In his penultimate State of the Union address, President Obama told members of congress he was once one of them:
I have served in congress with many of you. I know many of you well. There are a lot of good people here on both sides of the aisle. Many of you have told me that this isn’t what you signed up for: arguing past each other on cable shows, the constant fund-raising, always looking over your shoulder about how the base will react to every decision.
Not long after the president left the House Chamber, and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst delivered the Republican response, here’s what it looked like on those cable (and broadcast) shows:
While they may not like the fundraising, or playing to the base, what elected official doesn’t like a few minutes in front of the cable news cameras, especially when millions of viewers/voters are tuned in? Interestingly, the post-speech cable news coverage was mostly filled with pundits not politicos. While the Foxes (FNC and FBN) and the NBCs (NBC News and MSNBC) brought on members of congress for reaction, CNN, Al Jazeera America and Bloomberg kept the discussion to panelists and correspondents. As always, the cable nets went beyond 11pmET with coverage; CBS and FOX returned to programming at 10:35pm; ABC wrapped up at 10:37; and NBC went until 11pm.