Chuck Todd and His Beltway Media Friends Have Declared the Biden Honeymoon Is Over

While politicos like to pretend otherwise, most presidential addresses to Congress contain very little that matters—they capture the public’s attention for a day or two, generate busywork for journalists, and are then promptly forgotten by all except historians, who parse them for meaning long after the administrations in question are over. In the present, they’re useful mostly as windows into the upcoming legislative calendar; viewers typically come away with a general sense as to what the president and his party want to prioritize. In his April address, President Biden laid out a specific deadline for the passage of a police reform bill. “I know Republicans have their own ideas and are engaged in very productive discussions with Democrats in the Senate,” he said. “We need to work together to find a consensus. But let’s get it done next month, by the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death.”

Today, May 25, 2021, is the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act has not passed. In lieu of a signing ceremony, President Biden invited the Floyd family to the White House, where he presumably told them that real progress on the bill is being made. But weeks into bipartisan talks, an end to qualified immunity—a federal doctrine that shields abusive officers from civil damages in most cases—remains unacceptable to Republicans, and it’s entirely possible negotiators won’t reach a passable compromise.

The same can be said about Biden’s infrastructure bill. There, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the press in April that Biden hoped to “see major action in Congress and real progress by Memorial Day.” To keep that deadline, the negotiators would have to close, by Monday, a $1 trillion gap between Democratic and Republicans on the overall cost of the package, what exactly it should contain, and how it should be financed—tasks made difficult, obviously, by the unwillingness of most Republicans to grant Democrats a popular, big government policy victory.