State of the Union 2023: Five takeaways from Biden’s speech

Joe Biden provided an animated and sometimes combative State of the Union speech at a turning point for his presidency. It came as he is poised to launch a re-election campaign and is handling Republicans managing one chamber of Congress for the very first time.

Here are 5 crucial takeaways from his night in the spotlight, talking to a greatly divided Congress and an audience of 10s of countless Americans.

The Chinese security balloon was a big story in America over the weekend, however it got hardly a reference from the president, in the bottom 3rd of his speech.

“As we explained recently, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to secure our nation,” he said. “And we did.”

And that was it for the balloon talk.

The other huge diplomacy story of the previous year, Russia’s intrusion of Ukraine, likewise got little attention. The president invited Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, seated in the gallery, and declared allied assistance for the country. But he did not utilize the chance to require brand-new help to the war-torn country.

The president made no reference whatsoever of the current earthquake in Syria and Turkey – and the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding. Instead, the president’s focus was controlled by domestic issues.

There’s a stating that Americans just appreciate diplomacy when United States soldiers are passing away overseas. Joe Biden, in this speech a minimum of, appears to have actually taken that to heart.

What Americans do appreciate, according to popular opinion studies, is the economy. And they, by and big, think the country is still having a hard time. If the country is recovering, they’re not feeling it yet.

Mr Biden’s speech was a high-profile effort to change their minds and, in doing so, boost his chances of re-election.

He spoke about record-low unemployment. He said that inflation and high energy prices, which have been a lead weight on his approval ratings for the past 18 months, are now declining. And he discussed all the ways his legislative accomplishments to date will help improve the country’s industrial base.

Then he pivoted to a refrain he would use again and again – that it was time to “finish the job” and pass new legislation to improve the economy. It was an effort to cast eyes toward the future and offer a vision he can offer to Americans wondering what an 80-year-old president has left in the tank.

But if Mr Biden wants to finish the job in this political environment, he will need Republican help.

The new face behind Joe Biden in this State of the Union address was Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. And he served as a fairly accurate barometer of Mr Biden’s attempts to convince Republicans that they could be his partners in job-finishing.

When the president boasted about the bipartisan accomplishments during his first two years in office, Mr McCarthy politely clapped and even cracked an occasional smile. The president noted co-operation on infrastructure spending, high-tech investment in microchip manufacturing, military aid to Ukraine, federal protections for gay marriage and electoral reform, among other topics.

“We’re often told that Democrats and Republicans can’t work together,” he said. “But over these past two years, we proved the cynics and the naysayers wrong.”

Those naysayers are predicting that not much will get done of substance in the coming year, as Republicans and Democrats clash over policy priorities. But for at least a few minutes, the president and the speaker played nice – and offered hope that gloomy predictions might be wrong.

It didn’t take long for all that to come crashing down, however, when Mr Biden turned his attention to raising the debt limit.

On that topic, Mr Biden and House Republicans are engaging in a high-stakes game of chicken with the US economy at stake. And the president, in his speech, showed no sign of blinking – and may have actually poked his Republican counterparts in the eyes.

Referencing Republican demands to link a debt-limit increase to spending cuts, Mr Biden noted that no president added more to the national debt than his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Republicans responded to that line with hoots of derision.

He then tried to link Republican demands on the debt limit to some conservative proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare – the popular government-run retirement and health insurance programmes.

Mr McCarthy scowled, and Republicans howled in anger. Toward the back of the chamber, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – who had earlier paraded around the halls of Congress with a white balloon – stood and shouted that the president was a “liar”.

Earlier in the day, the House speaker had reportedly cautioned his fellow Republicans to hold their tongues and observe congressional decorum. It was, it turns out, a futile effort – and a telling indication of the partisan animosity that courses through this Congress.

Like every State of the Union address, Mr Biden’s speech also included a laundry list of proposals, most of which have little chance of becoming law.

Two of them – police reform and brand-new gun-control legislation – were represented in the chamber by his guests in the gallery, the parents of Tyre Nichols and a hero from the Monterey Park mass shooting in California.

He spoke emotionally about the need for progress on these two issues, pointing to his guests to drive home his points.

“All of us in the chamber, we need to rise to this moment,” he said. “We can’t turn away.”

Introducing the parents of Mr Nichols, who died after being beaten by five police officers in Memphis, the president implored lawmakers to overhaul policing.

Tyre’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, and stepfather, Rodney Wells, stood when Mr Biden mentioned them during his address.

“As many of you personally know, there are no words to describe the heartache of losing a child, but imagine, imagine if you lost that child at the hands of the law,” Mr. Biden said.

The reality, however, is that neither police reform nor gun control has actually much chance of success. There is a better chance Congress will tackle the “junk fees” the president railed against, including bank surcharges, resort fees and airline seating charges.

American politicians might not be able to agree on how to address cops brutality and gun violence however nobody likes Ticketmaster “benefit” charges.