“Let’s finish the job!” It’s the phrase that a cheerful Joe Biden repeats the most on Tuesday night. Everything indicates during the State of the Union, the presidential speech, that Biden will enter a re-election campaign with those words. “I’ve never been so optimistic before,” he says. ‘Now we are setting out lines for the coming decades!’
The 80-year-old man behind the lectern looks nothing like a politician who has played out. Biden delivers his speech from the throne to the country with energy and power – not normally his strongest points. He throws humor into the battle. “I don’t want to ruin your reputation,” he grins at Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy behind him, “but I look forward to working with you.”
Here stands a Democratic president with confidence. Like a championship-winning soccer team, the cabinet was received at the Capitol in Washington DC — with pats, high fives, and hugs.
The tone of the president on Tuesday evening is alternately light and strong, but above all binding. House Speaker McCarthy would have asked Biden in advance not to lump Republicans in the speech as “MAGA extremists,” after Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.” Biden adheres to that. There is no reference to the former president on Tuesday. The post-Trump era in Washington seems to have arrived, at least for a while.
Successes in the shop window
The State of the Union is the most important and most watched speech by a president. Everything is pulled out of the closet to make it a success. Now is the time to showcase the government’s successes. That’s what the Biden team did with the calculator: lowest unemployment in fifty years, highest drop in gas price in eight years, six months of declining inflation.
While Biden rattles off his success numbers, McCarthy sits there like a boy who wants to be picked up from the ball pit. He claps only when absolutely necessary. For example, when Biden starts talking about the infrastructure law, which was drafted with the support of both Democrats and Republicans.
Many of Biden’s points are at odds with the Republican view. The president is calling for extra money for teachers, a ban on automatic weapons and police reforms. In doing so, he points to the parents of Tire Nichols, the 29-year-old who was killed by five officers in Memphis last month, who were present at the speech.
“Let’s finish the job!” Biden says again, pleading for the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act. That bill is supposed to combat ethnic profiling and ensure that police officers are tracked for misbehavior – a bill that Republicans previously refused to support. “Thank you,” Nichols’ mother shouted, receiving a standing ovation. ‘Thank you.’
Debt ceiling fuss
There is a moment of commotion in the room. The most thorny political issue: the debt ceiling. The government wants to raise the debt ceiling, but the Republicans want Biden to cut government spending in return. Biden publicly puts them in front of the block: “My Republican friends want to hold the economy hostage.”
If the debt ceiling is not raised, a shutdown could ensue, and government services could not be paid. According to Biden, Republicans would rather sacrifice social services for distressed citizens than raise the debt ceiling. “Boo!” sounds from the room. Several Republican members of Congress, including Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene, have called him a liar.
The weak in society are always central to Biden’s speech. With clenched fists, Biden demands a ban on unnecessary costs charged by companies to citizens, including on airline tickets and hotel bookings. He says fines for unpaid credit card bills will be reduced. “And this is just the beginning.”
Biden paints a world that favors the richest and disadvantages the poorest. He speaks out against pharmaceutical companies, the oil industry and demands higher taxes for the very rich. “The tax system is not fair,” Biden says. ‘Not fair!’
New campaign
The contours of a new campaign may have emerged here. If Biden really does run for re-election soon, he will increasingly focus on the working class. “I’m here for you,” he says.
Unlike his speech last year, Biden has turned his gaze inward: on his own country and economy. The war in Ukraine passes by briefly, as does the current diplomatic row with China – not a word about the earthquake and thousands of deaths in Turkey and Syria.
President Joe Biden, who has had his eyes on foreign countries throughout his decades-long career, wants to show Americans that he is there for them first. Forty percent of Americans think their lives have gotten worse since Biden took office two years ago, a poll by The Washington Post in ABC News published on Sunday.
One of Biden’s biggest promises on Tuesday is that the multibillion-dollar new projects stemming from his infrastructure bills will all be built with U.S. raw materials and products. On Wednesday he will travel to Wisconsin to tell his story to the American man. To finish his work, he repeats once again.
