On March 7, President Joe Biden addressed a joint session of Congress. The president gave his first term’s last State of the Union address. As he attempted to adopt a bipartisan tone during his reelection campaign, Biden found himself criticizing Republicans, a move that was later pointed out by the House Speaker.
Here are some of the speech’s highlights and responses.
1. Words Matter, Not Murders
During the State of the Union address, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) interrupted Biden and asked that he mention the name of Laken Riley, a college student who was killed in Athens, Georgia. She was slain in 2022 by an illegal immigrant while she was jogging on the University of Georgia campus’s trails.
In response, Biden showed Greene a pin bearing the young woman’s name. Then it seemed as though he mispronounced her name, pronouncing it either “Lincoln” or “Lanken,” and then he described her as “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.” Saying that his “heart goes out to” her parents, he spoke with them. “I understand; I lost children myself.”
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) went on CNN after the speech and criticized Biden for saying “illegal.” She said the president “should have said undocumented.” Rep. Chuy García (D-IL) took to X, formerly Twitter, to criticize Biden, saying he was “extremely disappointed” that he said “illegal.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said, “Let me be clear: No human being is illegal.”
2. Bidenomics Dead
There was a time when the Biden administration coined the term “Bidenomics” to describe the state of the economy. Oddly, they coined the phrase at a time when analysts predicted the US will enter a recession and inflation was still abnormally high.
Experts concur that the economy has recovered and that those days are (for the most part) behind us. Despite improvements in many economic metrics, Americans continue to be burdened by high costs. Biden hyped up the current situation and fully abandoned the tried-and-true “Bidenomics” shtick.
At one point, Biden attacked the media and called the economic recovery, “the greatest comeback story never told.”
But voters continue to reject it.
3. Republicans Didn’t Like It
Biden criticized Republicans on a number of fronts, including their inability to approve tax breaks for the wealthy and a border security bill. Throughout the speech, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), who was frequently observed shaking his head behind Biden, referred to it as “vitriolic” and “hyper-partisan.”
Republicans who heckled the president were excused by the speaker, who said there was a lot of emotion in the room. In agreement, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) called it a “partisan stump speech.”
