President Biden urged unity during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, but there was little of that on display in a raucous chamber where the president was heckled by a number of newly empowered House Republicans.
Biden’s speech was a blend of a victory lap over his first two years in office and a pitch to voters about what he would do with six more years if he were re-elected in 2024. The president rattled off a list of bipartisan legislation that he argued had revitalized the economy and shown the government can work for the public, while urging a newly divided Congress to “finish the job.”
“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together and find consensus on important things in this Congress as well,” Biden said. “I think the people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere. And that’s always been my vision of our country, and I know it’s many of yours.”
He touted his work to improve the U.S. economy early in the address, noting that the January jobs report released last week showed unemployment dropped to 3.4 percent and that gas prices are down $1.50 a gallon from their peak.
And, he touted the passage of the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law, taking a stab at Republicans who voted against the legislation but have celebrated projects it funds.
But even as he urged unity, Biden also put GOP lawmakers on the spot when he suggested that they wanted cuts to Social Security and Medicare, which became an unusual moment of live back-and-forth on the issue that culminated in an apparent agreement.
“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans — some Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to sunset. I’m not saying it’s the majority,” Biden said.
One Republican – Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, yelled “liar” toward Biden after those remarks, which drew boos and from Republicans in attendance. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) shook his head as he sat next to Vice President Harris behind Biden, for the first time as Speaker of the House.
A section from President Biden’s State of the Union address that aimed to ding Republicans on plans to cut Social Security turned into an unusual moment of live policy discussion — and apparent agreement — during the annual speech.
“Some Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to sunset,” Biden said.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) shook his head as many Republicans yelled “no,” and some yelled “liar.”
“Anybody who doubts it, contact my office, I’ll give you a copy of the proposal,” Biden said in an ad-libbed line as Republicans continued to shake their heads and boo.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) stood up and pointed her finger at Biden, and yelled “liar” after she sat down.
Some Republicans have floated entitlement reform ideas like raising the Social Security retirement age, but McCarthy has repeatedly said that changes to entitlements are not on the table during debt limit negotiations. Republicans have called for discretionary spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt limit, with an expected early June deadline.
“Well, I’m glad to see — and now, I tell you, I enjoy conversion,” Biden said in reaction, prompting laughs.
“Other Republicans say – I don’t think it’s a majority of you, I don’t even think it’s a significant…”
Jeers from GOP members asking Biden to say a name interrupted him.
“But it’s being proposed by individuals,” Biden said. “I’m politely not naming them, but it’s being proposed by some.”
Calls of “liar” continued and then lightly died down, as McCarthy slightly shook his head and appeared to softly shush his fellow Republicans.
“So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?” Biden said.
“Alright,” he added, with a thumbs-up.
Democrats and some Republicans stood up to cheer.
“Let’s all agree — and we apparently are — let’s stand up for seniors,” Biden said.
McCarthy rose from his seat and applauded, as did members of both parties.
“We will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare,” Biden said. “If anyone tries to cut Social Security — which apparently they’re not going to do — and if anyone tries, and Medicare, I’ll stop them. I’ll veto it.”
Members of Congress gave a standing ovation to the parents of Tyre Nichols during the State of the Union address in one of the most bipartisan and dramatic moments of the night.
RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’s mother, and her husband, Rodney Wells, Nichols’s stepfather, were present for the address a week after the funeral for the 29-year-old Nichols, who died after being brutally beaten by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop.
As President Biden spoke her son’s name, RowVaughn Wells applauded him and could be seen telling him, “Thank you.”
“Here’s what Tyre’s mom shared with me when I asked her how she finds the courage to carry on and speak out,” Biden said Tuesday after introducing the couple. “With faith in God, she said her son ‘was a beautiful soul and something good will come from this.’”
Biden made a point about how the parents of Black children must address the issue of how they are treated by police. Nichols was Black, as are the five police officers who face criminal charges for their beating of him.
“Imagine having to worry whether your son or daughter will come home from walking down the street or playing in the park or just driving their car,” said Biden, who made a case for police reform during the address.
“Most of us in here have never had to have the talk with our children that so many Black and Brown families have had with their children: If a police officer pulls you over, turn your interior lights on right away. Don’t reach for your license. Keep your hands on the steering wheel,” he said.
Nichols died on Jan. 10, three days after police beat him. Harrowing video footage was released to the public on Jan. 27, leading to new calls for police reform.
Police reform was top of mind for members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), who met with the president last week to discuss passing reform. Members also brought families of those who were impacted by police violence.
Biden said officers are asked to be counselors, social workers and psychologists as they respond to drug overdoses, mental health crises and other situations.
Adding “more resources to reduce violent crime and gun crime, more community intervention programs, more investments in housing, education and job training” will prevent violence from breaking out, he said.
And when there is police violence, Biden said, there needs to be accountability.
“I know most cops are good, honorable, decent people,” said Biden. “They risk their lives every time they put that shield on. But what happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often.”
CBC members and Democrats in both chambers have called for police reform since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, even introducing legislation named after Floyd.
While that legislation has stalled in Congress, Biden did sign an executive order banning federal officers from using chokeholds and restricting no-knock warrants.
“Let’s commit ourselves to make the words of Tyre’s mother come true: Something good must come from this,” Biden said.
“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans — some Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to sunset. I’m not saying it’s the majority,” Biden said.
The remarks were met with boos and jeers from the Republicans in attendance, with many shouting “no” and some chiming in with “liar.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) shook his head as he sat behind the president at the podium, beside Vice President Harris.
Greene jabbed a thumbs down in the president’s direction and yelled “liar” after his comments.
“He’s a liar,” she wrote, sharing a tweet about Biden’s Medicare and Social Security mention.
Biden’s State of the Union is his first address before the newly divided Congress, and his first with McCarthy sitting behind him in place of his predecessor, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
The president’s remarks have drawn mixed responses from the crowd, with hefty support from Democrats and bouts of audible dissent from Republicans.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) declined to give her support to President Biden for a potential 2024 White House bid during an interview ahead of his State of the Union speech.
“I got here through a primary process, and out of deep respect for that, I never try to jump ahead of it,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with CNN. “I would enthusiastically support him if he were the Democratic nominee.”
Ocasio-Cortez said she hopes that Biden articulates “big” and “bold” legislative proposals in his address, pointing to plans to tax the rich and curb stock buybacks. She said that Biden needs to lay out ambitious plans for racial justice, climate change and abortion rights.
“In any candidacy, we need to see what the plan is for our future,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Biden has not officially declared his campaign for the White House in 2024, but he has said he intends to run. His speech on Tuesday night is expected to serve as a platform for his reelection bid.
While no Democrat has stepped forward to challenge Biden yet, polling from this week shows that Democratic voters would prefer the party nominate someone else to be the nominee in 2024, a precarious position for an incumbent president to find himself in.
Former President Trump has already launched his campaign for 2024, and other Republicans are expected to enter the contest.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is the designated survivor for President Biden’s State of the Union address, according to a White House official.
Walsh as Labor secretary is the 11th in the presidential line of succession. Walsh is expected to step down from his job in the Biden administration to take over as head of the National Hockey League Players’ Association, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill earlier on Tuesday. He will be the first Senate-confirmed Cabinet official in the line of succession to leave the White House since Biden took office.
The designated survivor tradition involves a member of the president’s Cabinet staying at an undisclosed location during the State of the Union to preserve the government’s succession in the case of a catastrophic incident during the address at the Capitol. Vice President Harris and other Cabinet members are in attendance for the speech.
As Labor secretary, Walsh was at the forefront of Biden’s efforts to fulfill his pledge to be the most pro-union president in history, meeting frequently with union workers, including those on strike.
Walsh played a key role in negotiations between railroad operators and union workers to avoid a strike that officials said would have crippled the U.S. supply chain and damaged the economy. Congress eventually voted to impose a contract to avoid a strike after negotiations initially faltered.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland shared a photograph 45 minutes before the start of the address with fellow members of the Cabinet, with Walsh missing.
“The progress we have made together over the past two years is unmistakable. Looking forward to @POTUS’ State of the Union address tonight. #SOTU,” Halaand wrote. The Interior secretary also shared a photograph of herself and other members of the Cabinet ahead of the last State of the Union.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was the designated survivor for the president’s State of the Union address in 2022. The secretary of Commerce is 10th in the presidential line of succession.
President Biden will try to appeal to Republicans in his State of the Union address, calling on them to work with him over the next two years of a divided Congress.
“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress. The people sent us a clear message,” Biden will say, according to excerpts released by the White House.
This State of the Union address will be Biden’s first in a divided Congress, with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sitting behind him next to Vice President Harris.
The president will refer to the midterm elections, during which Democrats had a better-than-expected result, gaining a seat in the Senate while Republicans narrowly. took the House.
“Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere,” Biden will say, arguing that Democrats and Republicans should work together.
He will add that his vision of the country is to “restore the soul of the nation,” echoing his campaign slogan from his 2020 presidential race. He will add that he wants “to rebuild the backbone of America: the middle class, to unite the country.”
Biden is expected to call on the divided Congress to act on issues that he thinks are likely to garner bipartisan action. Those requests would build on his “unity agenda,” which has four pillars: ending cancer as we know it, delivering on the sacred obligation to veterans, tackling the mental health crisis and beating the opioid and overdose epidemic.
Other brief excerpts released by the White House ahead of Biden’s speech showed he will argue the country was in a demonstrably better position than it was when he took office, pointing to the economic gains since the coronavirus pandemic and the diminishing concerns about the virus itself.
He will also talk about how the country’s democracy is still intact two years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol.
“We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it. That is what we are doing again,” Biden will say, according to excerpts.
And the president is expected to tout his economic agenda, following a January jobs report released last week that showed unemployment dropped to 3.4 percent.
“That’s why we’re building an economy where no one is left behind. Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives,” he will say.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday denied that any “reprisal” or “animus” played a role in his decision to remove Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) from the Commerce Committee.
“He had a temporary assignment on the committee, the way we do things, for two years,” McConnell said in an interview with Fox News. “He could have traded in one of his permanent committees for Commerce and stayed on it.”
“There were others who wanted it,” he added. “And I gave it to two other senators, no particular reprisal in mind, no animus toward Rick Scott at all.”
The GOP leader could unilaterally decide whether Scott and Lee could stay on the Commerce Committee because both also belonged to two other “A-list” committees.
Scott has accused McConnell of retaliating against him and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who was also removed from the Commerce Committee, for challenging his role as the top Senate Republican last year.
“I opposed him because I believe we have to have ideas — fight over ideas — and so he took Mike Lee and I off the committee,” Scott told CNN last week.
He argued that his background makes him particularly suited to serving on the panel, adding, “I don’t think it made any sense.”
However, McConnell said on Tuesday that Sens. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who he allowed to stay on the panel despite also being on two other “A-list” committees, could make a similar argument.
“There were others who wanted a temporary assignment on Commerce, in addition to [Scott],” he said. “I ended up giving it to Sen. Capito and Sen. Lummis, both of whom I think would argue that they too could be good members of the Commerce Committee.”
Former President Trump lashed out on Tuesday at the Club for Growth, a leading conservative group, after he was left off the guest list of its annual donor retreat.
In a post on his social media site, Truth Social, Trump ripped the group as the “Club For NO Growth” and recounted how his ties to the group fell apart after disagreements over his endorsements in high-profile races in Alabama and Ohio last year.
He also blasted the club for initially opposing his candidacy in 2016 before repeating his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him.
“The Club For NO Growth, an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers, fought me incessantly and rather viciously during my presidential run in 2016,” Trump wrote. “They said I couldn’t win, I did, and won even bigger in 2020, with millions of more votes than ‘16, but the Election was Rigged & Stollen.
“They asked to get together on Endorsements of candidates, we did, and had MANY WINS & NO losses. Relationship broke up over my Endorsement of certain great people in Alabama & Ohio. I won them all!”
Trump’s comments came after the Club’s president, David McIntosh, told reporters on Monday that the group had invited several prospective Republican presidential contenders to its annual donor retreat in Florida, but had left Trump off its list. Trump is so far the only declared candidate in the race.
Among those invited to the gathering are former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
“We’ve invited all of the folks listed here,” McIntosh said. “Not Trump. But we’ve invited the others.”
While he hasn’t announced whether he intends to run for the White House in 2024, DeSantis has emerged as an early favorite for the Republican nomination and perhaps the biggest threat to Trump’s hopes of recapturing the White House.
A new poll from the Club for Growth released on Monday showed DeSantis leading Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head 2024 primary match-up, with the Florida governor taking 49 percent of the vote to Trump’s 40 percent.
McIntosh told reporters on Monday that he hoped to have DeSantis deliver one of the keynote speeches at the club’s donor retreat, but said that the Florida governor is still “finalizing his schedule.”
McIntosh also expressed concern about the GOP’s prospects of winning the presidency in 2024 if Trump is once again the nominee, saying that Republicans “should be open to another candidate.”
McIntosh’s comments and Trump’s subsequent attack were the latest signs of just how bitter the relationship between Trump and the Club for Growth has become. While the Club initially opposed Trump in 2016, it eventually rallied to his side in the general election.
After he captured the White House, Trump and the Club formed something of a political alliance, coordinating endorsements in key races.
But things soured last year after Trump and the Club backed opposing candidates in the GOP Senate primary in Ohio. Trump’s decision to rescind his endorsement of former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) in Alabama’s Republican Senate primary also caused friction between him and the Club, which continued to stand behind Brooks.
In November, on the eve of Trump’s latest campaign launch, the Club for Growth released a batch of internal polling that showed DeSantis leading Trump among GOP voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that will kick off the Republican nominating contest next year.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), who just took over as the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is coming under fire from a leading conservative judicial advocacy group after voting last week to advance a batch of President Biden’s judicial nominees.
Carrie Severino, the president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a leading conservative advocacy group, on Tuesday highlighted that Graham broke with every Republican on the Judiciary Committee last week to advance 12 of Biden’s judicial nominees, including Bradley Garcia, whom Biden nominated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and who could be a future Supreme Court pick.
“If the tables were turned, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where a Democrat would break ranks like this,” Severino tweeted.
“I hope that what we saw last week is not a preview of what we can expect from Graham as ranking member for the next two years,” she added.
Graham has long prided himself on his bipartisan approach to confirming judicial nominees, often telling reporters that a president has the right to choose the nominees he wants as long as they are qualified and that “elections have consequences.”
But that collegial approach to Biden’s nominees is raising a red flag with conservatives who worry that Graham may be paving the way for Biden to add another liberal jurist in the mold of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Severino in a follow-up interview with The Hill said that Garcia, who would become the first Latino to serve on the D.C. Circuit, is backed by dark-money liberal groups and has views on religious liberty that raise concerns.
She also criticized the nominee in July for serving as the counsel of record in June Medical v. Russo, challenging Louisiana’s law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
The First Liberty Institute, an organization dedicated to defending religious liberty, said if Garcia’s legal theories presented in the case Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru had been adopted by the Supreme Court, “the door would have opened wide for interference with the independent employment decisions of religious schools.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), who last year served as the ranking GOP lawmaker on the Judiciary panel, grilled Garcia in a questionnaire over having “litigated against Catholic elementary schools” while in private practice by arguing federal courts have the power to intervene in employment decisions involving teachers at religious schools.
Grassley last year also challenged Garcia’s argument in a gun rights case that the Second Amendment’s protections are limited when it comes to firearms training.
Severino said the nominee defended the constitutionality of a ban on transporting handguns outside New York City.
Graham replaced Grassley as the panel’s top-ranking Republican because of term limits set by Senate Republican Conference rules.
Severino noted that when Republicans tried to confirm then-President George W. Bush’s nominee Miguel Estrada as the first Latino member of the D.C. Circuit in 2001, Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee, including Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), who now serves as the Judiciary Committee chairman, blocked him.
Graham urged his Republican colleagues on the Judiciary panel to work with Democrats to move Biden’s nominees.
“Elections have consequences,” Graham said at the committee’s first hearing on judicial nominees last month. “Let’s work together, and we’ll get some nominations moving in the spirit of what we did in the last Congress.”
Graham had voted for every Supreme Court nominee — from Republican and Democratic presidents alike — that came before him until he voted against Jackson last year.
He said the Democrats’ harsh treatment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 had changed his view of the judicial confirmation process.
Severino on Tuesday questioned whether Graham is now returning to the cordial position he previously took on Democratic judicial nominees.
“Sen. Graham said in 2018 that the Left ‘brought out a new side in him.’ But did they really?” she tweeted.
