From New York Times, I'm Michael Lombaro. This is a Daily.

Today, during his first address to Congress, President Biden makes the case for vastly expanding the role of government

and taxing the country's wealthiest to pay for it.

We watched with our colleague, White House reporter Jim Tancersley.

It's Thursday, April 29th.

So, Jim, I want to start this conversation by getting something very important out of the way, immediately.

Was this technically a state of the Union address or was this not a state of the Union address?

And can we just call it the state of the Union if it's not?

No, I believe we are prohibited by the Constitution from calling it a state of the Union.

This was an address to a joint session of Congress, but not an official state of the Union, as is typically the case in a president's first year in office.

So, the first one, not state of the Union, instead just big important speech to Congress?

Yeah, Joe Biden's been president for almost 100 days, but what he's doing here is less of a report to the country on how the country is doing and more of a report to the country on how things are going in that very young administration of his.

Got it.

So, let's talk about what this speech looked like and felt like in the room.

I know neither of us were there, but it feels like these speeches are always defined by the moment in which they are delivered.

And this one had the context of the pandemic.

This was the first joint address from the president to Congress since the pandemic really began to radically alter all of our lives in the US.

So, how present did that all feel?

It was kind of weird.

You know, the seats were not full because of COVID restrictions. There were only 200 people instead of the normal 1600 for a speech like this.

They were all spaced out at distance and weren't as many cabinet members, there weren't as many Supreme Court justices.

Madam Speaker, the president of the United States.

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