnight tweets or things we are surprised by everyday. >> any nods to previous

addresses to congress? >> them a notable -- the notable moments almost always go with a change in history. a real focal point for a visual of how government to supposed to work, when the three branches come together. the other thing that was a game changer was ronald reagan. he did not give a state of the union address right after the challenger disaster. using that moment to give a more powerful speech that called for national unity among other things in the face of disaster, he also introduced us to the sputnik moment, the opportunities to put a member of the public, a member of the citizenry in a seat next to the first lady and in the gallery and use that person to represent a story, it either talks about american values, such as patriotism or service, or it talks about the way their story represents a policy priority.

>> that was vanessa beasley, of vanderbilt university. this is a live picture of the u.s. senate. the 60 senators attending president biden's joint address are now lining up. let's listen in. [indistinct chatter]

>> you can see the vice president amongst her colleagues. we are waiting for the senate to go across the hall to the house chamber. in the meantime, let's hear from greta brawner. >>-- elbow bums with her former colleagues. they line up go across the capital, as peter was saying. what's going to happen is that they will go across. they will get into the house chamber and take their seat. before the president enters the chamber, the sergeant at arms is going to be announcing him. from nancy pelosi's twitter account, she noted that earlier this week she was honored to swear in the former of the washington national guard.

he is house sergeant at arms. he's the first black american to serve as sergeant at arms. it's a for -- an important step for our nation. these senators will come across. they will take their seats. we will watch all of that tonight. when sergeant at arms walker announces the president, you will hear him say, madam speaker , the president of the united states. let's continue to watch.

>> in three minutes, speaker pelosi is due to gavel in the house. the lights will come up. we will be watching the house at that point. as you can see, the senate is lining up. 60 senators are attending tonight's address by the president. what can you add to that? >> lawmakers scored these tickets to tonight's event by various means. senate democrats had a lot of resistance while republicans largely describe there's as first-come, first-served. the senior members of the caucus were given preference. you can see the senators crossing. in attendance is the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. he was leaving the groups across the capital. he will be there tonight. [inaudible] [inaudible]

>> on your screen is statuary hall, the old house of representatives. you can see the senators being led by the vice president walking into the house chamber. this hall is usually very busy, full of cameras with just a core door for the members to walk through, the supreme court and other guests. these are the senators, just steps away from the house chambers. in just a minute, we expect speaker pelosi to gavel in the house. [inaudible]

[applause]

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[gavel] >> the joint session will come to order to get -- to order. export the president of the united states into the chamber. the gentleman from maryland, the gentleman from south carolina, the gentlewoman from massachusetts, the gentleman from new york, the gentleman from california, the gentlewoman from delaware. the gentleman from california mr. mccarthy, the gentlewoman from wyoming ms. cheney, the gentleman from oklahoma mr. cole

, the gentleman from texas mr. gravy, the gentleman from utah mr. obama's, the gentleman from iowa, misses miller makes. >> the president of the senate at the direction of my body appoints the following senators as members of the committee on the part of the senate to escort the president of the united states into the house chamber. the senator from new york mr. schumer, the senator from vermont mr. negley, the senator from illinois mr. durbin, the senator from michigan ms. tappan now, the senator from vermont mr. sanders, the senator from minnesota ms. klobuchar, the senator from kentucky mr. mcconnell, the senator from south dakota mr. kuhn, the senator from wyoming mr. brought to, the senator from iowa ms.

ernst, the senator from missouri mr. blunt, the senator from florida mr. scotto. >> the members of the escort committee will exit the chamber through the lobby doors to the right and left of the podium. [inaudible]

>> madam speaker, the dean of the diplomatic floor. [applause]

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[gavel] >> madame speaker, the chief justice of the supreme court. [applause] [inaudible]

[applause] [inaudible]

[gavel] >> madame speaker, representative of the president's cabinet. [applause]

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[laughter] [applause]

[gavel] [applause]

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