WASHINGTON D.C. – In a move described by strategists as 'audacious' and 'potentially suicidal,' the Democratic Party announced today its groundbreaking new approach to the State of the Union response: delivering it *before* the President has even finished speaking. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) have been tasked with the unenviable job of crafting a rebuttal to an as-yet-unknown speech.

“We’ve crunched the numbers, and historically, the post-SOTU response has a 73% chance of being immediately forgotten,” explained Dr. Evelyn P. Quibble, Head of Temporal Strategy at the Institute for Futurist Political Science. “By responding *during* the speech, or even slightly before, we aim to capture that crucial 0.003 seconds of public attention before the President’s words have even fully formed in their minds.”

Sources close to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) indicate that Spanberger and Padilla are currently rehearsing a series of generic, yet earnest, statements covering topics from 'the American spirit' to 'the need for bipartisan cooperation' and 'the importance of not being a jerk.' The DNC’s 'Pre-Response Optimization Subcommittee' is reportedly using advanced algorithms to predict potential presidential talking points, resulting in a 47-page script that includes 17 different versions of the phrase 'working families.'

“It’s about agility,” stated DNC Chair Jamie Harrison, speaking through a bullhorn from an undisclosed bunker. “We can’t let the President dictate the narrative. We’re dictating the counter-narrative to the narrative that hasn’t happened yet. It’s meta-narrative jujitsu.”