Biden faces hostile lawmakers, skeptical voters in State of the Union
speech
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[February 07, 2023]
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will face Republicans
who question his legitimacy and a public concerned about the country's
direction in Tuesday's State of the Union speech that is expected to
serve as a blueprint for a 2024 re-election bid.
In what will be his first address to a joint session of Congress since
Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, Biden is
expected to explain how he is trying to reshape the post-pandemic
economy, highlight massive infrastructure and inflation bills passed in
2022, and stress that a bitterly-divided Congress can still make laws in
the year ahead.
"I want to talk to the American people and let them know the state of
affairs... what I'm looking forward to working on from this point on,
what we've done," Biden told reporters on Monday after returning from
presidential retreat Camp David, where he spent the weekend working on
the speech.
Aides to Biden say the primetime speech, which will draw millions of
viewers and perhaps the president's largest television audience of the
year, is a key milestone ahead of the second presidential campaign he is
expected to launch in the coming weeks.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Feb/07/images/ads/current/atlantabank_quarter_LUAL_2022.png)
Biden turned 80 in November and, if re-elected, would be 82 at the start
of a second term, a fact that concerns many Democratic voters, recent
polls show.
One area he will ask Congress to work together on is to toughen
regulations on the technology sector - including what the administration
perceives as a need for stronger privacy protections, one aide said.
NOT NEGOTIATING ON DEBT
Biden will face a rambunctious and splintered gathering of Republican
lawmakers, eager to put their conservative mark on U.S. policy following
four years of Democratic control of the House.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy will sit behind Biden for the address for the
first time. The two are at loggerheads over the $31.4 trillion debt
ceiling, which must raised in the coming months to avoid a default.
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![](../images/020723PIX/news_p4.jpg)
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers the
State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the
U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, U.S, March 1, 2022. Saul Loeb/Pool
via REUTERS/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Feb/07/images/ads/current/library_lda_EDUCATION_2023.png)
Some House Republican lawmakers have questioned Biden's victory in
the 2020 presidential race against former President Donald Trump and
have indicated they plan to investigate his Cabinet and family. But
with a razor-thin majority and intraparty divisions, Republicans had
a difficult time electing a speaker and are expected to continue to
struggle to unite their far-right and more moderate members on
legislation.
Biden will insist during his speech that raising the debt limit is
not negotiable and should not be used as a "bargaining chip" by
lawmakers, National Economic Council director Brian Deese said
Monday.
McCarthy on Monday called on Biden to agree to compromises and
spending cuts, adding that "finding compromise is exactly how
governing in America is supposed to work and exactly what the
American people voted for."
WEAK UNION?
While the U.S. economy continues to outperform expectations, faith
in Biden is undermined by entrenched political divisions, high
prices and concerns over his age, polls show.
Just four in 10 Americans say the state of the union is strong,
according to a Monmouth University poll published this week, in
which many respondents blamed Washington's problems on a lack of
compromise.
Biden's senior aides plan to use the speech to build an argument
that Biden's policies have helped to stabilize the U.S. economy
following the COVID-19 pandemic and are the way to go to bring down
inflation and boost good-paying jobs.
Biden plans to explain how his strategies "makes a clear contrast to
the trickle-down economic philosophy that has pervaded thinking for
years and decades in the past," Deese said.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting
by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Heather Timmons and Rosalba O'Brien)
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