President Biden, March 7, 2024

 

President Biden delivered an aggressive State of the Union speech Thursday night in which he drew sharp contrasts with former president Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress.

 

Biden made reference to “my predecessor” more than a dozen times and challenged GOP lawmakers over their resistance to his first-term agenda. As the speech went on, he increasingly engaged with angry outbursts from the audience.

It was a speech befitting the political moment, as Biden faces an expected rematch against Trump and tries to push his agenda through a polarized Congress. While Republicans found multiple occasions to jeer, Democrats broke out in chants of “Four more years!” more than once.

Here were six highlights:

‘My predecessor’

Within the first few minutes of the speech, Biden swiped at Trump — and did not let up.

Biden knocked Trump over topics including his coziness with Russia, the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and his leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

After describing the economic and societal anguish brought by the pandemic, Biden said his predecessor “failed the most basic” presidential duty: “the duty to care.”

 

That drew an angry outburst from the audience as someone yelled out, “Liar!” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) shook his head.

Abortion rights

Biden wasted little time addressing a top issue for Democrats in the November election: abortion rights.

 

Biden criticized Trump for bragging about appointing the Supreme Court justices who in 2022 helped overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to an abortion. And with some of the justices in the audience, Biden warned that the decision has unleashed a political storm.

“With all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral or political power,” Biden said. “You’re about to realize just how much.”

 

Biden also seized on the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children, which has disrupted fertility care in the state. Democrats have called it the latest consequence of Republicans’ long campaign against abortion rights and reproductive care. Biden challenged the GOP to “guarantee” IVF protections “nationwide.”

Looking to November, Biden also accused Trump of wanting a national abortion ban, a topic the former president has ducked as he prepares for the general election. “My god, what other freedoms would you take away?” Biden said.

 

Mixing it up with congressional Republicans

While Biden repeatedly criticized Trump, he also did not hesitate to mix it up with the Republican lawmakers in the room. Discussing Jan. 6 early in the speech, Biden said Trump “and some of you here seek to bury the truth” about what happened that day.

 

As the speech went on, though, Republicans in the audience became more willing to respond — and Biden obliged them. One of those moments arrived when Biden charged Republicans with wanting to cut Social Security and cut taxes for the wealthy.

 

“Oh, no? You guys don’t want another $2 trillion tax cut?” Biden said. “I kind of thought that’s what your plan was. Well, that’s good to hear.”

Biden also appeared happy to highlight the unanimous Republican opposition some of his signature proposals have faced in Congress. Referencing the Inflation Reduction Act — a sweeping measure to combat climate change, lower health-care costs and reduce the federal deficit — that Biden signed in 2022, he said Thursday that it sought to lower prescription drug prices and noted that “not one of you Republican buddies voted for it.”

Border battle

Addressing one of the biggest vulnerabilities in his reelection campaign — the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border — Biden again called on Republicans to drop their resistance to the Senate bipartisan security deal that the GOP recently scuttled at the behest of Trump. “We can fight about fixing the border,” Biden said, “or we can fix it.”

 

The border deal would overhaul the asylum system and give the president new power to effectively shut down the border if illegal crossings reach a certain threshold. But Trump lobbied Republican lawmakers to oppose the deal, calling it a political gift for Biden.

 

Biden touted the proposal’s toughness in his speech, which led to objections from Republicans in the audience. Biden also used the moment to engage with GOP lawmakers, credulously asking why they did not like a bill “that conservatives got together and said was a good bill.”

Going into the speech, Republicans had challenged Biden to “say her name” and mention Laken Riley, the slain Georgia nursing student whose alleged killer, immigration authorities say, illegally entered the country.

They got their way — sort of — while Biden discussed the bipartisan border security deal. Responding to an outburst from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Biden paused and addressed the matter, though he appeared to initially mispronounce Riley’s first name as “Lincoln.”

 

“An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal, that’s right,” Biden said.

Tough on Russia

The first moments of Biden’s speech were striking not just for the direct criticism of Trump but also for the context in which it came. Calling for increased Ukraine aid, Biden deployed the kind of tough-on-Russia rhetoric that has become less common in the GOP under Trump.

“My message to President Putin … is simple,” Biden said. “We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.”

 

Ukraine aid has become tied up in Congress, in part because some Trump-aligned Republicans believe the United States should focus more on domestic issues than the overseas conflict.

Biden also did not spare Trump on Russia, hammering him over his recent comments that he would encourage Russia to do whatever they want to a NATO country if that country was not paying enough for defense. “Bowing down to a Russian leader,” Biden said. “I think it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous and it’s unacceptable.”

The age matter

With polls showing many voters concerned about his age, Biden, 81, did not shy away from the topic.

“I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while,” Biden said jokingly. “And when you get to my age certain things become clearer than ever before.”

 

He then referenced his age to contrast his optimism for America with Trump’s view, nodding at the fact that Trump is just four years younger than he is.

 

“Now other people my age see it differently — an American story of resentment, revenge and retribution,” Biden said. “That’s not me.” 

 

-The Washington Post