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delivers his second state of the union address before a divided congress. the political backdrop for tonight includes a debate over spending and the debt ceiling, a series of mass shootings, the chinese balloon being shot down by the u.s. military, renewed scrutiny of police after the beating of terry nichols in memphis and the ongoing war in ukraine. while the nation's economy has seen inflation slow in recent months, president biden's approval rating on economic issues is underwater. shortly, we expect the president and first lady to depart the white house for the 16 block drive down pennsylvania avenue to the capitol. once on the house chamber, perhaps the biggest return to normalcy since the beginning of the pandemic, all members of congress are invited to attend the speech, and so are a number of guests. more on that in just a few minutes. the republican response tonight

will come from governor sarah huckabee sanders of arkansas, who of course rose to national prominence as former president trump's press secretary. that will start about five minutes after the conclusion of president biden's remarks. then it is your turn. we want to hear from you. how would you decide to state of the union? what resonated with you in president biden's speech and the republican response? and what were you hoping to hear that you didn't? we will listen to your comments via phone and social media here on c-span, c-span.org and are free c-span now video app. good evening and thanks for joining us for coverage of president biden's second state of the union address. the political reality is, there is a split congress and a lot of major domestic and international issues that washington's currently facing. we expect them to address some

of those this evening. and to help us get more of a feel for tonight's speech, joining us from statuary hall in the capitol is catherine mcmanus of political. you've been on the hill all day long. what's the mood for tonight's speech? reporter: i think democrats are looking for the president to come out strong and really articulate the wins they've had in the last congress, when democrats fully controlled capitol hill. republicans frankly have made up their minds about what the speech and what president biden's presidency looks like. many rebuttals are already written. members are already, on the republican side, ready to come out after the speech and articulate their disapproval and disagreement with what he is marking as wins and goals moving forward. there are some points of bipartisan agreement. but you won't find many

republicans tonight praising president biden. >> have there been any previews of tonight's speech? reporter: we have not seen official snippets. sometimes they have been provided, under previous administrations. but we have a good sense of many of the topics he will hit, from the economy, i'm sure he will be touting the latest great jobs report, but also hardships, like the mass shootings across the country, international issues, including the war in ukraines, calling for continued, strong united states support for the ukrainian effort against russia. and a litany of other issues he will touch upon. >> this will be speaker mccarthy's first time sitting behind the president as speaker of the house. reporter: yes. it will be his first time on screen through the whole speech. folks will be watching his face

and reactions very closely. mccarthy has made it clear he does not plan to make any dramatic moves or gestures, the way that we saw speaker nancy pelosi behind president donald trump's state of the union speech one year. we don't expect him to do anything like that. i think after his really brutal fight for the speakership, he is trying to project a sense of control. and he is in control both of his conference and his emotions and as a diplomatic partner for biden, as they have to forge ahead with this relationship and solve many challenges ahead. >> what have you heard on capitol hill about the biden mccarthy relationship? reporter: it's kind of just developing. they do not have a long history in the way that biden and senate

majority leader mitch mcconnell have, where they served together in the senate. they have cut endless numbers of deals together. mccarthy on biden, it is fresher, newer. they are dealing with an emboldens right wing of his conference -- emboldened right wing of his conference. it is much more delicate and not as sturdy. so false moves could make things tricky going forward. especially on issues like the debt ceiling. where both sides agree a solution has to be made. but there's vastly different ideas of what that looks like. >> you are in statuary hall, off the house floor. some appearances, it looks like it is at pre-pandemic levels of crowded nests. reporter: it is bustling. especially for pre-speech,

we are less than an hour before the speech itself, this place is pretty full. folks all around me are doing just this. numbers are streaming toward the chamber. reporters are packing almost every inch of this place. >> speaking of guests, do you know if speaker mccarthy invited any guests tonight, or any other members might have invited? reporter: one of mccarthy's guests, he will have a few, is a former nba player, he changed his last name to freedom, he is been a great -- he has been a great teammate with the republican confidence and met with democrats over the years. is a big advocate for democracy and free speech and against authoritarianism. he's been a partner with the republicans in has visited them many times -- and has visited them many times. he will be a guest tonight, very

tall in the crowd. as for other members, i anticipate seeing folks bringing people from their districts. we know that democrats will be focused on people from their districts who may be are benefiting from some of the legislative wins democrats got the last congress or families going to real hardships that democrats think their legislative agenda kind -- agenda could alleviate. i know in jill biden's box area, she will have a family from new hampshire who lost their child to an opioid overdose. so of course looking at the opioid crisis in this country. that's obviously not a win for the biden administration but something they are hoping to move forward on, hopefully on a bipartisan basis. both sides want to talk about the issue. >> thanks for your time this evening. you can read her in politico

on a regular basis. also joining us this evening is c-span's greta brawner. what are you have for us? >> before president biden gets underway, let us start with recent poll numbers. how his numbers compared to previous presidents at this point in their tenure. president biden's average over his second year in office is 41%. that compares to 40.4% for former president trump. president barack obama was nearly 47% at this point. george w. bush, who remains very popular after the 9/11 attack and his response to a, he was at 71.3% -- to it, he was at 71.3%. 57 .7% was in 2021. his low was last summer. the president is expected to tell the latest economic number -- tout the latest economic

numbers. it appears the president has work to do to convince americans that they are doing better economically. abc, the washington post put out this pull a couple of days ago, 4 in 10 americans say they've gotten worse off financially since joe biden became president . the most dating back 37 years. then you also have this from the washington post. most americans say the president has accomplished not very much or little to nothing during his time in office. 62% of u.s. adults answered that way in their pull. the associated press did a poll amongst just democrats. 37% of democrats say president joe biden should run for reelection in 2024, down from 52% in october. the president's speech is likely

to be a preview of the record he would run on, if he indeed decides to run for a second term. he is expected to make that announcement in the coming weeks or couple of months. at the white house this week, the press secretary told reporters about president biden's preparations for tonight's speech, which began over the weekend at camp david. >> when it comes to big speeches like this, there's going to be probably two weeks and -- tweaks to the speech until the last minute, that's how it goes. more generally, speaking to your question about camp david, the president was accompanied by several of his senior aides. work has gone into this speech over the course of many weeks. it began as at something the president truly stays at the moment to speak to the american people. the work continues through the weekend, as it did today. michael d. was there, his

speechwriter, that was kind of the makeup of the weekend. the president is heavily engaged in the writing process. when you hear the speech, you will certainly hear, there will be no question this is a joe biden state of the union speech. just want to make that really clear. but don't want to get ahead of what you are going to hear from him. and so, again, it's going to be about ensuring our accomplishments and what we've done the last two years. he'll talk about that clearly. he will lay that out. i've also said this before, this is a president that's incredibly optimistic and talks about the possibilities and talks about not betting against the american people. he will -- you will continue to hear those types of themes in his speech. but of course i'm not going to get into specific issues. the political moment we are in, as he is still working through

and dealing with the speech for tomorrow. >> that speech is due to begin at 9 p.m. eastern time. it is about 15 after 8:00 right now here on the east coast. the lights in the house chamber should come on about 8:25 p.m., 8:30 p.m.. when they do, members will be filing a. we will be showing those scenes uninterrupted throughout this evening before the speech. the senate will be marching over from the senate chamber to the house chamber. we will try to catch them as well. then the president. he and mrs. biden will be living from the white house to the capitol. we will get them as they leave the white house as well. karine jean-pierre was talking about the speech tonight. here's just a historical graphic looking at some of the speh lengths of the past several esidents. the top speech length was by president trump. near 80 minutes. followed by bill clinton,

70 minutes. you can see ronald reagan came in with 37 minus. h w bush, 45 minutes. george w. bush, 52 minutes. jo biden's speech last year went for 63 minutes and 29 seconds. that's information given to us by the c-span city library. if you have to step away or you are doing something and you can't say glued to your tv for tonight's speech, watch it on our c-span now app. this is free and you can watch the speech uninterrupted, on the c-span now app. recently greta spoke with a professor at marquette university about the origins of the state of the union address. >> like a lot of the constitution, it is pretty vague. that he should update congress from time to time an

recommend some policies or ideas that he sees to be fit. over time, this has involved an oral speech to congress to a written address to congress, back to a live and person speech and of course all the different media developments we've had since then. it's taken a life of its own beyond that piece of text in the constitution. >> why that our founding fathers believe it was important for the president to give congress the subject? >> it fits in with this larger picture of how the president is in a position of enforcing the laws, of carrying out the laws passed by congress but also the overseer and caretaker of the general health and well-being of the country and the constitution. there's been a lot of debate about what that means. all sorts of different contexts. but it's been understood over time that the president has this role of laying out some kind of

general vision for what's going on in the country, where the country is going. how it connects with history and values. and how it translates into core policies and an legislative agenda. it incorporates the president into the legislative process showing these separate institutions that are really sharing power in addition to checking each other. >> what were the first state of the unit address is like as far as content? >> first of all, the very earliest ones, the george washington ones were brief. surprisingly not that different i think than the kind of general tradition of the state of the union, so at that time referred to as the annual message to congress, they laid out some ideas and laid out some problems and policy solutions. thomas jefferson decided to ship them into writing.

there are different theories about why jefferson did that, then he was kind of trying to downplay the role of the executive or there are some theories that his last speeches were not his domain, he was a percent of written letters. but they were written and delivered to congress usually at the end of the year through the 19th century, through woodrow wilson. and woodrow wilson was the first person to address congress in person. this was prior to the radio era. there are two thoughts why wilson made this decision and one is philosophical that he saw the state of the union as a vehicle to make congress deal with his presence, and create a media story around himself as a part of the legislative process. creating a media story around the part of the legislative process. the other is more pragmatic, that wilson saw a lot of political problems at that time, the weakening of traditional political parties that had

worked as a spokesperson for the administration and shifts in media patterns. he was trying to get attention by doing something different. >> the first radio with calvin coolidge, the first shift, one of the interesting things about the way that presidents have used this address with changing technology is that you see -- first to see that technology change and the first president to never get that challenge between the traditional form and the new form, then a couple of presidents later depending on personalities, depending on political circumstances, they really kind of move into the capacities and possibilities of this new technology. coolidge was the first to be on the radio, but roosevelt is really acknowledged in presidential communication circles as the first radio president. that state of the union message delivered on the radio, similar to the famous fireside chat,

used the capacity of this new medium to not just create a direct connection between the president and the people, so now congress is not as much in the picture. but to create this intimacy. i think that's one of the important interventions of the communications technology we've had over the last century. it adds to what the president can bring. the president brings being the national spokesperson, the only national elected figure, and can also bring a sense of urgency. >> greta's interview with julia azari is available in its entirety at c-span.org. we will take you live now to the white house. this is the south entrance. there seems to be some activity. they will be departing from this entrance shortly and going down

pennsylvania avenue to the capitol. the other event that is about to happen is the senate will be gaveling in and they will be lining up and coming over to the house chamber. while we are waiting for those two events to happen, we want to let you know who the president and mrs. biden have invited to sit in their box tonight. that includes nancy pelosi's husband, paul pelosi, bono, the lead singer of u2, the mother and stepfather of tyre nickels, and the congressional black caucus recommended they be invited and they will be attending the speech tonight, along with jeannie and heidi norton smith, the massachusetts couple, lesbians who sued to be able to get married in 2004. a union ironworker from cincinnati, she will be in the president's box as well, along with doug griffin, a new hampshire father who lost his

20-year-old daughter to a fentanyl overdose, a dreamer from pennsylvania, and a new york couple whose daughter is a pediatric cancer survivor will also be there. the senate has gaveled into begin their promenade -- gaveled in to begin their promenade to the house.

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>> this is c-span's live coverage of president biden's second state address. you can see the senate is just departing the chamber and the president should be exiting the white house southportico in just a minute. there is the president and first lady. pres. biden: feeling good. great shape. >> house the state of the union -- how's the state of the union? pres. biden: even better.

>> we can't say for certain, but it does seem to be a coordinated effort that the senate meet the chamber -- leave the chamber at the same time the president leaves the white house. the senate will be capping through the capitol through the rotunda through statuary hall where the reporters are. they will be coming throughthere. you can see they are coming in now. they will be seated in the house chamber. the lights in the house chamber should be coming on very shortly, and we will take you live there. the president's speech is due to begin at 9 p.m. he spoke for 63 minutes last year.

while we are waiting for the president to come down pennsylvania avenue, let's check in with greta brawner. >> a little bit more about what the president is expected to say tonight. biden's state of the union will preach unity, he says, while pitching his reelection. you also have ariel edward levy who notes that this is your annual reminder of three long-standing trends in public opinion of the state of the union. the viewing audience rates the speech highly and third, the president operable generally sees little change following this speech. other reporters like joseph note the president is expected to bring up remnants of his build back better agenda which did not get a vote in the senate in the last congress. is expected to call for renewing the expended child tax credit,

capping insulin for all americans, the cost at $35, and he has also calling for medicaid expansion in 11 states, childcare and eldercare as well. biden, also pushing for a minimum income tax on billionaires and quadrupling stock buyback tax to 4%. peter? >> go ahead, greta. sorry about that. >> speaker mccarthy, who was the on camera now, looks like he was gaveled in. why don't we go to the house and watch? [applause]

[indistinct chatter] [laughter] >> a packed house. >> big day. [indistinct chatter]

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>> the joint session will come to order. the chair points has members of the committee on the part of the house to escort the president of the united states into the chamber. the gentleman from louisiana, mr. scalise, the gentle man from minnesota, the gentlewoman from new york, the gentleman from north carolina, mr. hudson, the gentleman from alabama, mr. palmer, the gentleman from louisiana, mr. johnson, the gentlewoman from oregon, mrs. chavez, the gentlewoman from virginia, the gentleman from new

york, mr. jeffries, the gentlewoman from massachusetts, mrs. clark, the gentleman from california, mr. aguilar, the gentleman from washington, the gentleman from south carolina, mr. clyburn, the gentleman from colorado, and the gentlewoman from california. >> the president of the senate, at the direction of that 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 senators from new york -- senator from new york, mr. schumer, the senator from illinois, mr. durbin, the senator from washington, miss murray, the senator from michigan, the senator from

minnesota, ms. klobuchar, the senator from wisconsin, ms. baldwin, the senator from kentucky, mr. mcconnell, the senator from south dakota, the senator from wyoming, the senator from west virginia, ms. capiteu, senator from iowa, the senator from montana. >> the members of the escort committee will exit the chambers through the lobby doors.

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>> mr. speaker. [applause]

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>> [indiscernible] >> mr. speaker, the chief justice and associate justices of the supreme court. [applause]

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[applause] [applause] >> mr. speaker, the president's cabinet. [applause]

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>> mr. speaker, the president of the united states. [cheers and applause]

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