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Friday, February 28, 2025

State of the Union: Biden vows to halt Russia, hit inflation

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1094 days ago
20220302

By ZEKE MILLER and COLLEEN LONG | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

 

WASH­ING­TON (AP) — Ad­dress­ing a con­cerned na­tion and anx­ious world, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden vowed in his first State of the Union ad­dress Tues­day night to check Russ­ian ag­gres­sion in Ukraine, tame soar­ing U.S. in­fla­tion and deal with the fad­ing but still dan­ger­ous coro­n­avirus.

Biden de­clared that he and all mem­bers of Con­gress, what­ev­er their po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences, are joined “with an un­wa­ver­ing re­solve that free­dom will al­ways tri­umph over tyran­ny.” He asked law­mak­ers crowd­ing the House cham­ber to stand and salute the Ukraini­ans as he be­gan his speech. They stood and cheered.

It was a no­table show of uni­ty af­ter a long year of bit­ter ac­ri­mo­ny be­tween Biden’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic coali­tion and the Re­pub­li­can op­po­si­tion.

Biden’s 62-minute speech, which was split be­tween at­ten­tion to war abroad and wor­ries at home — re­flect­ed the same bal­anc­ing act he now faces in his pres­i­den­cy. He must mar­shal al­lied re­solve against Rus­sia’s ag­gres­sion while tend­ing to in­fla­tion, COVID-19 fa­tigue and sag­ging ap­proval rat­ings head­ing in­to the midterm elec­tions.

Aim­ing to build on mo­men­tum from the speech, Biden will head to Wis­con­sin on Wednes­day in an ef­fort to show Amer­i­cans that his do­mes­tic agen­da is work­ing. His vice pres­i­dent and Cab­i­net mem­bers will fan out around the coun­try to am­pli­fy the mes­sage.

Biden heads again to an old bridge set to be re­paired — in­creas­ing­ly a sym­bol for his ad­min­is­tra­tion, tan­gi­ble ev­i­dence of the na­tion that he’s work­ing to up­date. This time, it’s a wrought-iron bridge that con­nects Du­luth, Min­neso­ta, and Su­pe­ri­or, Wis­con­sin, across the St. Louis Bay.

The bridge will be re­placed us­ing funds from the mas­sive in­fra­struc­ture plan signed in­to law last year, a sig­na­ture piece of bi­par­ti­san leg­is­la­tion and proof — Biden says — that the GOP and De­moc­rats can still work to­geth­er.

In Tues­day’s speech, Biden high­light­ed the brav­ery of Ukrain­ian de­fend­ers and a new­ly rein­vig­o­rat­ed West­ern al­liance that has worked to rearm the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary and crip­ple Rus­sia’s econ­o­my through sanc­tions. He ac­knowl­edged costs to the Amer­i­can econ­o­my, as well, but warned omi­nous­ly that with­out con­se­quences, Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s ag­gres­sion wouldn’t be con­tained to Ukraine.

“Through­out our his­to­ry we’ve learned this les­son – when dic­ta­tors do not pay a price for their ag­gres­sion, they cause more chaos,” Biden said. “They keep mov­ing. And the costs and threats to Amer­i­ca and the world keep ris­ing.”

As Biden spoke, Russ­ian forces were es­ca­lat­ing their at­tacks in Ukraine, hav­ing bom­bard­ed the cen­tral square of coun­try’s sec­ond-biggest city and Kyiv’s main TV tow­er, killing at least five peo­ple. The Babi Yar Holo­caust memo­r­i­al was al­so dam­aged.

Biden an­nounced that the U.S. is fol­low­ing Cana­da and the Eu­ro­pean Union in ban­ning Russ­ian planes from its air­space in re­tal­i­a­tion for the in­va­sion of Ukraine. He al­so said the Jus­tice De­part­ment was launch­ing a task force to go af­ter Russ­ian oli­garchs, whom he called “cor­rupt lead­ers who have bilked bil­lions of dol­lars off this vi­o­lent regime.”

“We are com­ing for your ill-be­got­ten gains,” he said, pledg­ing that the U.S. and Eu­ro­pean al­lies were af­ter their yachts, lux­u­ry apart­ments and pri­vate jets.

Biden piv­ot­ed in his speech from the trou­bles abroad to those at home. Even be­fore the Russ­ian in­va­sion sent en­er­gy costs sky­rock­et­ing, prices for Amer­i­can fam­i­lies had been ris­ing, and the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to hurt fam­i­lies and the coun­try’s econ­o­my.

Biden out­lined plans to ad­dress in­fla­tion by rein­vest­ing in Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pac­i­ty, speed­ing sup­ply chains and re­duc­ing the bur­den of child­care and el­der­care on work­ers.

“Too many fam­i­lies are strug­gling to keep up with the bills,” Biden said. “In­fla­tion is rob­bing them of the gains they might oth­er­wise feel. I get it. That’s why my top pri­or­i­ty is get­ting prices un­der con­trol.”

In one sign of na­tion­al progress on the pan­dem­ic, Biden en­tered the House cham­ber with­out a mask, as coro­n­avirus cas­es de­cline, and new fed­er­al guid­ance tries to nudge the pub­lic back to pre-pan­dem­ic ac­tiv­i­ties. But there was ev­i­dence of on­go­ing ten­sion as well: The Capi­tol was new­ly fenced due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns af­ter last year’s in­sur­rec­tion.

Set against dis­qui­et at home and dan­ger abroad, the White House had con­ceived Tues­day night’s speech as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to high­light the im­prov­ing coro­n­avirus out­look, re­brand Biden’s do­mes­tic pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties and show a path to low­er costs for fam­i­lies grap­pling with soar­ing in­fla­tion. But events took a turn to­ward world af­fairs with last week’s Russ­ian in­va­sion of Ukraine and nu­clear sabre-rat­tling by Putin.

As is cus­tom­ary, one Cab­i­net sec­re­tary, in this case Com­merce Sec­re­tary Gi­na Rai­mon­do, was kept in a se­cure lo­ca­tion dur­ing the ad­dress, ready to take over the gov­ern­ment in the event of a cat­a­stro­phe.

The State of the Union is typ­i­cal­ly an ad­dress tar­get­ed to a na­tion­al au­di­ence, but this year’s had the world watch­ing. In an in­ter­view with CNN and Reuters, Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy urged Biden to de­liv­er a strong and “use­ful” mes­sage about Rus­sia’s in­va­sion. In a show of uni­ty, Ukrain­ian Am­bas­sador to the U.S. Ok­sana Markaro­va joined first la­dy Jill Biden in the House gallery for the speech.

In a rare dis­cor­dant mo­ment, Rep. Lau­ren Boe­bert of Col­orado yelled out that Biden was to blame for the 13 ser­vice mem­bers who were killed dur­ing last Au­gust’s chaot­ic U.S. with­draw­al from Afghanistan.

“You put them in. Thir­teen of them,” Boe­bert yelled as Biden men­tioned his late son Beau, a vet­er­an who died from brain can­cer and served near tox­ic mil­i­tary burn pits, used ex­ten­sive­ly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Biden is pur­su­ing leg­is­la­tion to help vet­er­ans suf­fer­ing ex­po­sure and oth­er in­juries.

While the cri­sis in East­ern Eu­rope may have helped to cool par­ti­san ten­sions in Wash­ing­ton, it didn’t erase the po­lit­i­cal and cul­tur­al dis­cord that is cast­ing doubt on Biden’s abil­i­ty to de­liv­er.

A Feb­ru­ary AP-NORC poll found that more peo­ple dis­ap­proved than ap­proved of how Biden is han­dling his job, 55% to 44%. That’s down from a 60% favourable rat­ing last Ju­ly.

Biden used his re­marks to high­light the progress from a year ago — with the ma­jor­i­ty of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion now vac­ci­nat­ed and mil­lions more peo­ple at work — but al­so ac­knowl­edged that the job is not yet done, a recog­ni­tion of Amer­i­can dis­con­tent.

“I have come to re­port on the state of the union,” Biden said. “And my re­port is this: The state of the union is strong — be­cause you, the Amer­i­can peo­ple, are strong. We are stronger to­day than we were a year ago. And we will be stronger a year from now than we are to­day.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, se­lect­ed to give the Re­pub­li­can re­sponse, said Biden’s ad­dress came as a blast from the past with ris­ing in­fla­tion, ris­ing crime and a resur­gent Rus­sia mak­ing it feel more like the 1980s than to­day.

“Even be­fore tak­ing the oath of of­fice, the pres­i­dent said that he want­ed to — quote — make Amer­i­ca re­spect­ed around the world again, and to unite us here. He’s failed on both fronts,” she said.

Biden used his speech to nudge the coun­try back “to more nor­mal rou­tines” af­ter the coro­n­avirus re­shaped Amer­i­can life.

“It’s time for Amer­i­cans to get back to work and fill our great down­towns again,” he de­clared. He said peo­ple will be able to or­der an­oth­er round of free tests from the gov­ern­ment and that his ad­min­is­tra­tion was launch­ing a “test to treat” ini­tia­tive to pro­vide free an­tivi­ral pills at phar­ma­cies to those who test pos­i­tive for the virus.

Where his speech to Con­gress last year saw the roll­out of a mas­sive so­cial spend­ing pack­age, Biden this year large­ly repack­aged past pro­pos­als in search of achiev­able mea­sures he hopes can win bi­par­ti­san sup­port in a bit­ter­ly di­vid­ed Con­gress be­fore the elec­tions.

The pres­i­dent al­so high­light­ed in­vest­ments in every­thing from in­ter­net broad­band ac­cess to bridge con­struc­tion from No­vem­ber’s $1.2 tril­lion bi­par­ti­san in­fra­struc­ture law as an ex­am­ple of gov­ern­ment reach­ing con­sen­sus and de­liv­er­ing change for the na­tion.

As part of his pitch to vot­ers, he al­so put a new em­pha­sis on how pro­pos­als like ex­tend­ing the child tax cred­it and bring­ing down child-care costs could bring re­lief to fam­i­lies as prices rise. He was said his cli­mate change pro­pos­als would cut costs for low­er- and mid­dle-in­come fam­i­lies and cre­ate new jobs.

Biden called for low­er­ing health care costs, pitch­ing his plan to au­tho­rize Medicare to ne­go­ti­ate pre­scrip­tion drug prices, as well as an ex­ten­sion of more gen­er­ous health in­sur­ance sub­si­dies now tem­porar­i­ly avail­able through the Af­ford­able Care Act mar­ket­places where 14.5 mil­lion peo­ple get cov­er­age.

Biden al­so ap­pealed for ac­tion on vot­ing rights, which has failed to win GOP sup­port. And as gun vi­o­lence ris­es, he re­turned to calls to ban as­sault weapons, a blunt re­quest he hadn’t made in months. He called to “fund the po­lice with the re­sources and train­ing they need to pro­tect our com­mu­ni­ties.”

He led Con­gress in a bi­par­ti­san trib­ute to re­tir­ing Supreme Court Jus­tice Stephen Brey­er and high­light­ed the bi­og­ra­phy of fed­er­al judge Ke­tan­ji Brown Jack­son, his nom­i­nee be the first Black woman on the high court.

___

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Dar­lene Su­perville, Fa­ti­ma Hus­sein, Ri­car­do Alon­so-Zal­divar and Lisa Mas­caro in Wash­ing­ton and Ja­son Dearen in New York con­tributed to this re­port.

COVID-19PoliticsUnited StatesEconomyRussiaUkraineUnited States of America


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