As President Joe Biden made his way to the podium Thursday night to make his State of the Union address, cameras panned over the members of Congress gathered for the event, showing that many of the lawmakers were dressed in white. That was, obviously, not a coincidence.
The Democratic Women’s Caucus announced this week that its members would wear white—a nod to American suffragettes—and don pins reading “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” during the speech.
“Our message is clear: women must be able to access the health care they need to control their own lives and futures. That means women, not politicians, should be in charge of whether, when, and how to start or grow their families. That includes access to birth control, access to abortion, and access to IVF,” said DWC Chair Lois Frankel.
This is not the first time these Democratic congresswomen have used this specific sartorial choice to send a message. In 2019, the caucus decided to wear “suffragette white” to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. At the time, Frankel called the move a “respectful message of solidarity with women across the country, and a declaration that we will not go back on our hard-earned rights.”
Unfortunately, we have had so many of those rights stripped from us in the five years since. The DWC’s decision to wear white tonight is sending a simple, silent message that we do not intend to let that loss of rights be permanent, and that the fight is ongoing.
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she’s been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
Former Rep. George Santos is set to return to Capitol Hill Thursday night for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, according to a source familiar with his plans.
Santos, who still retains floor privileges as an ex-member of Congress, made his way to the speech, wearing a dark coat, cream-white trousers and sparkling accents as he made his way through the rows to chat with former colleagues.
He was spotted on the House floor sitting next to Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Also present in the crowd was Rep. Tom Suozzi, who took over Santo’s seat after winning a special election in February.
This would mark the second time Santos attends a State of the Union address, the first being in 2023, when Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) was caught on video calling him “an ass.”
President Joe Biden said he wanted to use his State of the Union to “wake up” Congress, but he was the one who seemed suddenly energized as he spared with Republican hecklers and repeatedly criticized former President Donald Trump.
Shaking off lackluster approval ratings and his own party’s anxiety about his political and physical health, the 81-year-old delivered on Thursday one of the feistiest and most political presidential addresses to Congress in recent memory.
He referenced “my predecessor” 13 times, not saying Trump’s name once but making him a clear focus of his speech, shouted back at firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and sarcastically mocked Republican lawmakers.
“I know you know how to read,” he said as he criticized Republican lawmakers over their refusal to pass the bipartisan border bill, responding to some of whom heckled him from the House chamber.
While Biden was unlikely to ever sway Republicans with a speech, it may help coalesce Democrats — for a moment at least — who are alternatingly panicky and dismissive of polls showing Trump leading Biden in key swing states.
Biden wasted no time criticizing Trump, accusing “my predecessor” of supporting threats to democracy at home and abroad.
“They will not bow down. We will not bow down. I will not bow down,” Biden said of Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion. “History is watching. Just like history watched three years ago on Jan. 6”
Biden didn’t unveil new executive action on immigration or the southern border.
The Biden administration has been considering unilateral action for weeks that would make it harder for migrants to pass the initial screening for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, as NBC News has reported.
But that didn’t mean the speech wasn’t without a moment about the contentious issue of immigration.
In response to Greene heckling him, he picked up a button with the name of a University of Georgia student Laken Riley whose murder has been attributed by police to an undocumented immigrant. But he appeared to suggest that Greene and Republicans are right about crime by “illegals” — repeating a term that many on the left consider offensive.
“Lincoln, Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal, that’s right, but how many thousands of people have been killed by legals?” Biden said, confusing her first name.
Biden framed his speech around the theme of freedom — including homing in on abortion rights after the landmark Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, which Democrats think will be a potent issue with voters.
“He’s the reason it was overturned and brags about it,” Biden said of Trump, who appointed the conservative majority to the high court that overturned Roe.
Then he noted that some of the Republicans he was speaking to in the chamber wanted to pass a national abortion ban: “My God, what other freedom would you take away?”
“Clearly those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America. But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and won in 2022, 2023, and they will find out again in 2024,” Biden said. “If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose I promise you: I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.”
And he slammed Trump’s handling of the Covid pandemic, saying, “My predecessor failed in his most basic presidential duty: The duty to care.”
Biden made a lengthy entrance to the House Chamber for the joint address, leisurely shaking hands and posing for selfies with members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, and the joint chiefs of staff.
“If I were smart, I’d go home now,” Biden joked as he took the stage, starting off light.
The route a presidential motorcade normally takes down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol was lined with protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Instead, Biden took a longer route to the Capitol that avoided the demonstrations but delayed his speech. The protests have become a familiar distraction for Biden at recent public appearances, reminding him that the issue has divided parts of his base.
He announced plans to add a port in Gaza that will be used by the U.S. and partners to get aid into Gaza, which he said would provide capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day. The operation will not involve U.S. boots on the ground, he said.
He called the humanitarian crisis in Gaza “intolerable” and said Israel has a responsibility to protect Palestinian civilians.
“Israel must do its part,” he sad, reasserting his goal for a two-state solution in the region.
With the economy the top issue on many voters minds, Biden highlighted the post-Covid economic recovery and laid out the administration’s plans to revamp the tax code, expand housing supply and reduce the federal budget deficit.
The speech was also a chance for Biden to make a positive case for what he would do with another four years in the White House since Democratic rhetoric around the election so far has focused instead on stopping Trump.
In the fractured modern media environment and polarized Washington, State of the Union addresses carry less agenda-setting power than they have in the past.
But with millions expected to watch, they are nonetheless a rare opportunity for Biden to speak to some Americans who don’t follow politics closely but tune in for big moments.
“In my career, I’ve been told I’m too young,” said Biden, who was first elected to the Senate at 30, “And I’ve been told that I’m too old.”
“Whether young or old, I’ve always known what endures,” Biden continued. “The very idea of America: That we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.”
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
[ad_2]
Alex Seitz-Wald, Gabe Gutierrez and Monica Alba | NBC News
President Joe Biden turned his State of the Union speech Thursday night into an animated argument for a second term as he laced into GOP front-runner Donald Trump for espousing “resentment, revenge and retribution” and jeopardizing freedom at home and abroad.
He referenced the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the 2020 election, and called for the threat to democracy to be countered.
“My predecessor — and some of you here — seek to bury the truth about Jan. 6 — I will not do that,” Biden said. “This is a moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies. Here’s a simple truth. You can’t love your country only when you win.”
“My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy,” Biden said. “A future based on the core values that have defined America: honesty, decency, dignity, equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor. Now some other people my age see a different story: an American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution. That’s not me.”
Check back here for live updates.
Watch State of the Union coverage
Biden touts legislative accomplishments, calls out Republicans who voted against them
The president showcased his accomplishments on infrastructure and manufacturing.
Taking a victory lap in selling his legislative accomplishments, such as one that bolsters manufacturing of computer chips nationwide, Biden veered from his prepared script to take a dig at Republicans who voted against such policies but are eager to take credit for them back home.
“If any of you don’t want that money in your districts,” Biden said, “just let me know.”
Biden says Trump trying to ‘bury the truth’ on Jan. 6
Early in his address, after urging support for Ukraine, President Biden pivoted to threats at home, referencing the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the 2020 election.
“My predecessor — and some of you here — seek to bury the truth about Jan. 6 — I will not do that,” Biden said. “This is a moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies. Here’s a simple truth. You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Biden urges more aid for Ukraine
President Joe Biden on Thursday urged Congress to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself,” Biden said during his State of the Union address.
The president issued an emphatic call for lawmakers to pass sorely needed defense assistance for Ukraine. Acute ammunition shortages have allowed Russia to retake the offensive in the 2-year-old war.
The GOP-controlled House has refused to act on a Senate-passed version of the aid legislation, insisting on new stiffer measures to limit migration at the U.S.-Mexico border, after former President Donald Trump used his influence to help sink a bipartisan compromise that would have done just that.
Education secretary is ‘designated survivor’
The “designated survivor” for Thursday’s State of the Union address is Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. By custom at least one Cabinet member does not attend the speech, in order to preserve the Constitutional line of succession in the event of a catastrophe.
Cardona is a former public school teacher who went on to become Connecticut’s education chief before joining the Biden Administration.
Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in Charlotte, N.C, on Jan. 11, 2024.
Democratic Women’s Caucus in white
Dozens of women were seen dressed in white at President Joe Biden’s third State of the Union address Thursday night.
“For tonight’s State of the Union address, we’re in white and wearing ‘Fighting for Reproductive Freedom’ pins,” the Democratic Women’s Caucus posted on social media Thursday.
For tonight’s State of the Union address, we’re in white and wearing ‘Fighting for Reproductive Freedom’ pins.
Our message is clear: we won’t stop fighting until all women can access the health care they need to control their own lives and futures. pic.twitter.com/A7nEOjI51l
— Democratic Women’s Caucus (@DemWomenCaucus) March 7, 2024
The group attended the event with a clear message: “we won’t stop fighting until all women can access the health care they need to control their own lives and futures.”
Among those seen wearing white are Reps. Norma Torma Torres, Linda Sanchez and Nanette D. Barragán.
Congressional Dads Caucus members are wearing ‘building block’ pins
The Congressional Dads Caucus announced its 33 members will be displaying the toy-like pin as a way to show commitment to working families across the U.S.
“Tonight, Dads Caucus members are wearing a building block pin to show our commitment to policies that build families up, like the expanded Child Tax Credit, affordable child care and paid leave,” the caucus said on Twitter.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) created the Congressional Dads Caucus in 2023.
Former GOP Rep. George Santos, who was expelled, is attending tonight’s speech
(L-R) Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) talks with former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C, on March 7, 2024. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Biden expected to highlight climate accomplishments and challenges
The president will deliver a message on climate change that is not just “doom and despair,” a top White House official said ahead of tonight’s speech, NBC News reported.
“The president sees climate change for the challenge that it is,” said White House climate policy adviser Ali Zaidi. “We’re investing in resilience and adaptation and we’re getting after the root cause.”
Which presidents gave the longest and shortest State of the Union addresses?
Former Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan gave two of the shortest SOTU address that each lasted just over 40 minutes. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, on average, delivered longer SOTU addresses than other presidents.
Biden unveiled his “unity agenda” during his first SOTU address on March 1, 2022, and it lasted one hour, one minute and 50 seconds. Biden delivered his second address last year on Feb. 7, which ran for one hour and thirteen minutes.
Former Presidents Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Barack Obama delivering State of the Union speeches during each of their terms in the White House.
Why some lawmakers will be wearing yellow ribbons tonight
Family members of several Americans still held hostage by Hamas in Gaza are expected to attend the State of the Union after being invited by a group of lawmakers. The 17 relatives of the hostages have sent a letter to all members of Congress asking them and their staffers to wear a yellow lapel ribbon or a “Bring them home” dog tag necklace as a sign of solidarity for those still working to bring their loved ones home.
Biden expected to announce plan for middle class tax cuts and lower deficits
In a preview of Biden’s remarks, aides including Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, said the president would contrast his proposals with Republican plans to extend former President Donald Trump’s expiring tax breaks and further slash corporate tax rates.
Under Biden’s proposal, corporations would no longer be able to deduct the expense of employee pay above $1 million, which could raise $270 billion over 10 years. He also wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, among other measures. And, as Biden has previously proposed, major companies would be charged a minimum tax rate so that they could not avoid the IRS through accounting maneuvers, deductions and specialized tax breaks. Read more about the preview of his proposal here.
Biden to announce plans for a temporary aid port on Gaza’s coast amid ongoing Israel-Hamas war
Biden is expected to announce plans to add a port in Gaza that will be used by the U.S. and partners to get aid into the region, NBC News reported.
Once built, the port will “provide the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day,” a senior administration official said.
The U.S. plans to coordinate with Israel, the United Nations and various nongovernmental organizations about getting humanitarian aid into Gaza through the port, but the administration official made clear that the operation will not involve U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza. Read more from NBC News here.
Advocates hope for action after Biden’s calls for protecting Social Security and Medicare in last year’s speech
Biden used his State of the Union last year as an opportunity to get both Republicans and Democrats to not make any cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
“So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?” Biden said, which was met with cheers. “We’ve got unanimity.”
Yet as both Social Security and Medicare face insolvency dates within the next decade, leaders on both sides of the aisle are hoping for action. More from CNBC on possible legislative action to protect these programs here.
Who’s on tonight’s guest list?
Biden and Democratic lawmakers invited several health care providers and women whose lives have been impacted by stricter abortion laws in states with Republican-controlled legislatures following the landmark 2022 Supreme Court ruling that stripped away constitutional protections for abortion.
First lady Jill Biden also invited union leaders, a gun control advocate, and others that she and her husband have met as they traveled the country promoting his agenda.
North Texans will attend the State of the Union in support of Kate Cox, the local woman who was unable to get an abortion in Texas. NBC 5’s Larry Collins has the details.
Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama is delivering the GOP response
“The Republican Party is the party of hardworking parents and families, and I’m looking forward to putting this critical perspective front and center,” Britt said.
FILE – Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., is seen in the U.S. Capitol during votes on Jan. 9, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The speech starts at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT. You can watch live on all of the major network and cable television stations, including on NBC, MSNBC, NBC News Now, NBC’s online streaming network Peacock and in the streaming player above.
The U.S. Constitution spells it out clearly in Article II, Section 3: The president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”But the modern State of the Union address — the pageantry, the televised address and the agenda-setting message — is a far more recent tradition.A look at some State of the Union history as President Joe Biden prepares to give his address to Congress:Who delivered the first State of the Union address?George Washington on Jan. 8, 1790, in New York.Does it have to be a speech?No. For his first address on Dec. 8, 1801, Thomas Jefferson sent written copies to both houses of Congress to be read by each chamber’s clerks. Jefferson wanted to simplify what he believed was an aristocratic imitation of the British monarch’s speech from the throne, which he thought ill-suited for a republic. The practice of sending written copies to Congress continued for more than a century.Woodrow Wilson later resumed the tradition of delivering the annual message in person on April 8, 1913. He’s also credited with transforming the speech from a report on executive branch activity into a blueprint for the president’s legislative agenda for the year.When did it become known as the “State of the Union” address?Franklin D. Roosevelt applied the constitutional phrase “State of the Union” to both the message and the event. It became the popular terminology from then on.How has the speech been affected by technology?Calvin Coolidge delivered the first speech broadcast on radio in 1923. Harry Truman’s address in 1947 was the first broadcast on television. Lyndon B. Johnson recognized the importance of having a national audience when he moved the speech from midafternoon to 9 p.m. in 1965 to attract the largest number of TV viewers. George W. Bush’s 2002 speech was the first available as a live webcast on the White House website.Is there a State of the Union speech every year?No. Recent presidents — Reagan in 1981, George H.W. Bush in 1989, Bill Clinton in 1993, George W. Bush in 2001, Barack Obama in 2009, Trump in 2017 and Biden in 2021 — did not give an official State of the Union address their first year in office. That speech would have come soon after their inaugural addresses. However, many of them still gave a major speech to Congress soon after their inauguration.Has it always been delivered in person since Wilson resumed it?No. Truman sent his final message in print, as did Eisenhower in 1961 and Carter in 1981. As Eisenhower recovered from a heart attack in 1956, he prepared a seven-minute, filmed summary of the message from his retreat in Key West, Florida, that was broadcast nationwide. Richard Nixon sent a printed message in 1973; his staff said an oral message would have come too soon after his second inaugural address.Which presidents didn’t deliver a State of the Union message?William Henry Harrison, who died 32 days after his inauguration in 1841, and James A. Garfield, who was assassinated in 1881 after 199 days in office.___Sources: Congressional Research Service, White House.
The U.S. Constitution spells it out clearly in Article II, Section 3: The president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
But the modern State of the Union address — the pageantry, the televised address and the agenda-setting message — is a far more recent tradition.
A look at some State of the Union history as President Joe Biden prepares to give his address to Congress:
Who delivered the first State of the Union address?
George Washington on Jan. 8, 1790, in New York.
Does it have to be a speech?
No. For his first address on Dec. 8, 1801, Thomas Jefferson sent written copies to both houses of Congress to be read by each chamber’s clerks. Jefferson wanted to simplify what he believed was an aristocratic imitation of the British monarch’s speech from the throne, which he thought ill-suited for a republic. The practice of sending written copies to Congress continued for more than a century.
Woodrow Wilson later resumed the tradition of delivering the annual message in person on April 8, 1913. He’s also credited with transforming the speech from a report on executive branch activity into a blueprint for the president’s legislative agenda for the year.
When did it become known as the “State of the Union” address?
Franklin D. Roosevelt applied the constitutional phrase “State of the Union” to both the message and the event. It became the popular terminology from then on.
How has the speech been affected by technology?
Calvin Coolidge delivered the first speech broadcast on radio in 1923. Harry Truman’s address in 1947 was the first broadcast on television. Lyndon B. Johnson recognized the importance of having a national audience when he moved the speech from midafternoon to 9 p.m. in 1965 to attract the largest number of TV viewers. George W. Bush’s 2002 speech was the first available as a live webcast on the White House website.
Is there a State of the Union speech every year?
No. Recent presidents — Reagan in 1981, George H.W. Bush in 1989, Bill Clinton in 1993, George W. Bush in 2001, Barack Obama in 2009, Trump in 2017 and Biden in 2021 — did not give an official State of the Union address their first year in office. That speech would have come soon after their inaugural addresses. However, many of them still gave a major speech to Congress soon after their inauguration.
Has it always been delivered in person since Wilson resumed it?
No. Truman sent his final message in print, as did Eisenhower in 1961 and Carter in 1981. As Eisenhower recovered from a heart attack in 1956, he prepared a seven-minute, filmed summary of the message from his retreat in Key West, Florida, that was broadcast nationwide. Richard Nixon sent a printed message in 1973; his staff said an oral message would have come too soon after his second inaugural address.
Which presidents didn’t deliver a State of the Union message?
William Henry Harrison, who died 32 days after his inauguration in 1841, and James A. Garfield, who was assassinated in 1881 after 199 days in office.
___
Sources: Congressional Research Service, White House.
Biden will deliver the yearly speech with Super Tuesday behind him and little suspense left in the presidential primaries.
Trump’s remaining challenger, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, suspended her campaign Wednesday morning.
The speech gives Biden the chance to boast of his accomplishments in a televised address to the country. Last year, an estimated 27.3 million viewers watched, though that was the second smallest audience in 30 years, and the year before that, 38.2 viewers, according to Nielsen, the company that measures television ratings.
Biden will speak to the joint session of Congress unusually late this year and a full month after his speech last year.
The addresses are typically given in January or February, but the timing is at the discretion of the speaker of the House, who invites the president.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has not commented on the late date he chose, but it does come after key deadlines for averting a government shutdown.
Here’s what to know about the 2024 State of the Union address:
How to watch the State of the Union
Biden’s speech will be shown live on all of the major network and cable television stations, including on NBC, MSNBC, NBC News Now, NBC’s online streaming network Peacock, and this website.
It also will be streamed online by the White House.
The speech starts at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.
President Joe Biden delivered his 2023 State of the Union address Tuesday night. Here are some of the moments you may have missed.
Who are the guests for the State of the Union?
The guests invited to the State of the Union address have stories that typically personalize issues in the news.
Among this year’s guests is 31-year-old Kate Cox of Dallas, for whom the state of Texas refused to lift the state’s abortion ban. She was invited by first lady Jill Biden.
Cox went to court to end her pregnancy after she discovered that her developing fetus had been diagnosed with a rare chromosomal disorder known as trisomy 18, raising the risk of stillbirth or the death of her child shortly after birth. A lower court granted her request but the Texas Supreme Court ruled against her. By then she had gone out of state for an abortion.
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington is bringing another woman who traveled for an abortion. Kayla Smith was pregnant, living in Idaho in 2022, when at 19 weeks, she and her husband learned that their baby had serious and fatal fetal anomalies, according to Murray’s office. Idaho’s abortion ban does not have any exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities or for the health of the mother, she said.
Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images
Elizabeth Carr, 20, the first child born through in-vitro fertilization in the U.S., attends a World Infertility Month dinner at the United Nations May 15, 2002 in New York City. A panel of children conceived through the reproductive technology addressed attendees of the dinner.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia has invited the first person born in the United States through in vitro fertilization, Elizabeth Carr. Her presence follows an Alabama Supreme Court decision that embryos created through in vitro fertilization or IVF are to be considered children. As a result of the ruling, many of the IVF providers in the state paused treatment and IVF became an unexpected campaign issue.
Also expected to attend are family members of some of the Americans still held hostage in the Gaza Strip. Their invitation came from a bipartisan group of legislators. They are asking members of Congress and their staff to wear yellow ribbons and dog tags in solidarity.
The parents of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, will attend as guests of the speaker. Evan Gershkovich has been detained in Russia since March 29, 2023. The U.S government has called for his immediate release and says he was wrongfully detained.
The court ruled that Gershkovich, who has been detained since March, must stay in jail on espionage charges until the end of November.
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska turned down an invitation from the White House, because of a scheduling conflict, her office told NBC News. Also declining, Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last month in a Russian prison.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has invited Dawn Chapman, the co-founder of a grassroots group called Just Moms in St. Louis and an advocate for victims of nuclear contamination. Hawley is working to reauthorize the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
What will Biden talk about in the State of the Union?
Biden has made abortion rights and reproductive care central to his campaign. A strategy memo obtained by The Associated Press late last year outlined other key themes such as protecting the country’s democratic values and improving the economy for the middle class.
Biden has been bedeviled by low poll numbers with an approval rating of 40% according to an NBC national poll in November, worries that at 81 he is too old for a second term and persistent concerns about the economy. The economy is growing, year-over-over inflation has dropped to 1.5%, excluding food and energy costs, and the country has so far escaped a recession that economists warned about, according to The AP.
He has been grappling with migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia, and the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with more than 30,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, has prompted some prominent Democrats to call for a ceasefire and has sparked a protest vote against Biden in some of the Democratic primaries.
Officials in Gaza said more than 100 people were killed as aid trucks entered the city and people rushed toward the vehicles.
David Greenberg, a professor of history at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, said that the State of the Union no longer drew the big audiences it once did. President George W. Bush had 51.7 million viewers for his first State of the Union in 2002, and the 62 million viewers for his second. President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union had 48 million people watching.
“It’s simply not that important anymore,” Greenberg said in an email. “But it’s still an opportunity for Biden to preview themes of his campaign, make the case for his record as president – a strong economy, with inflation finally ending; a strong foreign policy; legislation passed; and so on.”
“He also tends to be pretty strong and appealing when reading from the teleprompter and a good performance could quell some of the talk about his being too old to be president,” Greenberg said.
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) speaks at a press conference on border security at the U.S. Capitol on December 07, 2023, in Washington, DC. The group of Republican Senators held a press conference calling for enhanced border security. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Who will give the Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union?
The response from the Republican side will come from a rising star in the party, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt.
Britt, the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama, was sworn into office last year. She has endorsed Trump.
“There is no doubt that President Biden’s failed presidency has made America weaker and more vulnerable at every turn,” Britt said in a statement. “At this decisive moment in our country’s history, it’s time for the next generation to step up and preserve the American Dream for our children and our grandchildren.”
Perhaps to highlight Biden’s age, she is, at 42, the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the Senate.
Last year’s response by delivered by Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address to Congress.
A little bit of State of the Union history
An assessment of the state of the country is mandated by the U.S. Constitution but not the manner in which it is given. Article II, Section 2, says of the president: “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
Like their modern-day successors, Presidents George Washington and John Adams gave their speeches in person,, according to the U.S. Senate website, but President Thomas Jefferson broke with that tradition and submitted his in writing. It was not until President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 that the address was again delivered in person.
President Franklin Roosevelt first called the speech the “State of the Union address,” which became the official name with President Harry Truman.
The modern broadcast era began in 1923 with the first radio address, followed by Truman’s televised address in 1947, and President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s spot in prime time in 1965. A televised response from the opposition party debuted in 1966.
A few other tidbits:
Each year, one member of the president’s cabinet skips the address over concern that the Capitol could be attacked. The tradition began in 1984. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, selected members of Congress are also absent.
President Bill Clinton delivered the longest spoken address in 2000 at 1 hour, 28 minutes and 49 seconds. Clinton gave three of the five longest speeches, Trump the other two.
A majority of voters across seven Western countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, believe their democracy is in worse shape than it was five years ago, according to a poll whose results were seen by POLITICO.
Nearly seven in 10 American respondents said the state of democracy had declined in recent years, while 73 percent of poll takers shared the same opinion in France. In the United Kingdom, more than six out of 10 respondents said that democracy was working less well than five years ago, according to the poll which was carried out by Ipsos in September.
The results reveal widespread angst about the state of democracy ahead of major votes in the United States, the U.K, and the European Union in the year ahead — as well as mixed views of the 27-member union.
In all but one of the countries — which also included Croatia, Italy, Poland and Sweden — about half of voters reported being “dissatisfied” with the way democracy was working, while majorities agreed with the statement that the system is “rigged” in favor of the rich and powerful, and that “radical change” was needed.
Only in Sweden did a clear majority, 58 percent, say they were satisfied with how the system of government was working.
Among EU countries, the survey revealed deeply contrasting views on the state of the Union. A majority of respondents in the countries surveyed said they were in favor of the EU, but a plurality in all the countries said they were dissatisfied with the state of democracy at the EU level, while only tiny minorities reported feeling they had any influence over EU decisions.
Those views were offset by higher levels of satisfaction at the way democracy worked at the local level.
Only in Croatia was satisfaction with democracy at the EU level, at 26 percent, higher than it was for democracy at the national level, at 21 percent.
The results of the survey will give EU leaders food for thought as they gear up for European Parliament elections. While voters elect the Parliament directly, the choice of who gets the top jobs — such as president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, or the head of the EU Council, which gathers heads of state and government — is indirect. National leaders pick their nominees, which are then submitted to the Parliament for conformation.
In recent years, EU-level political parties have been trying to make the process more democratic by asking leaders to give top jobs to the lead candidates, or Spitzenkandidaten, from the party that wins the most votes in the election. But that system was ignored by leaders after the last election, when they rejected the lead candidate of the conservative European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, in favor of current Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
While all the major parties say they are committed to proposing lead candidates ahead of the next EP election, leaders haven’t publicly committed to follow the system.
“These findings suggest that a key challenge for the EU ahead of the 2024 European Parliament elections will be to leverage continuing support for the EU project to help restore positive perceptions of EU institutions, agencies and bodies,” Christine Tresignie, managing director of Ipsos European public affairs, said in a statement.
The poll was carried out September 21-30 via an online random probability survey. Respondents aged 16 and over were questioned in Croatia, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, while in the United States adults aged 18 and over were polled.
The European Union has survived — and thrived — in the past five years and is ready for the next challenge: artificial intelligence.
That’s one of the prominent messages Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered in her annual State of the Union address — the last such speech ahead of the looming European election in 2024, and thus possibly in her career as leader of the EU executive.
Since her 2019 speech as president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen has stewarded the EU through a pandemic, economic crisis and a war on European soil.
With EU elections now only eight months away, this year’s speech focused on the Commission’s work over the course of its mandate, with von der Leyen claiming a 90 percent success rate in delivering on political guidelines she presented in 2019 (although this figure has been contested.)
Looking to the future, the speech paid more attention than previous years to the impact of artificial intelligence and technology on the European Union, and plans for significant enlargement of the bloc.
We crunched the numbers on von der Leyen’s latest, and possibly last, script.
With research from POLITICO’s Research and Analysis Division.
President Joe Biden drew laughs on Tuesday when he brought up Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) ― but rather than make a crack about the conspiracy theorist lawmaker, Biden let his fingers do the talking.
Speaking at an event in Virginia Beach, the president asked the audience if they remembered her howls during his State of the Union speech, when she repeatedly interrupted with shouts of “liar!”
Biden resisted the temptation to strike back with a barb of his own and made the sign of the cross instead.
“I’m gonna be good,” he said, as his audience laughed:
Biden, a devout Catholic, occasionally uses to sign of the cross in a joking manner. The gesture has several meanings, including a blessing and as protection from evil.
Raise your hand if you’re old enough to remember who was president in 2020, when schools were closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was torn apart on Twitter after she seemed to forget that detail in a tweet about President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“Hey Joe, YOU CLOSED THEM!” she tweeted, citing a line from Biden’s speech in which he said: “In the midst of the COVID crisis, when schools were closed and we were shutting down everything, let’s recognize how far we came in the fight against the pandemic itself.”
A note appeared below the tweet, pointing out that readers had “added context they thought people might want to know.”
It included links to two articles: One about the shutdown of K-12 schools in the spring of 2020, when Donald Trump was president, and a second noting that Trump said decisions about school closures would be up to the governors of each state.
Critics didn’t hold back with “extra context” in retweets and replies:
President Joe Biden lingered in the halls of Congress last night after his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, possibly even longer than he had the year before, longer than most presidents had ever. Yes, Joe Biden loves these things.
As his former press secretary Jen Psakitweeted, “Thoughts and prayers to the staffers trying to move Joe Biden out of one of his favorite places.” Last night, POTUS shut the place down because he delivered, by most accounts, a SOTU address that skillfully layered political pressure and arguments, painted a picture of his administration’s accomplishments, and, with relish, swung back at the fringe sideshow playing out in the MAGA corner of the room.
Eric Lutz, Abigail Tracy, and Chris Smith stopped by an early morning episode of Inside the Hive to break it all down with Joe Hagan and Emily Jane Fox.
President Biden, two years into his term and facing a Republican-led House for the first time, delivered his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress last night. What did you think of the speech?
“There wasn’t enough groveling to me specifically.”
Russ Melendez, Unemployed
“I hope I’m giving State of the Union speeches that good when I’m 80.”
Kelly DiToma, Confection Expert
“He puts on a good show, but everyone knows he’s lip-syncing.”
It was a raucous, interactive, and argumentative State of the Union like no other. And when it was over, President Joe Biden had provided a clear signal of how he plans to contest the 2024 presidential election.
Leaning hard into his populist “Scranton Joe” persona, an energetic and feisty Biden sparred with congressional Republicans heckling him from the audience as he previewed what will likely be key themes of the reelection campaign that he’s expected to announce within months, if not weeks.
Biden’s speech showed him continuing to formulate an economically focused alternative to the cultural backlash that Donald Trump has stressed throughout his political career—and which Trump’s former White House press secretary, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, revived in her bellicose GOP response. Whereas Sanders summoned “normal” Americans to rise up against a “woke mob” allegedly erasing American values and traditions, Biden called for national unity around shared goals, particularly delivering economic benefits to working families.
It’s easy to view those sharply contrasting messages as a preview of the 2024 election. Almost any GOP nominee—but particularly Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the two early front-runners in polls for the nomination—is likely to stress the cultural notes that Sanders hit in hopes of maximizing turnout among the GOP’s core constituencies of older, noncollege, and nonurban white voters and expanding the party’s 2020 beachhead among culturally conservative nonwhite voters, especially Latino men.
Biden’s emphasis on economic concerns reflects his belief that the best way to counter that strategy is to downplay culture-war fights while defining himself primarily around a practical agenda to lift average families.
Well into the speech, Biden delivered an unflinching pledge to veto any GOP effort to ban abortion nationwide (which has no chance of passing the Senate anyway). Near the beginning and end of his remarks, he also pointedly alluded to the threats to American democracy unleashed by Trump and the insurrection on January 6, 2021.
The difference in emphasis between Biden and Sanders was unmistakable. Cultural concerns dominated Sanders’s speech. She painted a dark vision of the “radical left’s America,” where “our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race,” “violent criminals roam free while law-abiding families live in fear,” and “normal” Americans “are under attack” from a “woke mob” pursuing “a left-wing culture war that we didn’t start and never wanted to fight.” Her remarks showed again how the fear of cultural and racial displacement in an America that is inexorably growing more diverse, secular, and urbanized remains the most powerful motivator for what I’ve called the Republican “coalition of restoration.”
By contrast, the core of Biden’s speech was his pledge to both create good-paying jobs for working-class families and provide them with tangible economic help, such as by reducing drug prices and fighting surprise airline and hotel fees. As he often has before, Biden called his agenda a “blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America” and stressed how many jobs that do not require college degrees would be created by the troika of major bills passed during his first two years: legislation promoting clean-energy industries, more domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, and infrastructure construction projects nationwide. He delivered repeated populist jabs against big corporations and billionaires paying lower tax rates “than a nurse.”
It was telling that the most extended of the several remarkable back-and-forth exchanges with Republicans came not from abortion or any social issue, but Social Security and Medicare. Echoing the “you lie” cry from a GOP representative during a 2009 Barack Obama speech, several Republicans apparently called out “liar” when Biden noted, correctly, that some Republicans (specifically Senator Rick Scott of Florida whom he did not name) have proposed to sunset all federal programs every five years, including Social Security and Medicare. What the exchange made clear above all is how comfortable Biden is creating a contrast that Hubert Humphrey would recognize, with Democrats claiming their historical ground of protecting the social safety net.
Polling during the midterm election, and right through the days before last night’s speech, revealed that Biden has not yet convinced most Americans that his economic agenda will benefit them. Most Americans continue to express downbeat views about the economy, and in an ABC/Washington Post national survey released this week, more than three-fifths of Americans said Biden had accomplished not much or nothing at all.
After hosting a focus group of voters who watched last night’s speech, Bryan Bennett, the senior director of polling and analytics at the Hub Project, a Democratic polling consortium, told me in an email that although their reactions suggested that Biden “was successful in telling a positive story about how the economy has improved over the last two years … the issues of inflation and spending remain deep pain points that he and his administration will have to continue to work on.” Yesterday’s speech showed that Biden similarly believes (rightly or wrongly) that his fate will be decided more by voters’ assessment of his impact on their financial situation than by whether they share his values on the kind of cultural issues Sanders hammered.
The other thematic pillar of Biden’s presidency has been his promise to unify America and work across party lines. But Biden’s speech continued a recalibration of that message that began last fall.
In the midterm campaign, Biden differentiated between “mainstream” Republicans who were willing to reach bipartisan agreements and what he called the “extreme MAGA” forces that represented a radical threat to democracy and individual freedoms. In the State of the Union, he offered a variation on that theme. He began by congratulating the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and stressed how during his first two years as president, “time and again, Democrats and Republicans came together” to pass big legislation, such as the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
But as the speech progressed, Biden pivoted from where he thought he could deal with Republicans to where he insisted he would resist them. Biden forcefully called on Republicans to pass a “clean” increase in the nation’s debt ceiling, without any conditions, and pledged to veto any effort to undo the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that reduce drug prices, any legislation imposing a national ban on abortion, and any efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. He touted his commitment to a wide array of priorities, including expanded preschool and an assault-weapons ban, that he knows have no chance of passing a Republican-controlled House.
All of that notably departed from the tone that his two Democratic predecessors struck in their first State of the Union immediately after losing unified control of Congress, as Biden also did this past fall. Both Bill Clinton, in his 1995 State of the Union speech, and Obama, in his 2011 address, were elaborately conciliatory, even contrite, as they addressed the new GOP majorities. Both men drew some lines of contrast, but mostly focused on issues they believed would appeal to Republicans, such as reducing the federal deficit and streamlining government. Although Biden similarly nodded toward more cooperation at the outset of his speech, overall he was much more confrontational.
That was partly because Biden had less to be contrite about: Democrats performed much better in last year’s midterm than they did when Obama and Clinton suffered their first-term reversals. Democrats lost more than 50 House seats in Clinton’s first midterm, and more than 60 in Obama’s, but they surrendered only 10 in Biden’s—and actually gained a Senate seat, in contrast to the substantial Senate losses under his two predecessors. After those losses, both Clinton and Obama felt enormous pressure to signal to voters that they were making a course correction toward the center; Biden last night betrayed no hint that he felt any need to change direction. As Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s White House communications director, recently told me, last November’s results were “quite different” from the “shellacking” that both Obama and Clinton had suffered. “This election cannot be read as a repudiation of Biden and his agenda,” Pfeiffer said.
Equally important, though, the gulf between the parties is even greater than it was under Clinton or Obama, which leaves very few realistic opportunities for Biden to pursue bipartisan agreements with the GOP-controlled House. That distance was vividly demonstrated by the repeated catcalls from Republicans—a display that obliterated any traditional notions of decorum during the State of the Union and underscored the zealotry of the conservative vanguard in the House GOP that McCarthy empowered in order to win the speakership.
Last night, Biden gave voters a spirited preview of his 2024 message and strategy. Sanders and the militant House Republicans simultaneously provided voters with a preview of the alternative they may hear next year. The most revealing measure of the night came not so much in the messages sent by either side, but in the distance between them.
Democratic strategist Chai Komanduri likened GOP leadership efforts to “make MAGA happen” to the characters in the hit movie “Mean Girls” who try to popularize the slang term “fetch.”
“It seems to be the GOP leadership is still very Trumpy and into MAGA,” Komanduri told MSNBC’s Ari Melber on Tuesday, pointing to former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech.
“They’re sort of trying to make MAGA happen to use that famous phrase from ‘Mean Girls,‘” Komanduri said ahead of Sanders’ address.
“I’ve never heard a direct comparison from ‘fetch,’ which they were trying to make happen so aggressively as slang in ‘Mean Girls,’ and the entire MAGA movement,” responded Melber. “I think ‘fetch,’ while not a great piece of slang, is probably less dangerous to democracy though, Chai.”
“I agree, but I think it’s a terrible slang phrase and I think Regina George was quite right to make sure that it never happened,” Komanduri replied.
President Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address was partly a victory lap and partly an acknowledgement of how far he still has to go. Flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Biden updated the “unity agenda” of his first speech for the divided Congress he addressed Tuesday. “Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere,” he said. “And that’s always been my vision for our country. To restore the soul of the nation. To rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. To unite the country.”
“We’ve been sent here,” he added, “to finish the job.”
That line was a refrain for Biden throughout the address: As he touted his administration’s many, and often underestimated successes, the president called for a continuation of his agenda on prescription drug prices and healthcare coverage; climate change; the economy; gun control; and police reform, which has been thrust back to the fore of national politics in the wake of the horrific killing of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police last month. “We need to rise to this moment,” Biden said. “Do something.”
It was an effective speech, particularly when he essentially got Republicans — who have tried to take a hard line on debt-ceiling negotiations — to take cuts to Medicare and Social Security off the table. “I will not allow them to be taken away,” Biden said of the entitlement programs Americans have paid into. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.” It was delivered with vigor and verve, of the kind aimed not only at uniting the American people, but uniting them around a second presidential bid.
But it goes without saying that much of his immediate audience on Capitol Hill has no intention of heeding his call to take bipartisan action on behalf of the American people these next two years. McCarthy—who couldn’t even bring himself to applaud when Biden hailed democracy for remaining intact despite after the stress test Donald Trump subjected it to—had to explicitly warn his rowdy, ungovernable caucus not to cause a scene at the address, if only to allow him to project a veneer of respectability. But such propriety was just too much for the GOP, as members like Marjorie Taylor Greene—empowered by McCarthy—booed and jeered at some of the president’s lines, and heckled him en masse over the border and other matters. “It’s your fault,” one Republican was heard shouting as Biden lamented the toll the fentanyl crisis has taken on Americans.
But while Biden was speaking before the assembled lawmakers, much of his address was aimed directly at the public—particularly those he described as the “invisible” Americans who have been left behind by Washington and beset by uncertainty about the future. These are most likely the same ones who indicated in recentpolls that they are not feeling the effects of his administration’s accomplishments. To this end, Biden expressed a great deal of compassion, including during a section of the speech discussing the Nichols killing. “There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a child. But imagine what it’s like to lose a child at the hands of the law,” Biden said. “Imagine having to worry like that every day in America.” But he also made a special point to sell his administration’s track record of successes on areas from infrastructure and the economy to gun safety. “We’ve made real progress,” he said. “But there is so much more to do, and we can do it together.”
He was ostensibly talking about the next two years, in hopes that the new Republican House majority will at least cooperate on matters like the debt ceiling and support for Ukraine, which began mostly as a bipartisan matter but has been on shaky ground since the Republican takeover of the lower chamber. However, the president was also speaking, implicitly, about the bid for a second term he’s expected to formally announce in the coming months. Even Democratic voters haven’t exactly seemed especially enthusiastic about that prospect, despite his accomplishments, as questions about his age and a still-lingering sense of national malaise hang over his political future.
It remains to be seen if his address Tuesday evening—by turns conciliatory and strident, with zingers and olive branches offered up in equal measure—will allay those concerns. But it was as commanding a speech as he’s given during his presidency—one that touched on traditional Biden themes of unity and hope and stability, while acknowledging the particular challenges those values face for at least the near future. “I have never been more optimistic about the future of America,” he said in the forceful final passages of his address. “We just have to remember who we are.” It’s a hopeful goal, and one rather hopes it’s another job he can finish. But Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ GOP response didn’t exactly give cause for optimism as she leaned harder into the right’s deranged culture wars: “Forgive me for not believing much of anything I heard tonight from President Biden,” she said in a dark rebuttal to his speech, casting him and his party as “crazy.” “Biden and the Democrats have failed you.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tried repeatedly to quiet Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and other members of his caucus after they interrupted and heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech Tuesday.
When Biden mentioned that some members of the Republican Party wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, Republicans loudly booed. A combative Greene shouted “liar” at the president, prompting McCarthy to shush and shake his head.
Interesting exchange between Pres Biden and House GOP members after Pres Biden said some Republicans want to “sunset” Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Marjorie Taylor Greene stood up and called him a liar. Speaker McCarthy shushed his caucus from the podium. #sotu2023pic.twitter.com/A3py7v5ahR
Later on, Greene interrupted when Biden mentioned China and the U.S. response to a suspected surveillance balloon.
“China is spying on us!” she shouted.
Behind Biden, McCarthy again could be seen shushing Greene and shaking his head in disapproval.
Greene and others also erupted at Biden when he mentioned the more than 70,000 deaths each year from fentanyl in the U.S.
“It’s coming from China,” Greene shouted.
“It’s your fault,” another Republican yelled.
Again, McCarthy looked crossly at members of his caucus and shushed them.
Upon taking over as speaker of the House last month, McCarthy reappointed Greene, an extremist and conspiracy theorist, to key committee assignments that Democrats had stripped her of in 2021 over violent and racist comments.
Ahead of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, McCarthy all but promised that Republicans would be on their best behavior.
“We’re members of Congress,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju. “We have a code of ethics of how we should portray ourselves, that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’re not going to be doing childish games — tearing up a speech.”
He was referring to when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) famously tore up a copy of then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address.
Last March, down near the end of his first State of the Union address, President Joe Biden reached a somber passage where he described the recent fatal shooting of two New York City police officers. He asked for bipartisan support in pursuing both “safety and equal justice.” And then the president leaned into one particular message. “We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police,” Biden said. “It’s to fund the police. Fund them. Fund them. Fund them with resources and training—resources and training they need to protect our communities.”
Nearly a year later police departments have plenty of money—and yet Biden’s second State of the Union arrives in the shadow of a fresh tragedy, the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by Memphis cops. Nichols, a 29-year-old Black FedEx worker, died three days after being pulled from his car during what should have been a routine traffic stop. The ugly assault was captured on body-cam video; five of the Memphis officers involved were fired.
The particulars of Nichols’s death are significant, but so is the fact that it is only the latest in a long string of episodes where cops have abused Black Americans. On Tuesday night, in front of a national TV audience, Biden should seize the raw, painful moment to make an even more forceful case for the middle ground between defunding the police and blindly backing the blue.
In many ways Biden is the ideal president to advance the argument and have it heard across the political spectrum. His emphatic call last year to fund the police was partly a political calculation: Heading into the midterms, Biden was trying to inoculate Democratic candidates against perennial Republican fearmongering that the party is soft on crime. But his statement was also consistent with who Biden has been for a very long time: a mainstream ally of law enforcement, going all the way back to 1994, when he was a Delaware senator and a principal sponsor of the federal crime bill that helped drive down violent crime but also escalated drug-offense penalties and incarceration. In 2020, more than 190 law enforcement officials endorsed Biden against Donald Trump.
All of which gives Biden, as president, the credibility and profile to push, loud and clear, for an overhaul in how the country keeps its citizens safe, without being demonized as a coddler of criminals. Taking sizable amounts of money away from police departments isn’t going to happen, and in most cases probably shouldn’t. But Biden can advocate to change how that money is spent, with more dollars targeted to programs like violence interruption, and to redefine the scope of police work so that cops, for instance, aren’t the first ones responding to mentally ill people in distress. The president should also emphatically call on police unions, which are frequently key impediments to change, to be part of the solution.
Biden’s Department of Justice has already taken some welcome, if reactive, steps toward reducing police misconduct, reviving “pattern or practice” investigations of troubled municipal forces, a tactic that was halted by the Trump administration. “It is absolutely night and day,” says Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, whose office successfully prosecuted former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. “It’s the difference between caring and not giving a damn. As soon as Biden came in they started investigations in Minneapolis and a whole bunch of other places.”
Biden, during his first year in office, supported the 2021 reintroduction of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but it stalled in the Senate, partly due to Republican opposition to a nationwide database to track police misconduct. In the wake of Nichols’s death, there have been fitful talks about reviving the Floyd Act, including by Vice President Kamala Harris, who vowed to push for its passage at Nichols’s funeral. Republican obstructionism that extends from domestic to foreign policy makes that highly unlikely—a reality Biden will be reminded of when he delivers his second State of the Union standing in front of a new Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, whose majority is currently intent on pushing the nation toward default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Biden agrees to budget cuts.
That standoff will likely be one of the other subjects the president discusses Tuesday. Biden will probably plead for a bipartisan resolution even as he tries to make clear which party is creating this looming economic crisis. He’ll have plenty more on his agenda: the need to continue to send weapons and money to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion and his administration’s decision to declare an end to the COVID public health emergency—after extending it one more time, into May. He’ll likely tout the latter as progress, though the move is driven more by politics than by science: Congress hasn’t appropriated any more money, even though the World Health Organization says the pandemic continues, and pushing the emergency’s bureaucratic end a few months helps prop up border restrictions.
