Joining us now, someone who's been to a few State
of the Union addresses,
retired Congressman John Katko. John,
good to see you. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me, Jeff.
It's good to be here.
So I mentioned you've been in the capital,
you've been there for several State of the Union addresses.
I'm always curious, what is it like when you're there,
especially when you're a sitting member of Congress?
Well, it's an incredible vibe to say the least.
I mean, the President of the United States is coming
up.
Security is very tight. Everybody gets to invite a guest.
There's all kinds of people coming around and
it's a rather chaotic scene.
But once the procession starts of the members of Congress
and the Supreme Court and the Cabinet coming in,
there's a solemnity to it that
it's nice for a few minutes until people get going
and starting causing trouble in the audience.
But
it's a really special moment to be there and makes
you proud to be an American,
to be there for it.
To be honest with you,
today will be tonight President Biden's fourth State of the
Union.
How close? How do you read it?
How close to a campaign speech might it be?
Will he keep it to a more traditional State of
the Union address?
What do you think?
Well, it's two thoughts I have.
And first of all, this is probably the most consequential
State of the Union address
and at least recent memory.
By that I mean it's because of his age and
the concerns about his age.
People are going to have an extended view of the
person.
So before you can get to what he's saying,
there's going to be an analysis of how he's saying
and how he's conducting himself.
Does he look like he can handle four more years?
Because that's a real concern.
And then of course it's an election year.
So there's election years, You know,
he's going to cater to his base
and I think he's going to cater to the base
more than normal because his base is eroding.
It's eroding because what's going on in Gaza and for
other reasons.
So he's, I'm sure he's going to do a lot
to cater to his base.
I'm hearing that there's a lot about
tax increases and pounding the wealthy and all that stuff.
Those are traditional core Democratic values.
So you'll hear a lot.
I think about that and I think you're going to
hear a lot about him saying
that. The decency of the office,
of the normality of the office
being chaos free. Those are all jabs at Trump I'm
sure.
So those are the kinds of things I think to
expect to hear tonight.
Some of some middle of the road things.
So they may be hate Nikki Haley supporters.
People are undecided. I mean try to hit some of
those as much as you're also trying to target your
base with their their issues.
Well, there's no question, if Nikki Haley had been a
nominee,
Biden would have been in huge trouble because in every
single Paul,
she was following almost double digits ahead of him.
And remarkably, the Dutch Republicans chose Trump,
who is
almost consistently ahead of time,
but only by a few points and always within the
margin of error.
So yeah the middle is going to be everything in
this election just like it is in most elections and
catering to some of those people and try and
get the moderate Republicans and swing voters to come to
their sides and be part of it as well.
No doubt about it. Unchanged gears just just a little
bit stay on politics here but away from state of
the Union
New York obviously where where you served us in Congress
here in Central New York New map out for New
York State.
What do you make of what's out there right now.
Well, I I applaud the Democrats,
believe it or not, for the most part because they
didn't do what they tried to do last time and
was struck down in court and that is that it.
They weren't piggish. They tried to nip and talk here
and there to make some more favorable districts for themselves,
but they didn't go overboard with it and that's why
the Republicans aren't challenging it.
So overall, I think it was a relatively fair distribution
and might say relatively because it could have been a
lot worse for Republicans.
Central New York, obviously we believe pivotal in in control
of the House.
How do you see the race for the
26th 22nd District seat playing out?
I mean, that's kind of your,
your old seat, Although you've had many different configurations of
what your district looked like,
it's much different now. But
how do you see the 22nd playing out over the
next several months?
The numbers that you know that geographically may be somewhat
different than my district,
the numbers are so much similar,
very similar actually to what I had.
I mean, Obama won the district that I had by
17%. Trump got killed in my district when he ran.
So it's not that much different.
And it's quintessential swing district.
And if you, as a member of the Republican Party
or Democratic Party,
whomever it is, understand that it is a swing district,
understand that it is Republicans,
it is Democrats, and it is independents,
not just one of the three
chances are going to be OK you just got to
take care of everybody and not just the ones you
like,
I guess the ones you agree with politically,
right? Absolutely. John, I always love your insight.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it. We'll see you again really soon.
My pleasure. Take care.