State of the Union: Joe Biden to test message with divided Congress as he eyes 2024
- Joe Biden will deliver the second State of the Union of his presidency on Tuesday
- Polls show well under half of Democrats want Biden, 80, to seek a second term
US President Joe Biden will get to test drive his 2024 campaign message in front of the nation when he delivers his State of the Union address.
The speech is set for 9pm EST on Tuesday (10am Wednesday, Hong Kong time), and will be broadcast by the major US networks and cable news TV channels.
Though Biden has yet to officially announce his re-election run, he has begun the year by using a sharper tone against Republicans at a series of campaign-style events. His address to a joint session of Congress is an opportunity to tout his achievements and contrast himself with his opponents before tens of millions of voters.
Biden will deliver his second State of the Union under very different political circumstances than his first, though he is riding high off two recent headline-grabbing events.
On Friday, the US reported a blowout jobs report that exceeded expectations and on Saturday the US military downed an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
Taken together the two events affirm key tenets of Biden’s economic and foreign policy stances: that the economy remains strong and is more likely to experience a soft landing rather than recession and that a tougher US posture toward China is warranted.
Republicans attack Biden for waiting to shoot down Chinese balloon
Yet Biden, 80, also faces renewed scrutiny over whether he should seek four more years in the White House or hand over the keys to a new generation of leaders. That will make it imperative for him to explain to the public why he deserves to remain in power.
More than six in 10 Americans do not believe he has accomplished much as president, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, and a majority of Democrats do not think he should run for re-election, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey showed.
On Friday, Biden lauded a report showing the nation added 517,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level in five decades.
“Put simply, I would argue the Biden economic plan is working,” he said.
That swagger was again on display Saturday as Biden, clad in his signature dark aviator sunglasses, answered reporters’ questions about the balloon by simply saying “We’re going to take care of it”, hours before an F-22 fighter jet destroyed it.
Still, his handling of the Chinese aircraft is a fresh partisan flashpoint, as Democrats praise his decision to wait until the aircraft was over Atlantic waters to minimise the likelihood of casualties while Republicans argue that it should have been downed earlier.
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‘A clear overreaction’: Beijing rebukes Washington for shooting down Chinese balloon
Meanwhile, the president faces a hostile Republican House majority that is forcing a high-stakes showdown over the nation’s debt limit and pledging to investigate his administration, family and possession of classified records – the latter of which is the subject of a special counsel probe. Those conflicts will shadow the expected launch of Biden’s 2024 campaign this spring.
Biden plans to deliver an optimistic message, promoting the many legislative accomplishments from his first two years in office, according to a White House official, such as his sweeping climate and health law that passed in 2022 and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure package.
Biden will also look ahead to the coming year, the official said. But with slim hopes for passing bipartisan legislation through the Republican House, the White House is focusing its work on implementing laws already on the books.
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The president is also expected to speak about the nation’s economic resilience in the face of inflation. Separately, even before the downing of the balloon, Biden had planned to address competition with China in the speech, the official said.
Biden defied the odds by leading Democrats to a stronger-than-expected November midterm performance but still faces political challenges ahead of a re-election run, from persistently poor polling to lingering questions about his age.
Roughly 53 per cent of Americans disapprove of how Biden is handling his job as president, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average, a number his team would like to bring down in order to improve his chances of winning a second term.
Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and Cabinet officials plan to leave Washington to tour the country following the address, highlighting his achievements at more than two dozen events in 20 states.
Biden is also expected to highlight international support for Ukraine as some Republicans in Congress have voiced scepticism about further US aid. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the speech, cautioned the speech text continues to evolve and the contents could change.
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Those are all issues on which Biden will need to work with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to advance his goals. Both men met last Wednesday for the first time since Republicans took over the House. There were no breakthroughs on the debt-ceiling fight, but the two men agreed to continue talks.
During the State of the Union, the Speaker sits behind the president on the rostrum. McCarthy’s reactions to Biden will be well scrutinised. In 2020, the last time a Speaker from an opposing party attended a president’s State of the Union, Nancy Pelosi tore up a copy of Donald Trump’s speech as he concluded.
In a sign cooperation with Republicans will not be easy for Biden, the House Oversight Committee plans to hold a hearing the day after the State of the Union on Twitter’s decision to restrict access to a story about Hunter Biden, the president’s son, in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign.
