Shawn Thew / AP
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Washington. Standing at left is Vice President Kamala Harris and seated at right is House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
Sunday, March 10, 2024 | 3 a.m.
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After years of reaching across the aisle and inviting Republican lawmakers to work with him on addressing the concerns of everyday Americans, President Joe Biden laid down the gauntlet to the GOP on Thursday night.
In a fiery State of the Union address delivered before both houses of Congress, U.S. Supreme Court justices, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, foreign dignitaries and special guests, Biden showed Americans (and worried Democrats) that he is up for the fight and capable of the job.
Taken as a whole, the speech was an invitation to the American people to help Biden realize a bright and optimistic future for all Americans. But it was also a wakeup call for Congress that the president is determined to overcome Republican obstructionism and tackle the current unprecedented moment in history in which “freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time.”
As commander-in-chief, his message to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was simple: “We will not walk away.”
While making it clear that he was fully committed to protecting American interests in Europe by defending Ukraine from Russian aggression, Biden warned the assembled guests that, if allowed to succeed in Ukraine, Putin would only be emboldened.
“If anybody in this room thinks (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will stop in Ukraine, I assure you he will not,” Biden said.
In the face of that reality, Biden called on Congress to provide further funding to outfit, train and equip a Ukrainian military that has already proven its resiliency and mettle but which is in desperate need of weapons, ammunition and other supplies.
Sadly, in response to these calls to defend freedom and democracy, Biden was greeted with near silence from Republican lawmakers.
House Speaker Mike Johnson offered an affirming head nod — a literal nod to the fact that Biden was echoing words once spoken by Johnson at the outset of the Russian invasion.
Johnson’s sentiments, once a source of unity across partisan lines, have long since been abandoned by a feckless and cowardly GOP that surrendered control of the party to former President Donald Trump and is ready to surrender control of the free world to Putin and his allies in China, Iran and North Korea.
As Biden recalled in Thursday’s speech, “Wasn’t long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’ Now, my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, ‘do whatever the hell you want.’ ”
Republican members of Congress booed Biden for having the audacity to accurately quote their idol in a way that makes Trump look bad. The heckling and boos continued throughout the night as House Republicans repeatedly demonstrated why they are the least productive, most “do nothing” Congress in modern U.S. history.
In a credit to his still-agile mind, Biden took the opportunity to turn the tables by accurately calling out the House GOP’s decision to kill a bipartisan border bill that met almost every major conservative demand.
During the exchange in which House Republicans tried to shout him down, the president smiled with the vibrancy of a much younger man and shot verbal daggers back at them by asking, “Oh, you don’t like that bill, huh? That conservatives got together and said it was a good bill? I’ll be darned. That’s amazing.”
Biden’s point was clear. The bipartisan border bill was the brainchild of Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma — not exactly a bleeding-heart liberal — and was celebrated by numerous GOP senators as one of the best compromises ever offered on immigration. It was a deal that had never been seen before and is unlikely to be seen again. Yet House Republicans were more focused on beating Biden than solving problems.
Making the border more secure would be good for Americans, but it would also be a win for Biden, so they killed the bill and then blamed the president for doing nothing about border security.
As the speech continued, Biden offered something for nearly all Americans in his policy proposals — he touched on inflation, homeownership, rent, drug pricing, Social Security, Medicare and more.
While Trump fights continuous legal battles, makes unhinged posts to social media, and promises vague sentiments of making America great, Biden is providing specific policy proposals that will increase the safety, security and prosperity of all Americans. He’s offering a truly inspirational vision of a future in which everyone has the opportunity to thrive.
All of which is to say that the State of the Union revealed much about the state of American politics.
Despite concerns about his age, Biden proved to be agile and sharp.
Meanwhile, House Republicans remain ignorant, petty, shameful and obstructionist. At every turn they were bested by the competence, compassion, integrity and intellect of the current president and hamstrung by the petty greed and drooling malice of the former one.
If nothing about this dynamic changes significantly in the next eight months before Election Day, voters should have an easy choice: elect Biden, who is an admittedly imperfect candidate, but one who has delivered remarkable accomplishments, believes in basic human decency and takes America’s responsibility to safeguard freedom and democracy seriously. Or, elect Trump, an insurrectionist, liar and grifter who has already promised to turn the world over to dictators and authoritarians while dismantling the U.S. Constitution.
