CV NEWS FEED // President Joe Biden delivered his 2024 State of the Union address Thursday to a joint session of Congress just months before voters are set to decide whether the unpopular president receives a second term.
Democratic lawmakers chanted “Four more years” as Biden began his speech at 9:26 EST. The address lasted for one hour and seven minutes.
“Tonight the state of our union is strong and getting stronger,” he said.
‘An Unprecedented Moment’
Biden began on the topics of foreign policy and “threats to democracy,” comparing his speech to the one Franklin D. Roosevelt gave months before the United States entered World War II.
“Hitler was on the march,” Biden said. “War was raging in Europe. Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.”
“[M]y purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either,” he said. “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today.”
Biden called for support for the ongoing war in Ukraine, a matter that has divided members of Congress, especially in recent weeks.
“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” Biden said. “But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself.”
“History is watching,” the president repeated several times. “[J]ust like history watched three years ago on January 6th.”
“Insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy,” he stated. “History is watching.”
‘Unleashed by’ Dobbs
Despite polls consistently showing immigration topping the list of issues most important to American voters, Biden’s speech made no reference to the crisis up to this point. He brought up in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and abortion next.
He motioned to one of his guests, a social worker from Alabama:
Fourteen months ago tonight, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl thanks to the miracle of IVF.
She scheduled treatments to have a second child, but the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state, unleashed by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
She was told her dream would have to wait.
“What her family has gone through should never have happened. And unless Congress acts, it could happen again,” Biden said. “Guarantee the right to IVF nationwide.”
“Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right,” he continued. He then took a swipe at former President Donald Trump, his likely general election opponent.
“[M]y predecessor came to office determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned,” Biden said of Trump. “He’s the reason it was overturned. In fact, he brags about it.”
“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,” Biden pledged.
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A ‘Record’ Economy
Later in his speech, Biden boasted of a “record” economy.
“[O]ur economy is the envy of the world,” he said. “15 million new jobs in just three years — that’s a record!”
The president also claimed that he has “already cut the federal deficit by over one trillion dollars.”
Lawmakers quickly contested his claims about the state of the nation’s economy.
The House Republican Conference noted in an X (formerly Twitter) post that when Biden took office, “the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was a record low of 2.65%.”
“Today that number is 6.88%,” the House Republicans pointed out. “[Bidenomics] has FAILED the American people.”
‘Ready to Fix’ the Border
Well into his speech, Biden finally mentioned the crisis at the country’s southern border, which many critics say his administration helped create. However, the president appeared to place the blame on congressional Republicans.
He called last month’s controversial border bill the “toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country.” Many of the lawmakers in attendance shook their heads in disagreement.
Biden claimed that he is “ready to fix” the border. “Send me the border bill now,” he demanded.
A month ago, a key architect of the bill promised that the “border never closes” under the terms of the proposal. The bill also would have allocated three times more funding toward the Ukraine war effort than toward the U.S. border.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA, interrupted the president while he was talking about the border. She appeared to ask him if he would mention the murder of University of Georgia (UGA) nursing student Laken Riley by an illegal immigrant.
Greene wore a shirt to the speech bearing the words “Say Her Name” as well as pins with Riley’s face and name on them.
In responding, Biden mispronounced the slain 22-year-old’s first name. Many observers noted that he erroneously said “Lincoln” instead of “Laken.” Lincoln Riley is the name of a well-known college football coach.
Biden called Riley “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.”
“But how many of thousands of people have been killed by illegals?” he asked. “To her parents, my heart goes out to [you] having lost children myself,” Biden said. “I understand.”
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A President For All Americans
Toward the end of his speech, Biden weighed in on several other issues.
“Banning books. It’s wrong!” he said.
He indicated his support for the pro-LGBTQ Equality Act and told “transgender” people, “I have your back.”
“We are also making history by confronting the climate crisis, not denying it,” Biden added. “I’m taking the most significant action on climate ever in the history of the world.”
“I will always be a president for all Americans,” he concluded. “I believe in you, the American people. You’re the reason I’ve never been more optimistic about our future!”
Trump Reacts
Throughout Biden’s State of the Union address, Trump posted live reactions on his social media site Truth Social.
“Putin only invaded Ukraine, because he has no respect for Biden,” the former president wrote at the beginning of the speech. “Would have never happened under the Trump Administration, and for four years it didn’t happen!”
Trump wrote that Biden “looks so angry when he’s talking.”
“The anger and shouting is not helpful to bringing our Country back together!” he added.
“Biden talked about the SNICKERS Bars, before he talked about the Border!” Trump later pointed out.
Trump called the aforementioned border bill “a Disaster,” indicating “it would let at least 5,000 Migrants in a day.”
“Biden’s All Electric Car Mandate is a disaster for our Country, but great for China!” Trump wrote when Biden was discussing the “climate crisis.”
Sen. Britt: America is ‘Slipping Away’
Sen. Katie Britt, R-AL, gave the official Republican response to Biden’s speech from her Alabama home.
“I am the proud wife and mom of two school-aged kids,” she said. “I’m worried about their future and the future of children in every corner of our nation.”
She continued:
Like so many families across America, my husband, Wesley, and I just watched President Biden’s State of the Union Address from our living room and what we saw is the performance of a permanent politician who has actually been in office for longer than I have been alive.
Biden was elected to his first term in the U.S. Senate in 1972, ten years before Britt was born.
“President Biden just doesn’t get it,” she said. “He’s out of touch.”
“I just wish he understood what real families are facing around kitchen tables just like this one,” Britt went on:
The country we know and love seems to be slipping away and it feels like the next generation will have fewer opportunities and … freedoms than we did. I worry that my own children may not even get a shot at living their American dreams.
Right now, the American dream has turned into a nightmare for so many families. The true, unvarnished state of our union begins and ends with this: our families are hurting.
“Our country can do better,” she stressed. “And you don’t have to look any further than the crisis at our southern border to see it.”
“President Biden inherited the most secure border of all time,” the senator noted. “But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations, he halted construction of the border wall, and he announced a plan to give amnesty to millions.”
“We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis, he invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days,” said Britt.
“We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third-World country,” she stated. “This the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it.”
