President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address

President Joe Biden delivered a raucous third State of the Union address that could be among his most important speeches as he seeks reelection.

His list of objectives was long: Tout his accomplishments in office, look ahead to a second-term agenda, allay concerns about his age and fitness, and provide a contrast with Republicans, including his rival Donald Trump.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Catch up on all of the takeaways from Biden’s third State of the Union address.

President Joe Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address, one that could be among the most important speeches he has given during his presidency.

See some of the best photos from the end of the night:

House Republicans criticized former GOP Rep. George Santos’ appearance at the State of the Union last night, which he used as a jumping off point for his primary challenge against Rep. Nick LaLota.

“George Santos is one of the most bizarre people I’ve ever met. I certainly didn’t hug him or greet him with any sort of niceness whatsoever,” said LaLota. “He’s an embarrassment here in Congress. It’s one of the reasons that we led the charge to expel him.”

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, another New York Republican, said he was not surprised by Santos’s announcement. “When it comes to George Santos, there’s very little that surprises I think anyone for that matter. I think that again, you know, he was expelled from this institution, not just by New Yorkers who dislike him. He was expelled because he’s a stain on this institution.”

Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro, another freshman New Yorker, said he didn’t think anything of Santos last night – but noted that the State of the Union should be treated with respect, no matter which party the president belongs to. 

“It’s an honor to be in the chamber to listen to the State of the Union, despite not agreeing with the President’s analysis or his rhetoric, that the place should be treated with a degree of decency – and I didn’t spend any time thinking about his presence,” he said.

President Joe Biden’s reelection team is making a monthlong push to amplify the president’s State of the Union message and build on its infrastructure, kicking off what it’s calling the “I’m on Board” campaign.

“We’re excited to announce our effort to take the President’s message on the road with our March month of action ‘I’m on board’ campaign,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters, pointing to new efforts to “dramatically expand our volunteer engagement, scale up our battleground staff, launch our coalition groups, and invest in new paid media campaigns.”

In the weeks to come, Biden will hit the road and visit key battleground states that he narrowly won in 2020 in hopes of galvanizing voters that will prove crucial to clinching a second term in office.

There are plans for Biden and Harris to travel to every battleground state in the coming weeks, the campaign said Friday.

The president kicks off that travel Friday with a visit to Pennsylvania followed by Georgia on Saturday, putting him on track for another split-screen moment with Donald Trump who will also be in the Peach State. Next week, Biden will head to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, will focus her travel on Arizona and Nevada, in an effort to shore up Latino voters.

The campaign will spend this month “dramatically expanding our brick-and-mortar presence across key states,” said battleground states director Dan Kanninen, including more than 100 new offices and 350 new team members, who will spend the month training volunteers. 

Contrasts with Trump: After Biden spent much of Thursday’s address drawing contrasts with former President Donald Trump, whom he did not name, one of Biden’s top advisers extended that contrast to how they run their respective campaigns. 

“Trump’s bleeding cash. He’s really behind and building an infrastructure that you’d expect to be seeing of a former president. He’s really not focused on building new people to his side,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, a former top White House adviser turned campaign chair. 

Among the voters the Biden campaign is trying to bring into its coalition are those who voted for GOP candidate Nikki Haley, arguing that Trump has dismissed them while the Biden campaign has embraced them.

Ad push: The campaign will also launch a $30 million, six-week paid media campaign on digital and television targeting voters in battleground states. This push will include running ads around highly-watched programming, on Black and Hispanic-owned media outlets, and on sports and cultural channels. That includes ESPN and Comedy Central, which airs The Daily Show, which Jon Stewart has been hosting on Monday nights. The campaign also is planning a push around the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament.

Biden campaign national co-chair Mitch Landrieu described President Joe Biden’s use of the term “illegal” during his State of the Union as a “small mistake” following criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates. 

“He probably should’ve used a different word and I think he would know that. But what you should notice about that is not that he made a small mistake. The big thing that he did right, and this is what this president always does, is express empathy to people,” Landrieu told CNN’s Sara Sidner Friday. 

Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, immediately expressed concern over Biden’s use of the term “illegal” when referring to the suspect in Laken Riley’s killing during Thursday’s State of the Union. 

“Laken Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal … To her parents, I say my heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand,” Biden said as he picked up a pin GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene handed to him earlier Thursday evening.

It was a notable moment for Biden, whose administration has moved away from using the term that’s long been decried as a dehumanizing slur. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed House Republicans for their lack of decorum last night at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, calling their behavior “a complete embarrassment” and framing the divide between Democrats and Republicans as “team get stuff done versus team extreme.” 

“We’re just asking our Republican colleagues to stop the political stunts. That was an embarrassment last night, a complete embarrassment,” Jeffries said at a news conference Friday morning. “We have one message for extreme MAGA Republicans who want to lecture us about decorum, get lost. You’re a joke. Exhibit A Marjorie Taylor Greene, Exhibit B George Santos.”

He praised all aspects of Biden’s speech last night, declaring: “Smokin’ Joe Biden was on fire during the State of the Union address. He was lit” and said that Biden “crushed MAGA extremism” in his speech. 

When pressed on some outrage from House Democrats over Biden’s usage of the term “illegals” last night he dodged, saying, “Joe Biden delivered an incredible speech that was very well received by the American people beginning, middle and end.”  

On expelled former Rep George Santos, Jeffries said: “It is kind of an extraordinary thing this guy won’t go away.”

Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke said that “the bar was set low” for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and that “he stayed within the margins,” but that the substance “pointed towards a far-left agenda.”

“The content was classic tax and spend. The problem is the corporations, the problem is the rich, and the spending never stopped. When you started calculating, well we’re going to pay for mortgages. We’re going to have new programs. We’re gonna have a climate corps. It went on and on and on,” Zinke told Kasie Hunt on CNN This Morning. 

The Republican congressman, who has endorsed Donald Trump in 2024 and previously served in his administration as Interior secretary, did acknowledge that whenever the “president does well, I think that’s in the best interest in the country.”

Looking ahead to the general election, Zinke argued that there’s “an opportunity” for Trump to repair his relationship with Nikki Haley.

“It is how to get the moderate voters back, engaged in our politics,” the congressman said. 

Read more about how other Republicans are reacting to Biden’s State of the Union address.

Rep. Debbie Dingell praised President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, declaring that “the country sees the man that will be president for another four years.” The Michigan Democrat, however, insisted that “we need a ceasefire” and that it’s “just unacceptable that we cannot get humanitarian aid” into Gaza.

“I do not know what’s going on behind closed doors … I think we’ve got to stand up to Netanyahu,” Dingell, who represents significant Arab and Muslim communities, told Kasie Hunt on CNN This Morning.

The congresswoman pushed back on Republican criticism that Biden was overly partisan in his speech, arguing that the president made clear he wants to work with Republicans on border security. 

“This is a man that’s like me. He wants to work across the aisle. He wants to work with everybody,” Dingell said.

The congresswoman did not critique Biden’s use of the term “illegal” during the State of the Union in response to GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene heckling him over the death of former University of Georgia student Laken Riley. 

Catch up on how other Democrats are reacting to Biden’s State of the Union speech.

The Biden campaign had its most lucrative hours of online fundraising since the reelection launch during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday, a campaign official said. 

The 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. hours were the best fundraising hours the campaign has seen with grassroots donors, the official added. Online donations in the 10 p.m. hour exceeded the 9 p.m. hour. The official declined to provide an exact amount raised during the two-hour period.

The Biden campaign previously said it raised $1 million in the lead up to the State of the Union address Thursday and $1.5 million in the 24 hours after Super Tuesday. 

This week’s online hauls come after the campaign saw its strongest grassroots fundraising month of the cycle in February, including raising nearly $2 million in donations on the final day of the month. The campaign and Democratic Party raised at least $42 million in February with exact numbers expected to come later this month.

When President Joe Biden turns to the trail Friday, delivering campaign remarks from the suburbs of Philadelphia, he won’t be the only member of his administration taking their message to the road — starting immediately, members of Biden’s Cabinet and senior administration officials will fan out across the country to highlight his domestic agenda.

Steve Nikoui, the father of a US Marine killed during the 2021 US evacuation from Afghanistan, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night for interrupting the speech, according to a statement by the Capitol Police obtained by the New York Times. 

The Capitol Police warned Nikoui to stop and removed him from the House chamber when he did not.

Nikoui yelled “Abbey Gate” and “United States Marines” toward the end of the president’s speech after Biden said, “America is safer today than the year I took office.”

US Capitol Police confirmed Nikoui’s arrest in a statement to CNN saying, “at approximately 10:15 p.m., a man disrupted the State of the Union Address by yelling. Our officers warned him to stop and when he did not, the man was removed from the House Galleries and was arrested.”

The misdemeanor charge of illegally disrupting Congress carries a $50 fine and is typically resolved without going to court, according to the statement obtained by the Times.

Nikoui is the father of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui who was one of 13 US servicemembers killed in the August 26, 2021, suicide bombing attack on Abbey Gate outside of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Nikoui was a guest of Republican Rep. Brian Mast. Mast posted on X that Nikoui was arrested because he “cried out to Joe Biden to remember his son.”

This version of Joe Biden could beat Donald Trump.

At the State of the Union address on Thursday night, the 81-year-old president set out to defuse his biggest liability: deep-seated fears among millions of Americans that he’s too old to serve a second term.

There is nothing worse for a president than looking weak. So every word, gesture, joke and admonition of Biden’s appearance was geared toward the goal of making him look strong.

And in the most important moment of the 2024 election campaign so far, Biden appeared to succeed.

He projected vigor and forcefulness. His voice, which has seemed reedy at times, was sonorant. He was quick off the mark as he goaded heckling Republicans, who again walked into his trap by showcasing their extremism to millions of viewers.

Biden was a trenchant master of the chamber of the House of Representatives, effectively wielding the theatrics of the presidency and commanding an hour of unfiltered primetime television.

Such an energetic performance from Biden has been in far less evidence as he’s perceptibly aged and been weighed down by the burdens of office.

If he is to overcome the kind of low approval ratings that typically doom first-term presidents, he will have to emulate this performance over and over in the coming months.

Read Collinson’s full analysis of Biden’s State of the Union address.

Here’s how many minutes President Joe Biden spent on the following topics in his third State of the Union address:

Some Democrats applauded President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, while others said he could have gone further on certain issues.

Here’s how they reacted to the speech:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised Biden’s address for laying out “a bold vision” for the future.

“What the American people heard tonight was a leader who spoke directly to them, acknowledging their needs and shared in their hopes for the future, reminding us why America is a beacon of hope to the rest of the world and the work that must be done to maintain that status,” he said in a statement. “President Biden laid out a bold vision to the American people that shows Democrats are working for a safe, stable, strong America – one that prioritizes the needs of working families and leaves no one behind.”

Sen. Joe Manchin applauded Biden’s speech and said he had no issue with it being a political attack at moments against Republicans. 

“It’s a political season,” Manchin said. “What do you expect?”

Manchin said Republican outbursts were ”shameful,” adding “the whole world is watching. We can do better than that.” But Manchin said he was happy to see Biden show voters tonight he is up for the job of another four years. 

Biden “still has a little gas left in the tank,” Manchin said. 

Sen. Mark Warner also commended the president, saying “I thought he showed a lot of energy.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was also complimentary of the address.

“I think he had a lot of energy. I think he was focused and delivered a very certain message to the American people,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN. 

Rep. Gerry Connolly applauded Biden for giving Republicans some grief tonight and argued Biden needs to keep giving Republicans hell on the trail. 

“He reset the narrative. This speech will energize Democrats, it will reassure Democrats who were nervous,” Connolly said. “It will have some political after effects that are all good. The longer term question is OK, but will this be sustained because if it isn’t it’s a lost cause.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman told CNN’s Manu Raju he wishes the president had more directly called for an immediate ceasefire amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza during his address, but commended his criticism of Israel.

“I’m happy that he’s very critical of Israel. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen a president be that critical,” Bowman said.

There was one moment though tonight that caught several Democrats off guard: when Biden used the term “illegals.”

Rep. Delia Ramirez told CNN she was shocked and her phone immediately started to receive notifications.

“That was really discouraging,” Ramirez said. “Listen I am the daughter of immigrants. My husband is undocumented. When you say illegal, you are saying the same word that Marjorie Taylor Greene says over and over and over again in Homeland Security. We can’t use words like that because words matter. It was really unfortunate. He got flustered yes, but those words should never come out of a President.”

Rep. Chuy Garcia said he is “extremely disappointed” in President Biden for using the word “illegal” in his speech. 

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Ben Cardin said he hoped that Biden’s focus on Ukraine would lead to the passage of supplemental funding for Kyiv.

“When he raised that at the beginning, I’m sitting in the front of the chamber where the Senators sit, and I saw a lot of Republican senators stand to their feet and say, ‘Yea, let’s do this,’” Cardin recounted. “It was one of the areas where there was strong bipartisan reaction from the members of Congress.” 
“It’s our belief that the support is there to pass the supplemental if Speaker Johnson will only let it be voted upon,” Cardin said.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin countered criticism of Biden’s stamina and age.

“He came on strong – not only strengthened his voice but strengthened his ideas,” he added.

The post was updated with more Democratic reactions to Biden’s address.

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address struck many GOP members of Congress as too political. Some Republicans jeered and interrupted Biden during his speech.

Here’s how some Republican lawmakers responded:

House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News that instead of taking responsibility for his record as president, Biden “tried to lay blame.”

Asked about the border portion of Biden’s speech, Johnson said, “He has executive authority, we all know. He could solve that problem right now. He’ s been able to do that for three years, but he won’t.”

Social media users picked up on Johnson’s facial expressions during the speech – shaking his head, rolling his eyes as he sat right behind Biden.

“There’s a lot of memes I guess going around tonight about my facial expressions – I did not like the speech,” Johnson said. “I don’t think the American people liked it, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. I guess I didn’t hide it that very well.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune released a video attacking Biden, arguing the US must “reverse course.”

“No amount of words from the president tonight could have erased the actions he’s taken to undermine America’s economic security, energy security and national security,” he said. “Republicans are eager to lead the way. We have Republican solutions to unleash American energy, strengthen our military to prepare for the rising threats in today’s world, and finally secure the southern border. Unfortunately, for the past three years, we haven’t had a willing partner in the White House to help us achieve these goals.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan sharply criticized Biden’s address as “the most partisan State of Union I’ve been in,” pointing to Biden’s many references to former President Donald Trump.

“Unbelievable amount of reference to his predecessor, which, to me, is kind of the definition of backward looking,” said Sullivan. “So I like speeches that are a lot more forward looking and unifying. But so, yeah, most partisan speech I’ve seen 10 years.”

Sen. Mitt Romney told CNN Biden showed “he has energy and voice” during his address, but he criticized the partisanship in the speech — and on display on the House floor.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the State of the Union has become so political. It’s not just this president, but other presidents. And of course the chants in the room on one side and cat calls on the other, I think that’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way it is today,” Romney said.
“I think the President was able to show that he has energy and voice. I think a lot of us, including me, wondered whether he could only whisper, and he actually had a lot of voice and showed a lot of passion.”

Rep. Garrett Graves said that Biden’s address won’t allay concerns from many voters about the president’s mental acuity. 

“This wasn’t his worst performance but I don’t think that this was the scenario that would necessarily affirm or refute that he was having any dementia issues or things along those lines,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.  

Rep. Bill Huizenga said he wished Republicans wouldn’t yell during the speech.

“I wish we wouldn’t have that. I mean, this is his time. It doesn’t mean I agree with him. But we’ll have our time. We’re having our time now,” Huizenga said.

The post was updated with more Republican reactions to the Biden address.

Delivering the official Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said, “We have the worst inflation in 40 years.” 

Facts First: This claim is false. Britt could have accurately said, in past tense, that inflation was at a 40-year high when it hit its Biden-era peak of 9.1% in June 2022. But inflation has declined sharply since that June 2022 peak, and the most recent available rate, for January 2024, was 3.1%. The Biden presidency aside, that rate was exceeded as recently as 2011 – far less than 40 years ago.  

 Like Britt, former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly ignored the decline in inflation since June 2022 to criticize Biden in the present tense. 

 President Joe Biden claimed during his State of the Union address that the average federal tax rate for billionaires is 8.2%. 

 Facts First: Biden used the 8.2% figure in a way that was misleading. As in previous speeches, Biden didn’t explain that the figure is based on an alternative calculation from economists in his own administration that factors in unrealized capital gains that are not treated as taxable income under federal law. In other words, while Biden made it sound like he was talking about a federal tax rate, he was actually citing a figure that is not based on the way the US tax system actually works at present.  

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the alternative calculation itself; the administration economists who came up with it explained it in detail on the White House website in 2021. Biden, however, has tended to cite it without any context about what it is and isn’t, leaving open the impression that he was talking about what these billionaire families pay under current law.  

So what do the wealthiest billionaire families pay under current law? It’s not publicly known, but experts say it’s more than 8%. 

“Biden’s numbers are way too low,” Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute think tank, told CNN in 2023. Gleckman said that in 2019, University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman “estimated the top 400 households paid an average effective tax rate of about 23 percent in 2018. They got a lot of attention at the time because that rate was lower than the average rate of 24 percent for the bottom half of the income distribution. But it still was way more than 2 or 3,” numbers Biden has used in some previous speeches, “or even 8 percent.” 

 In February 2024, Gleckman provided additional calculations from the Tax Policy Center. The center found that the top 0.1% of households paid an average effective federal tax rate of about 30.3% in 2020, including an average income tax rate of 24.3%. 

A 56% majority of Americans who watched President Biden’s State of the Union address say that his economic policies will move the US in the right direction, according to a CNN Poll of speech watchers conducted by SSRS, with 44% saying that his policies will move things in the wrong direction.

That’s an improvement from a survey conducted in the days before the speech, when 55% of those same people said Biden’s economic proposals would move things in the wrong direction. 

Following last year’s State of the Union, however, a larger 66% majority of those who watched that speech said Biden’s economic policies would move the US in the right direction; in 2022, that number was 62%, and following Biden’s 2021 presidential address, it was 72%.

Positive marks from speech watchers are typical for presidential addresses to Congress, which tend to attract generally friendly audiences. 

About the poll: The CNN poll was conducted by text message with 529 US adults who said they watched the State of the Union on Thursday, and are representative of the views of speech-watchers only. Respondents were recruited to participate before the speech and were selected by a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. Results for the full sample of speech-watchers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points

While delivering the official Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt said that just after taking office in 2021, Biden “suspended all deportations.”  

“President Biden inherited the most secure border of all time. But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations,” she said.

Facts First: This needs context. Hours after taking office, Biden did call for a 100-day pause on deportations, but not “all deportations.”   

The moratorium excluded individuals suspected of terrorism or espionage, among other groups. But, more importantly, the suspension never took effect. A federal judge in Texas immediately blocked the action and it was never revived. 

In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden said that the gap between the amount of goods the US imports from China and the amount it exports to China was the narrowest in more than 10 years. 

“Our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade,” Biden said. “We’re standing up against China’s unfair economic practices.” 

Facts First: What Biden said is true but needs context. The US trade deficit with China in 2023 was $279 billion, the US Commerce Department reported earlier this year. That was the lowest it has been since 2010.  

But the reason for the narrowing trade gap isn’t because of any Biden administration policy. Inflation has driven American consumers away from discretionary purchases, such as electronics – stuff that is primarily made in China. Instead, they’re buying more non-discretionary items, such as groceries. 

On top of that, the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods, which Biden’s administration left in place, have made Chinese goods less popular for Americans, because of the added cost. 

That’s why, for the first time in two decades, the United States imported more goods from a country other than China: Mexico exported more goods to the US than any other country last year.  

 President Joe Biden once again during his State of the Union address touted the impact that the temporary enhancement to the child tax credit – a key provision in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act – had on reducing the poverty rate among children. He called on Congress to bring back the now-expired beefed-up credit. 

“In fact, the child tax credit I passed during the pandemic cut taxes for millions of working families and cut child poverty in half,” he said. 

Facts First: Biden’s assertions are true, though the benefit only lasted for the one year the temporary enhancement was in effect. Child poverty increased in 2022 to a rate higher than in 2020. 

The American Rescue Plan Act, which Democrats pushed through Congress in March 2021, increased the size of the credit for certain families, enabled many more parents to claim it and distributed half of it on a monthly basis. 

 That sent child poverty – as measured by the Supplemental Poverty Measure – to a record low 5.2% in 2021, down from 9.7% in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau. The Supplemental Poverty Measure, which began in 2009, takes into account certain non-cash government assistance, tax credits and needed expenses. 

But in 2022, child poverty soared to 12.4%, roughly comparable to where it was before the pandemic in 2019. It was the largest jump in child poverty since the Supplemental Poverty Measure began. 

More than six in 10 Americans who watched President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address had a positive reaction to the speech, according to a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, with a smaller 35% reacting very positively. 

That pattern of widespread but tempered positivity follows the trend of the reception of Biden’s speech in previous years. Last year, 72% of speech-watchers reacted positively, with 34% saying their reaction was very positive. In 2022, 71% had a positive reaction, with 41% very positive. 

Good marks from speech-watchers are typical for presidential addresses to Congress, which tend to attract friendly audiences. In CNN speech reaction polls dating back to the Clinton era, audience reactions have always been positive. The 34% who reacted very positively to Biden’s speech in 2023 was the lowest in CNN’s speech reaction polls dating back to 1998. 

Over the past two decades, members of the president’s party have been overrepresented in the pool of speech watchers. The pool of people who watched Biden speak was about 7 percentage points more Democratic than the general public.

State of the Union addresses rarely lead to significant shifts in presidential approval among the American public, particularly in recent years. The most recent president to see a post-address approval rating shift of more than 3 percentage points was Barack Obama, following his initial speech to Congress in 2009.

How this poll was conducted: The CNN poll was conducted by text message with 529 US adults who said they watched the State of the Union on Thursday and are representative of the views of speech-watchers only. Respondents were recruited to participate before the speech and were selected by a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. Results for the full sample of speech-watchers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.

In his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Joe Biden said, “A record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses, and each one is a little act of hope.” 

Facts First: Biden’s claim is accurate based on federal data, though there is an important nuance to note.

More than 16.3 million business applications had been filed during the Biden presidency as of February 17, official federal data show, the most over any period of the same length since the data series began in the mid-2000s. It’s worth noting that not all business applications turn into actual businesses. However, so-called “high propensity” business applications — those thought to have a high likelihood of turning into a business with employees — have also set records under Biden.  

The spike in overall business applications began in the second half of 2020 under President Donald Trump and accelerated under Biden in 2021. The number of applications then remained high in 2022 and then narrowly set a new record in 2023. There are various reasons for the pandemic-era boom in entrepreneurship, which began after millions of Americans lost their jobs in early 2020. Among them: some newly unemployed workers seized the moment of disruption to start their own enterprises, Americans had extra money from stimulus bills signed by Trump and Biden and interest rates were particularly low until the series of rate hikes that began in the spring of 2022. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has released a video attacking President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, saying “it was a tough sell and he couldn’t make it.”

McConnell said Sen. Katie Britt did a “fabulous job” delivering the GOP response.

Earlier on Thursday night, the minority leader had refused to answer questions about the speech or Biden’s many references to former President Donald Trump – whom he endorsed yesterday.  

McConnell, who often doesn’t answer questions in the halls, silently walked on and ignored reporters.

The headline and post were updated with details on the video released by McConnell.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi criticized President Joe Biden for referring to an undocumented immigrant accused of killing a Georgia nursing student as “an illegal.”

Biden’s comment came during an impromptu exchange during the State of the Union with GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene while the president was discussing immigration. Greene demanded that Biden say Laken Riley’s name, which he did.

Riley was killed by “an illegal,” the president said. Then he added:

“That’s right. But how many thousands of people are being killed by illegals?
“To her parents I say my heart goes out to you having lost children myself, I understand.”

Pelosi told a CNN panel she disagreed with Biden’s choice of words.

“He should have said ‘undocumented,’” the former speaker said.

Most Americans are not aware of the prescription drug provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats enacted in 2022.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly heralded these measures – particularly Medicare’s historic new power to negotiate the prices of certain expensive medications – as evidence of his work to lower drug prices, one of Americans’ biggest complaints.

He emphasized his administration’s actions again in his State of the Union address on Thursday, saying “Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anywhere else. It’s wrong and I’m ending it.”

However, only 32% of adults in a KFF poll in November said they were aware that there’s a federal law in place that requires the federal government to negotiate the price of some drugs for Medicare enrollees. The Department of Health and Human Services is currently negotiating the prices of 10 costly medications, with the negotiated prices taking effect in 2026. Roughly 8.3 million Medicare Part D enrollees used one or more of these medications between June 2022 and May 2023.

About a quarter of those surveyed were aware that there are federal laws that cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for Medicare enrollees, which took effect last year, and place an annual limit on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for those with Medicare. A $2,000 cap will take effect in 2025.

“In general, people don’t understand why they pay what they pay when they go to fill a prescription,” said Tricia Neuman, executive director of KFF’s Program on Medicare Policy. “So the fact that the amount has changed, they may not attribute to the change in law, which in fact is helping to lower their drug costs.”

Touting the economy during his presidency Thursday, President Joe Biden said, “Unemployment at 50-year lows.”

Facts First: This needs context.

The unemployment rate did hit a five-decade low during two months of early 2023, 3.4%, and it has since remained close to that level — but the latest available unemployment rate, 3.7% for January, is higher than the rate was during nine months under President Donald Trump in 2019 and pre-pandemic 2020. (The rate then skyrocketed on account of the pandemic, and it was 6.4% the month Biden took office in January 2021.) 

President Joe Biden remained in the Capitol for an extended period of time after delivering his State of the Union address on Thursday, taking selfies and shaking hands with members of Congress and other dignitaries well past 11 p.m. ET.

The president remained in the Capitol even through the response to his speech, delivered by GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama in her home kitchen.

Biden was in the chamber for so long that the television lights turned off while the president was still shaking hands.

President Joe Biden’s use of the term “illegals” was notable Thursday.

US immigration enforcement agencies stopped using the term “illegal alien” in official communications shortly after Biden took office. The comprehensive immigration reform bill introduced by Biden in 2021 also proposed removing the word “alien” from US immigration laws, replacing it with the term “noncitizen.”

Shortly after Biden used the term “illegal” during the State of the Union address, in the context of Laken Riley’s alleged killer, Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez posted on X: “No human being is illegal.”

The term “illegal alien,” long decried as a dehumanizing slur by immigrant rights advocates, became even more of a lightning rod during the Trump era—with some top federal officials encouraging its use and several states and local governments taking up measures to ban it.

The White House has fired back against Alabama Sen. Katie Britt after she delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates slammed Britt for opposing the administration’s bipartisan national security supplemental aid package, supporting the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and voting against 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.

“Last month, Senator Britt sided against President Biden, the Border Patrol Union, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by opposing the toughest bipartisan border deal in modern history – instead voting with fentanyl traffickers,” Bates said in a statement.
He said Britt “just sided with Vladimir Putin and the regime in Tehran in opposition to one of our most urgent national security interests.”

Bates specifically criticized Republicans for the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“Because an extreme Supreme Court decision overturned Roe v. Wade and set American women back nearly 50 years – with Senator Britt’s support – women across Alabama were just cut off from IVF treatment and dreams of growing their families,” he said. 

In contrast, he wrote, the president’s remarks displayed a “vision for the future in which our core freedoms are restored, the middle class is the center of our economy, and our nation is more secure.”

White House and campaign officials are, so far, very happy with the president’s State of the Union address on Thursday. Many of their reactions included phrases like “killing it” and “crushing it.”

Aides said Joe Biden had been high energy while he landed his lines, and they enjoyed his moments of banter with Republicans. 

One campaign official said they particularly liked the split screen moments when Biden would mention everyday issues like the administration’s work to remove lead pipes or fight big pharma, and Republican lawmakers in the chamber did not stand up. 

Those kinds of moments, aides believe, help highlight the contrast Biden wanted to paint tonight in his speech — between his vision of America and the GOP’s vision of America.

During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden cited a 2021 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy think tank that found that 55 of the country’s largest corporations had made $40 billion in profit in their previous fiscal year but not paid any federal corporate income taxes.

He said, “Remember in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion and paid zero in federal income taxes. Zero. Not anymore. Thanks to the law I wrote and we signed, big companies have to pay a minimum of 15%.” 

Facts First: Biden’s “not anymore” claim is false, an exaggeration. While his 15% corporate minimum tax will reduce the number of big companies that don’t pay any federal taxes, it’s not true that “not anymore” will any big company – such as the ones on the list of 55 companies Biden mentioned – ever do so. That’s because the minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, only 14 of the companies on its list of 55 non-payers reported having US pre-tax income of at least $1 billion. 

In other words, there will still be some large and profitable corporations paying no federal income tax despite the existence of the tax. The exact number is not known. 

Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told CNN in 2022 that the new tax is “an important step forward from the status quo” and that it would raise substantial revenue. But he also said: “I wouldn’t want to assert that the minimum tax will end the phenomenon of zero-tax profitable corporations. A more accurate phrasing would be to say that the minimum tax will ‘help’ ensure that ‘the most profitable’ corporations pay at least some federal income tax.” 

During his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Joe Biden, as he was discussing the state of the country four years earlier, said more than 1 million American lives were lost to Covid-19, implying it was under the Trump administration  

Facts First: Biden’s figure needs context. Many lives were lost to Covid-19 during the Trump administration, but the US didn’t reach its millionth death until May 2022 when Biden was in office. 

While there were a significant number of lives lost to Covid during the Trump administration, on President Donald Trump’s last full day in office the US death count reached at least 400,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. At that point during the pandemic there had been a winter surge in cases and someone was dying from the virus in the US every 26 seconds, according to KFF, a health policy and research organization. The death rate from Covid-19 in the US at the time was lower than in many other countries, but with the country’s large population, the death numbers exceeded all other countries at that time.  

Officially the US surpassed a million deaths from Covid in May 2022 during the Biden administration. As of this February, more than 1.18 million people in the US have died from Covid-19 according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt slammed President Joe Biden, saying that he is “out of touch” and does not understand the issues facing American families.

Delivering the GOP’s response to Biden’s State of the Union address, Britt said the president’s remarks were a “performance of a perm politician.”

Britt, who is the youngest Republican woman elected to the US Senate, said Biden has been in office for “longer than I’ve been alive.”

Republicans believe having the 42-year-old senator following the 81-year-old president would draw a stark contrast ahead of the November election.

Britt, a rising star in the GOP, delivered the Republican response from her kitchen table in Alabama, one person familiar with the setting tells CNN, as her party tries to draw a stark contrast ahead of the November election.

Britt is speaking from her home state, where the Republican-led legislature scrambled this week to pass legislation after a Supreme Court ruling that imperiled IVF access in the state.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins contributed to this post.

President Joe Biden claimed during his State of the Union address Thursday night that violent crime has fallen to one of its lowest levels in “more than 50 years.”   

Facts First: This is true, at least based on preliminary 2023 data that should be treated with caution. The preliminary 2023 data published by the FBI, running through the third quarter of the year, showed that violent crime was down 8.2% compared to the same period in 2022 — a decline that would be “historically large” for a year, crime data expert Jeff Asher wrote in a December article. The data generally confirms Biden’s description of violent crime falling across the nation, though some communities have seen increases. Asher wrote: “The quarterly data shows violent crime down in big cities, small cities, suburban counties, and rural counties, pretty much across the board.” 

Asher, co-founder of the firm AH Datalytics, told CNN in late February that, if the decline in reported violent crime for the full year of 2023 ended up being greater than 1.6%, 2023 would have the lowest violent crime rate since 1970. The 2022 rate was the second-lowest since 1970, worse than only 2019.  

As always, whether crime is rising or falling, it’s important to note that it is notoriously difficult to pinpoint the reasons that crime has increased or decreased at any given time, since there is a long list of economic, social and political factors at play; the impact of the president is unclear. 

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt criticized President Joe Biden’s stance on securing US borders in the GOP response to his State of the Union address, saying that “our country can do better.”

She said that Biden “inherited the most secure border of all time,” but during his time as president he “didn’t just create this border crisis, he invited it.”

In his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Joe Biden claimed the economy created a record 15 million jobs in the first three years of his term.  

Facts First: Biden’s claim is correct: the US economy added about 14.8 million jobs between Biden’s first full month in office, February 2021, and January 2024, more jobs than were added in any previous four-year presidential term. However, it’s important to note that Biden took office in an unusual pandemic context that makes meaningful comparison to other periods very difficult. 

Biden became president less than a year after the US economy had shed nearly 22 million jobs over two months, March 2020 and April 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The jobs recovery then began immediately after that, under then-President Donald Trump, but there was still an unprecedented hole to fill when Biden took office. 

Nonetheless, Biden is free to argue that his stimulus legislation and other policies have helped the country gain jobs faster than it otherwise would have. The US has had an extraordinarily strong labor market under Biden, and its overall economic recovery from the pandemic has outpaced those of many other major countries.    

South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace called President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech the most “loud and divisive” speeches she’s heard. 

“It was basically one giant playscheme, how’s it going to pay for all that?” Mace told CNN. “Basically it was like a buying votes scheme tonight.” 

Former President Donald Trump’s “play-by-play” response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address rolled out haltingly as Truth Social appeared to have a series of outages during the speech. Many of Trump’s responses were delayed, as he watched Biden with a handful of advisers and aides from a war room set up at his Mar-a-Lago home. 

In between outages, Trump fired off posts mocking Biden’s appearance, his demeanor and his cough.

Trump did respond directly to the substance of parts of the speech amid the personal attacks, often bringing the argument back to immigration and the border.  Trump also addressed Biden’s comments on NATO. 

Trump appeared to get agitated as Biden ramped up his attacks, claiming that inflation under Biden was killing America, and saying that he, Trump, was responsible for any actions helping veterans as well as reduction pricing — he also claimed that Biden wanted to take away “everyone’s gun.”

Trump also attacked various lawmakers who have been critical of him, including Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

At his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Joe Biden claimed that the economy has added “800,000 new manufacturing jobs” during his administration.  

Facts first: Biden’s figure is correct. The US economy added 791,000 manufacturing jobs from Biden’s first full month in office, February 2021, through January 2024, the last month for which Bureau of Labor Statistics data is available — though it’s worth noting that the growth largely occurred in 2021 and 2022 (with 746,000 manufacturing jobs added starting in February 2021) before a relatively flat 2023.  

President Joe Biden said Congress should urgently pass legislation to regulate artificial intelligence, including banning “AI voice impersonation and more.” 

Biden urged lawmakers to “harness the promise of AI and protect us from its peril,” warning of the technology’s risks to Americans if left unchecked.

His remarks come weeks after a fake robocall campaign cloned his voice and targeted thousands of New Hampshire primary voters in what authorities have described as an AI-enabled election meddling attempt. 

But US lawmakers have struggled to advance any meaningful AI legislation in the roughly one year since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made a rare and personal effort to put AI at the top of the congressional agenda.  

Even as disinformation experts warn of AI’s threats to polls and public discourse, few expect Congress to pass legislation reining in the AI industry during a divisive election year. 

President Joe Biden called out former President Donald Trump and GOP members of Congress in his address Thursday for seeking to “bury the truth” about what happened during the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

The president, as he did throughout his State of the Union address, did not use Trump’s name, Instead, he referred to him as “my predecessor.” 

 “We must be honest. The threat to democracy must be defended. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th. I will not do that,” Biden said.
“This is the moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies. Here’s the simple truth. You can’t love your country only when you win.”

As Biden sought to show a contrast with his likely 2024 opponent, the January 6 insurrection was the second major topic of the president’s remarks, following his calls to Congress to support the people of Ukraine.

Here’s how many minutes President Joe Biden spent on the following topics in the first portion of his third State of the Union:

President Joe Biden said Thursday night: “I have been delivering real results in fiscally responsible ways.”  

“We’ve already cut the federal deficit — we’ve already cut the federal deficit of over $1 trillion,” he said.  

Facts First: Biden’s claim leaves out such critical context that it is misleading. While the annual federal budget deficit was more than $1 trillion lower in the 2023 fiscal year than it was in both the 2020 fiscal year (under President Donald Trump) and the 2021 fiscal year (partially under Trump and partially under Biden), analysts have repeatedly noted that Biden’s own actions, including laws he has signed and executive orders he has issued, have had the overall effect of worsening annual deficits, not reducing them. As in past remarks, Biden didn’t explain that the primary reason the deficit fell by a record amount during his tenure was that it had skyrocketed to a record high at the end of Trump’s term because of bipartisan emergency pandemic relief spending, then fell as expected when that spending expired as planned.   

“The deficit is a trillion dollars lower, roughly, than when President Biden took office. That’s true. But that’s driven not because he ‘reduced’ the deficit by a trillion dollars, but because when he took office it was the middle of Covid and we had been temporarily injecting huge sums of money into the economy,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group that promotes deficit reduction and tracks the issue, said in a February interview. 

The deficit hit a record of about $3.1 trillion under Trump amid the hefty pandemic-related spending in fiscal 2020. The deficit then fell under Trump and Biden in fiscal 2021 (to about $2.8 trillion) and again under Biden in fiscal 2022 (to about $1.4 trillion). But it then rose in fiscal 2023 (to about $1.7 trillion). And the jump from 2022 to 2023 would have been much bigger, from about $1 trillion in 2022 to about $2 trillion in 2023, if not for a Treasury Department accounting decision related to the Biden student debt cancellation program the Supreme Court blocked before it came into effect. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the deficit will decline slightly in fiscal 2024, to about $1.5 trillion. Regardless, all of the Biden-era deficits are among the biggest in US history.  

Factors out of a president’s control, like interest rates hikes, have played a role in keeping deficits high under Biden. And Biden has signed some deficit-fighting bills; his signature Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is expected to bring down deficits by a total of more than $230 billion over a decade, while the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 is expected to cut a cumulative $1.5 trillion from federal deficits over a decade. 

Still, Biden’s actions have clearly added to deficits. These actions include a pandemic relief law, a bipartisan infrastructure law, a bipartisan law to spur semiconductor manufacturing, a boost to food stamp benefits and an extension of the Trump-era pandemic pause on federal student loan repayments. 

Biden can fairly say that his policies have contributed to a strong economic recovery that has boosted tax revenues and thus eaten into deficits. On the whole, though, Goldwein said deficits under Biden have been “higher than they otherwise would have been because of legislation President Biden has signed into law and executive actions he’s taken.” 

President Joe Biden expressed optimism in his ability to lead the country, making reference to his age that’s been a controversial topic among some voters who say he’s too old.

“I’m optimistic. I really am. I’m optimistic,” Biden said. “My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old are our ideas?”

Biden already is the oldest president in history, ahead of Ronald Reagan, who was 77 at the end of his second term. If elected in 2024, Biden would be 86 at the end of his second term.

Biden made light of his age Thursday night, saying, “I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while, and when you get to my age certain things become clearer than ever.”

CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed reporting.

President Joe Biden provided a preview of what his second term would look like at his Thursday State of the Union address, vowing to take actions to legislate artificial intelligence, lower the federal classification of marijuana and work on gun legislation.

Biden said he wants to help cities and towns invest in more police officers and mental health workers. He said he also wanted to give “communities the tools to crack down on gun crime, retail crime and carjacking.”

He also referenced the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers in 2022.

“I’m demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines!” Biden said in fiery remarks.

Biden said he wants to “harness the promise of AI” while protecting Americans “from peril,” adding he wanted to ban AI voice impersonation. The technology was used to fake a robocall from Biden in the lead up to the New Hampshire primaries.

Just as he’s done on the campaign trail, President Joe Biden touted his administration’s efforts to reduce the burden of prescription drug costs. In his address, he also pointed out the savings for taxpayers. 

“That’s not just saving seniors money, it’s saving taxpayers money,” Biden said, referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained several measures to reduce drug prices. “We cut the federal deficit by $160 billion.” 

Facts First: It’s true that two of the main drug price provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats pushed through Congress in 2022, are expected to reduce the deficit by $160 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In total, the law’s drug measures are expected to reduce the deficit by $237 billion, though delaying the implementation of a Trump administration drug rebate rule accounts for the difference.  

The Inflation Reduction Act authorized Medicare to negotiate the prices of certain costly prescription drugs for the first time. This measure is expected to save $98.5 billion over a decade, according to the CBO. Negotiations for the initial 10 drugs are underway. The final prices will be made public by September and take effect in 2026. 

The law also requires drugmakers to pay a rebate to the federal government if they raise the prices of certain medications faster than the rate of inflation. This is expected to save $63.2 billion over a decade, according to the CBO.    

Biden’s third State of the Union speech clocked in at 1:07:23, coming in about five minutes shorter than last year’s address.

See how this speech compares to the shortest and longest speeches in recent history.

President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass two pieces of voting rights legislation — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

In his State of the Union address, the president said that a “transformational moment of history” happened on this day nearly 60 years ago.

“In Selma, Alabama, hundreds of foot soldiers for justice marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, to claim their fundamental right to vote. They were beaten. They were bloody and left for dead,” Biden said.

But today, there are still issues that threaten the right to vote: “Voter suppression. Election subversion. Unlimited dark money. Extreme gerrymandering.”

Biden said it is “time to do more than talk,” as he urged lawmakers to vote on the bills.

President Joe Biden baited Republicans in his address Thursday by praising the bipartisan Senate border bill, which included some of the country’s toughest border security measures, eliciting a back and forth with GOP lawmakers. 

“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 said, as some Republicans grumbled. 

Republican Sen. James Lankford, a key negotiator on the bipartisan border deal, who faced pushback from members of his own party, stared ahead, appearing to nod as Biden ticked through elements of the bill — including how it should shore up federal resources and include an emergency authority that would allow him to shut down the border if certain triggers are met. 

The president then put the blame squarely on former President Donald Trump for tanking the bill, which was the culmination of months of negotiations between a bipartisan group of senators and Biden administration officials.

 “I’m told my predecessor called members of Congress in the Senate to demand they block the bill. He feels it would be a political win for me and a political loser for him. It’s not about him. It’s not about me,” Biden said, later reiterating his calls for Trump to work with him to get it done. 

 In what seemed to be off-the-cuff remarks during his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden appeared to misspeak in implying that Russia had better prescription drug prices for consumers than the United States.

 “I’m gonna get in trouble for saying this, but any of you want to get in Air Force One and fly to Toronto, Berlin, Moscow – I mean, excuse me – well, even Moscow, probably,” Biden said, joking about his apparent misspeak. “Bring your prescription with you and I promise you I’ll get it for you for 40% the cost you’re paying now. Same company, same drug, same place.”

Biden was speaking about his administration’s moves to lower prescription drug costs. The United States has some of the most expensive prescription drug prices in the world.

President Joe Biden engaged in a back-and-forth with Republicans from the House Floor Thursday, calling lawmakers out for supporting Trump-era tax cuts at the expense of Social Security and Medicare.

 “We have two ways to go: Republicans can cut Social Security and get more tax breaks to the wealthy,” Biden said, prompting jeers from GOP lawmakers in the chamber.
 “That’s the proposal—oh no? You guys don’t want another $2 trillion tax cut? I kind of thought that’s what your plan was,” he said, departing from his prepared remarks to once again ask Republicans to commit to preserving funding for Social Security and Medicare. “Well, that’s good to hear.” 

It’s the second time Biden clashed with Republican lawmakers over funding for the two entitlement programs during the State of the Union in as many years, In 2023, Biden called out “some Republicans” for looking “to sunset” the two programs, prompting boos from the Republican side of the aisle.

President Joe Biden in his address tonight said that he wants to harness the promise of artificial intelligence but also protect Americans from the danger the technology poses.

That’s a tricky balance, and one even the tech industry isn’t quite sure how to achieve. In fact, many of the loudest voices warning about AI are coming from within the tech world itself.

Just this week, a Microsoft employee sent a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission warning the company’s artificial intelligence systems could create harmful images, including sexualized images of women.

Financial regulators in the US have also said last year that the use of artificial intelligence poses a risk to the financial system.

And researchers have flagged the potential for AI image generators to produce political misinformation ahead of elections in the United States and dozens of other countries this year.

Some members of Congress were seen wearing the pins with “153” on them that were passed out by Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider.

The “153” stands for the number of days that hostages have been in custody in Gaza, according to a Democratic aide.

After the October 7 attack, Israel has a right to go after Hamas, President Joe Biden said during his State of the Union address on Thursday. But Israel also has a “fundamental responsibility” to protect civilians in Gaza, the president said.

As the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorates, Biden announced that the United States will establish a temporary pier near the enclave that will be used to deliver supplies.

The president also said his administration, along with other countries, has been working to reach an agreement for a temporary ceasefire to release Israeli hostages.

President Joe Biden directed the US military on an emergency mission to help transport more aid to Gaza as a humanitarian crisis unravels there amid Israel’s war on Hamas.

“Tonight I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” he said.

The president maintained his vow that “no US boots will be on the ground” in Gaza, and called on Israel to “do its part” and allow more aid inside.

“To the leadership of Israel, I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority,” he said.

President Joe Biden criticized the fiscal management of former President Donald Trump during his State of the Union address, claiming, “They added more to the national debt than any presidential term in American history. Check the numbers.” 

Facts First: Biden’s numbers are correct; the national debt rose from about $19.9 trillion to about $27.8 trillion during Trump’s tenure, an increase of about 39% and more than in any other four-year presidential term, in part because of Trump’s major tax cuts. But it is an oversimplification to blame presidents alone for debt incurred during their tenures. Some of the Trump-era increase in the debt was due to the trillions of dollars in emergency Covid-19 pandemic relief spending that passed with bipartisan support and because of spending required by safety-net programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, that were created by previous presidents. 

The national debt has continued to increase under Biden. As of the day before Biden’s address, it was about $34.4 trillion, federal figures show — an increase of about 24% during his tenure. 

President Joe Biden is talking about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in his primetime State of the Union address — a topic that has consumed much of the president’s time and attention over the past few months.

Biden, a longtime supporter of Israel, has navigated a delicate political path since the war with Hamas began in early October, but the immense death toll in Gaza, coupled with ever-increasing political pressure at home, has added to his urgency in concluding the conflict.

The White House has come under mounting criticism and pressure to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Officials and Biden allies hope that the war — which has eroded support for Biden among key constituencies like Arab Americans, young voters and progressives — will be fully in the rear-view mirror by November and that perhaps Thursday’s speech could help mark a public turning of the corner in the deadly conflict.

In the meantime, negotiations for a potential deal to release hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza are ongoing. The United States is one of the countries participating in the talks.

Some more context: Frustration is also mounting within the Biden administration about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued refusal to open more land crossings for critically needed aid to reach the people of Gaza. The US and its partners have resorted to airdropping food into Gaza.

GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden was the member who yelled “lies” when President Joe Biden criticized former President Donald Trump, according to two sources who heard him.

Several Republicans appeared to have left the speech early and did not stay for the rest of the speech.

One member, GOP Rep. Max Miller, who left early, said he left because: “This is beneath a president. It’s a full blown campaign speech.”

President Joe Biden brought up the work his administration has done on border security reforms.

Immigration and migrant surges have become a central political issue for Biden as he makes a case for another four years. His likely GOP rival, former President Donald Trump, has been attacking him on the campaign trail.

Last month, both Biden and Trump visited border towns in Texas. A February CNN poll showed just 30% of Americans approve of his performance on the issue and 79% of voters — including majorities across party lines — say that the situation on the border represents a crisis.

The White House said it is considering executive action to restrict migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border if they crossed illegally. It’s a move that is sure to invite fierce backlash from immigration advocates and progressives.

The Biden administration has taken other steps to try tightening asylum at the US-Mexico border. Last year, the administration released a regulation that largely barred migrants who traveled through other countries on their way to the US southern border from applying for asylum in the United States — marking a departure from decades-long protocol.

Biden also has been looking to blame Trump for the collapse of a bipartisan border deal that was killed in the Senate last month. It included a new emergency authority that would allow the Homeland Security secretary to shut down the border if certain triggers are met, and raised the legal standard of proof to pass the initial screening for asylum, among other measures.  

President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address decried “shrinkflation.” What’s he talking about?

Americans are tired of rising prices, and sticker shock is forcing many people to make tough choices at the grocery store amid rising food prices. So packaged food makers are employing another strategy: Instead of hiking prices, many are shrinking the size of their packages — a consumer-unfriendly practice known as “shrinkflation.”

“Snack companies think you won’t notice when they charge you just as much for the same size bag  but with fewer chips in it,” Biden said, urging Congress to pass an anti-shrinkflation bill from Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.

For example, the Labor Department found OREO Double Stuf Chocolate Sandwich Cookies decreased in size by 6% from January 2019 to October 2023.

Shrinkflation has become such a problem for consumers, it captured the attention of Cookie Monster. In a post on X this week, the Sesame Street character lambasted the practice.

President Joe Biden took a strong stance on immigration during his speech, reflecting on the origins of the country and criticizing former President Donald Trump’s stance on the topic.

“I will not demonize immigrants saying they are poison in the blood of our country,” he said. “I will not separate families. I will not ban people because of their faith, unlike my predecessor,” he said, referring to comments and policies of Trump.
“Unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans and we’re the only nation in the world with the heart and soul that draws from old and new,” Biden said. “Home to Native Americans whose ancestors have been here for thousands of years, home to people from every place on Earth.”

During tonight’s speech, President Joe Biden held up a pin with the name of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old student who was found dead last month after she went jogging near a lake on the University of Georgia campus,

Police say the man who killed Riley entered the country illegally.

His status as an undocumented Venezuelan migrant is being touted by several state and national Republican leaders to support their calls for tighter border security — though there is little evidence indicating a connection between immigration and crime.

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene passed out pins bearing Riley’s name to fellow Republican members before tonight’s speech, and called on Biden to address the killing.

Border security is emerging as a potentially key vulnerability for the president, and his presumptive general election opponent Donald Trump seized on illegal immigration in his preemptive rebuttal of Biden’s speech.

House passes bill: Earlier today, the House passed the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of any migrant who committed burglary or theft, with all GOP members in attendance and 37 Democrats supporting the bill.

Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York eviscerated the measure on the House floor, accusing Republicans of “exploiting her death for a partisan stunt” and “throwing together legislation to target immigrants in an election year.”

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia goaded President Joe Biden into saying the name of a nursing student in her state who was allegedly killed by an undocumented Venezuelan migrant.

While Biden was speaking on his border policies, Greene interrupted the president and appeared to urge him to mention Laken Riley’s name.

Biden responded by holding up a pin that Greene gave him as he walked into the House chamber.

“Laken Riley was killed by an illegal,” Biden said, adding that his heart goes out to parents who have lost children, having experienced the same loss himself.

President Joe Biden proposed taxing the country’s wealthiest people more, arguing that the money could be used to continue cutting the federal deficit and fund federal initiatives.

The president criticized Republicans — saying the last administration’s policies benefited the top 1% — and proposed raising taxes on billionaires.

“A fair tax code is how we invest and make this country great. Health care, education, defense, and so much more,” Biden said.

“Folks at home, does anybody really think the tax code is fair?” Biden asked the crowd.

“No,” the crowd of lawmakers yelled back at the president. Biden said billionaires are taxed “far less” than the majority of Americans.

Turning to social security, Biden vowed to strengthen the system. He said it’s not fair that “working people who built this country pay more into social security than millionaires and billionaires do.”

“Republicans can cut social security and give more tax breaks to the wealthy,” he said, stopping at boos from Republicans in the crowd.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is sitting behind Biden, started shaking his head.

“Well, that’s the proposal. Oh, no? You guys don’t want another $2 trillion tax cut? I kind of thought that’s what your plan was,” Biden said to the lawmakers.

President Joe Biden said he wants to expand education provisions, including “high-quality tutoring and summer learning” for children nationwide, raising public school teacher salaries, and increasing investments into historically Black colleges and universities.

“To remain the strongest economy in the world, we need to have the best education system in the world,” he said.

President Joe Biden is delivering his third State of the Union address.

See some of the best photos of the night so far:

Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters are blocking the traditional motorcade route between the White House and the Capitol ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night.

The demonstrators are at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues with a banner blocking the roadway. 

There are multiple routes to the Capitol the motorcade may take so this is more of a symbolic blockade. 

There is a large police presence on the scene. There is no word of any arrests at this point.

White House officials said they have been watching the images of the protests. Demonstrations have become very commonplace near the White House, not to mention at Biden’s speeches. 

“They’ve been out there most weeks,” one White House official said. “We’re aware of their concerns.”

We’re tracking the length of President Joe Biden’s speech tonight to see how it compares to his speech last year — and the shortest and longest speeches in recent history.

While President Joe Biden will be the only one speaking at the State of the Union, several members of Congress will be sending messages with their style. With all eyes on the House Chamber, here’s a breakdown of the political fashion statements to expect tonight.

Sea of white: When cameras pan across the chamber, viewers will catch a sea of white from Democratic women members unifying around reproductive rights. The Democratic Women’s Caucus has invited all members to wear white to display their “united commitment to defending reproductive freedom and support for the Biden Administration’s work to protect access to reproductive care and women’s equality.”

They’ve also been encouraged to wear “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” buttons.

Buttoned up: Some accessories that will take a keener eye to catch are the climate pin, Ukraine caucus pin and orange ribbons for fertility awareness, as seen on Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine. Members of the Dads Caucus are wearing building block pins to show “support for policies that build a brighter future for our kids,” California Rep. Kevin Mullin shared on X. 

Some Republican lawmakers will also be wearing buttons that say: “Say Her Name Laken Riley” and “STOP THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS.” The effort, led by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, calls for stricter border measures and to honor Riley, who authorities believe was killed by an undocumented immigrant in Athens. 

Feeling the chill: One accessory that is less fashionable and more practical is blankets. The House chamber feels at least 10 degrees cooler in anticipation of the packed House this evening. As in years past, we expect a large number of members to cover themselves in blankets. 

In the run-up to the special election in New York last month for the House seat left vacant by George Santos’s expulsion from Congress, Tom Suozzi was very clear: He didn’t want to be anywhere near Joe Biden.  

It didn’t matter that Biden had carried the district in 2020. Fears of crime and the influx of immigrants, coupled with Biden’s trailing poll numbers had Suozzi scared of any kind of connection. 

Asked if he wanted the president to campaign for him, Suozzi told CNN, “I don’t think it would be helpful.”  

That, apparently, was then. Suozzi won his race, by a wider margin than most expected. Biden called to congratulate him.  

And on Thursday night, he made sure to get as close to Biden as he could. As the president made his way down the center aisle in the House chamber, the former and now re-elected congressman grabbed his attention and leaned in with his phone for a selfie. 

Suozzi is up for reelection in November, in a district that has gotten slightly safer for him as a result of new congressional maps signed into law last week by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. 

Biden said that inflation is coming down, and he’s not wrong. But prices are still going up. How can both those things be true?

That’s because the inflation rate measures how fast prices rise. But just because the pace of price hikes is slowing doesn’t necessarily mean that prices actually fall. They just go up more less quickly.

For a lot of people, the result is an economy in which a slowdown in the rate of inflation — which peaked at 9.1% year-over-year in June 2022 and most recently came in at 3.1%, as measured by the Consumer Price Index — still doesn’t feel terribly affordable.

President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address said America’s economy “is the envy of the world.” That’s largely true, despite negative sentiment about the financial state within America’s borders.

Europe’s economy just avoided a recession by the narrowest of margins last year, as the central bank’s battle against inflation has caused production in the region to stagnate. Meanwhile, China, the world’s second-largest economy, behind only the United States, had a miserable 2023, crippled by trade restrictions, government crackdowns on industry, a massive real estate crisis and surging youth unemployment.

By contrast, job growth continues to surge in the United States, and the economy had a historically great 2023. Consumers continue to spend, and sentiment is rebounding.

Yet 48% of Americans say they believe the economy remains in a downturn, according to a recent CNN poll. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence, however.

President Joe Biden said he will lower the costs of prescription drugs for Americans with legislation he has proposed and signed.

“Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anywhere in the world,” Biden said. “It’s wrong and I’m ending it. With a law I proposed and signed, and not one of you Republican buddies voted for, we finally beat Big Pharma.”

In speaking about jobs, unions and the middle class, President Joe Biden referenced an auto plant in Belvidere, Illinois.

That was the site of an assembly plant that was closed in February, leaving 1,200 hourly workers either without a job or forced to transfer to another plant far away from the rural Illinois city of 25,000, about 70 miles west of Chicago.

But that plant is now due to reopen as an assembly plant in 2027, building a new midsize pickup truck. In the meantime, it will make batteries for electric vehicles and serve as a parts depot for the company.

That was a victory for Biden and for Shawn Fain, the head of the United Auto Workers, who also attended the State of the Union on Thursday.

Read more about the plant and its significance here.

President Joe Biden chided members of the GOP opposed to his bipartisan infrastructure law during his State of the Union address on Thursday.

“By the way, I noticed some of you have strongly voted against it,” Biden told members of Congress after bragging about the 46,000 new projects that law provided.

He joked that if any members “don’t want that money in your districts, just let me know.”

That line was not in Biden’s prepared remarks.

President Joe Biden just brought up the CHIPS and Science Act, saying that it means the US is “investing more in research and development than ever before.”

The act is one of Biden’s key legislative accomplishments. It passed Congress with bipartisan support in the summer of 2022. 

The law aims to boost United States manufacturing of semiconductor chips. Once a leader in the industry, the US currently manufactures only about 10% of the global supply and none of the most advanced kinds of chips that are needed for artificial intelligence technologies. 

About $39 billion from the CHIPS Act will go to companies building, expanding or modernizing chip plants in the US. Some companies will also be eligible for tax credits. 

While the Department of Commerce has received 600 preliminary applications for grant money, just three awards, totaling nearly $2 billion, have been announced so far. They are expected to go to three GlobalFoundries facilities in New York and Vermont; two Microchip Technology plants in Colorado and Oregon; and one Bae Systems facility in New Hampshire. The chips made at these plants are critical for use in cars, medical devices and defense systems.  

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said that there is not nearly enough money for every applicant to get funding. But even before the government has doled out any of the money authorized by the CHIPS Act, the legislation has also helped spark some private investments in the chips industry.

President Joe Biden asserted that “Roe v. Wade got it right” when it came to reproductive freedom and promised to restore the right to an abortion “to the law of the land again.”

During his State of the Union speech on Thursday, Biden attacked former President Donald Trump, without naming him, blaming him for the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. He said his likely 2024 opponent “brags about it.”

Biden said those who brag about overturning abortion protections “have no clue about the power of women” and pointed to how the issue energized voters during the 2022 midterm election.

The president said abortion would be a big issue on the ballot again this year.

President Joe Biden is now touting his economic accomplishments. By many metrics, the US economy is humming along. The jobs market is robust, consumers are spending again and inflation has eased to a 3-year low.

That has prompted Biden to repeatedly ask his advisers: Why then are so many Americans still not feeling great about the economy?

That disconnect looms large over Biden’s political prospects, with White House advisers and campaign officials acknowledging that how Americans feel about the economy could be decisive in determining whether the president can win a second term in November.

A survey from the University of Michigan released at the beginning of February showed consumer outlook soared 13% in January, reaching the highest level since the summer of 2021. Several days before that, consumer confidence as measured by the Conference Board jumped to a 2-year high.

But the president confronts a steep uphill battle on the economic front as his reelection campaign prepares for what it expects will be a rematch against former President Donald Trump in November.

A majority of Americans — 55% — said in the recent CNN poll that they believe Biden’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country, while just 26% believe his policies have improved conditions.

Former President Donald Trump’s social media website Truth Social appears to be experiencing intermittent outages after Trump told supporters to tune into the platform for his “play by play” reactions to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. 

The app is intermittently displaying a “something went wrong” error message while the desktop version is intermittently not displaying posts.

It didn’t take long for President Joe Biden to reference the January 6 insurrection during his State of the Union on Thursday. The president took some of those present to task for their election denialism and their defense of the rioters.

“The insurrectionists were not patriots,” Biden told members of Congress. “They’d come to stop the peaceful transfer of power, to overturn the will of the people.”

Biden said the former president and many in attendance “seek to bury the truth about January 6,” something he said he would not do.

President Joe Biden criticized former President Donald Trump’s previous comments encouraging Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense.

Biden did not reference Trump by name, calling him as “my predecessor, a former Republican president.”

In a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden said his message was simple:

“We will not walk away. We will not bow down,” Biden said to a roar of applause. “I will not bow down.”

President Joe Biden ramped up his calls for the United States to continue giving aid to Ukraine, saying that freedom and democracy are under attack “both and home and overseas.”

He said the purpose of the State of the Union address is to “wake up the Congress and alert the American people” that democracy is at stake.

Biden said, “If anybody in this room thinks (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you he will not.”

The president reiterated that Ukraine is asking for military assistance and weapons to help fight back against Russia, not US personnel.

“They’re not asking for American soldiers. In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I’m determined to keep it that way,” Biden said.

Opening his third State of the Union address as president, Joe Biden says the United States faces an “unprecedented moment.”

Biden referenced a 1941 address to Congress given by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Adolf Hitler waged war across Europe.

Roosevelt told Congress the nation was “at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union.”

Today, Biden said, “it’s we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.”

“What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack at both home and overseas,” Biden said.

President Joe Biden showed off some vintage politicking while walking into the House Chamber on Thursday, glad-handing with members of both parties as he took his time to walk to the podium.

Biden, a smile on his face, shook hands with several members of Congress as he walked into the chamber. Some took the opportunity to lobby Biden on different issues, including Ukraine funding and immigration.

Biden accepted a pin from one of his loudest critics, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

In the first moments of his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden brought up the need for aid for Ukraine.

Biden has been calling on Congress to pass more military aid to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.

Last month, the Senate passed a $95.3 billion foreign aid bill, which includes $60 billion to support Ukraine. While it passed with bipartisan support in the Senate, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he does not plan to bring the bill to the floor.

Ukraine has been facing renewed pressure across the eastern front in its war against Russia, compounded by ammunition and manpower shortages. The withdrawal from the key eastern town of Avdiivka in February marked the biggest gain for Moscow since it captured the city of Bakhmut last year.

Biden ripped lawmakers when the House took a two-week break in the middle of last month and said that a “failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”

“What are they thinking? My God, this is bizarre, and it’s just reinforcing all of the concern and almost — I won’t say panic — but real concern about the United States being a reliable ally. This is outrageous,” Biden previously said.

“Now, as I said before, and I mean this in a literal sense, history is watching. History is watching the House of Representatives,” he added.

President Joe Biden accepted a pin with Laken Riley’s name from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as he entered the House chamber to give his State of the Union address.

Greene, wearing a Trump hat, held the pin up to Biden as he passed by members of Congress on the way to the podium. The two appeared to exchange words after Biden grabbed the pin.

Riley, an Augusta University nursing student, was killed last month in Georgia, allegedly by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant. Republicans in Congress are using her death to accuse Biden of being too lenient with his border policies.

Earlier in the day, Greene wouldn’t say if she would heckle Biden again this year during his State of the Union address.

“If he’s a liar, he should be called out,” she told CNN. “We’ll see how he talks tonight and then I’ll decide then.”

Greene told CNN she will be handing out buttons in honor of Riley — a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed while jogging in Georgia last month — to fellow Republican members for Thursday’s speech.

The suspected killer’s status as an undocumented Venezuelan migrant is being touted by several state and national GOP leaders to support their calls for tighter border security — though there is little evidence indicating a connection between immigration and crime.

Greene called on Biden to address the case tonight.

Remember: Republicans repeatedly heckled Biden during last year’s State of the Union, including Greene, who yelled back at the president in response to comments on everything from fentanyl to entitlement cuts. The Georgia Republican has a history of making inflammatory and false remarks.

More background: The House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act, which requires the detention of any migrant who committed burglary or theft, on Thursday, with all GOP members in attendance and 37 Democrats supporting the bill.

Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler eviscerated the measure on the House floor, accusing Republicans of “exploiting her death for a partisan stunt” and “throwing together legislation to target immigrants in an election year.”

Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that Riley attended Augusta University.

CNN’s Haley Talbot, Elizabeth Wolfe, Raja Razek and Holly Yan contributed reporting to this post.

President Joe Biden is now delivering his State of the Union address.

This could be the most consequential speech of his presidency, seeking to boast about his first term while also warning the country about what he views as a ruinous threat to its very existence.

The speech is expected to be heavy on economic populism, aides said, with calls for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He also plans to take a swipe at former President Donald Trump, vow to restore Roe and acknowledge his age, according to excerpts shared with CNN.

President Joe Biden has entered the House chamber where he will give his State of the Union address.

The president is shaking hands with lawmakers as he walks down the aisle. There is a lot of clapping and cheering.

As Biden reached the front of the chamber, some lawmakers started to chant “Four more years.”

The post was updated with more details on Biden’s entry to the chamber.

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona is this year’s designated survivor.

About the designated survivor tradition: At least one member of the president’s Cabinet is selected to stay behind from the speech each year in case of emergency. The designated survivor goes to a distant, secure and undisclosed location outside Washington while everyone else gathers to listen to the President’s address in the Capitol.

The designated survivor must be eligible to be president, and if a higher-ranking successor survives a potential incident, that person would become president ahead of the designated survivor.

According to the National Constitution Center, the tradition of a designated survivor during the State of the Union speech began in the 1950s as a result of fears of a nuclear attack during the Cold War. But the federal government did not publicly name the designated survivor until 1981, when President Ronald Reagan’s Education Secretary Terrel Bell assumed the designation for an address to a joint session of Congress.

President Joe Biden’s motorcade took “the long way” to the US Capitol this evening, avoiding a large group of protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue just blocks away from the US Capitol.

According to reporters traveling with the president, the motorcade crossed the US mall on 14th Street, taking US 395 to C Street, approaching the Capitol Building via the House of Representatives side.

CNN reported a large group of protesters had assembled on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol, blocking what would’ve been the shortest route to the Capitol Building.

The White House has been asked if the indirect route was intentionally planned to avoid protesters.

President Joe Biden’s address last year was 1 hour and 13 minutes long. We’re tracking how long his speech goes for in his third address.

The longest State of the Union/annual message in terms of minutes was delivered by former President Bill Clinton in 2000. His speech clocked in at 1 hour, 28 minutes, 49 seconds, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

An Alabama woman seeking in vitro fertilization, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain are among those at the US Capitol Thursday evening as President Joe Biden is set to deliver a high-stakes State of the Union address.

Biden’s speech could offer his most substantial television audience before voters cast their ballots in the general election, and the remarks are expected to center around the key themes of his reelection campaign, agenda accomplishments, and what’s at stake in November.

The guest list for first lady Dr. Jill Biden’s box offers a blueprint for the president’s address, as he leans on personal stories to put faces to critical issues facing Americans.

“Each of these individuals were invited by the White House because they personify issues or themes to be addressed by the president in his speech, or they embody the Biden-Harris Administration’s policies at work for the American people,” her office said in a statement.

Read up on what to expect ahead of tonight’s State of the Union.

There has been a different speaker at the rostrum for President Joe Biden’s past three State of the Union addresses, thanks to the GOP’s unprecedented speakership drama and control of the House flipping.

This year, it’s Speaker Mike Johnson. Last year it was Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And before that, it was Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

President Joe Biden’s motorcade arrived at the Capitol a few minutes before 9 p.m. ET, according to reporters traveling with the president.

They did not see any large protest groups on the way to the Hill.

Thursday’s State of the Union marked Rep. Mike Johnson’s first as House Speaker. It’s also Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr.’s first as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It will be Biden’s third State of the Union as president. Biden has had a different House speaker during each of his three State of the Union addresses.

Six members of the US Supreme Court just walked into the chamber to attend President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson – Biden’s first nominee to the high court – arrived shortly before the president. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired in 2018, also attended. 

Some members of the Supreme Court usually attend the State of the Union, though they do not play an official role. Roberts has said in the past that he is not always content attending the event that is so geared around politics, but he is the only sitting justice to go to every address since joining the court in 2005.

Over the years, some combination of justices have always crossed the street to attend the speech, but others have refrained either due to scheduling conflicts or the feeling that the event has devolved into what the late Justice Antonin Scalia referred to as a “childish spectacle.” 

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett are not in the chamber this year. 

There were five justices in attendance last year. The last time all nine sitting justices attended the speech was in 1977. 

This post has been updated with the names of the justices in attendance.

President Joe Biden is on his way to the US Capitol to deliver his State of the Union address.

The president departed the White House at 8:47 p.m. ET.

He was joined by first lady Dr. Jill Biden, granddaughter Naomi Biden, her husband Peter Neal, and senior aides Steve Ricchetti, Bruce Reed, Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal.

Asked by reporters how he was feeling, Biden said, “I’m feeling good!” before greeting supporters gathered on the Truman Balcony.

“Don’t jump, I need you!” he told them. “See you all later.”

Leveraging the State of the Union spotlight, the Biden team has already raised $1 million today, according to a post on X by Deputy Campaign Manager Rob Flaherty.

”We’ve already raised $1 million online today and POTUS is still an hour away from hitting stage! Our million+ person grassroots donor community (a third of whom new to the campaign since ‘20!) is strong and getting stronger!” Flaherty wrote shortly ago.

Vicki Dobbins, a Michigan supporter of Joe Biden, minced few words tonight as she took her seat at a watch party in Detroit.

“I’m a little nervous,” she said. “He’s got to be on the top of his game tonight and if he’s not …”

The voice of Dobbins, a retiree from the River Rogue suburb of Detroit, trailed off as she thought about the challenges facing the president for the general election in battleground Michigan.

She said she thinks his age is a benefit, saying that “maturity is what we need right now. Do you want a 36-year-old running things?”

Few states are more central in the race for the White House than Michigan, which embodies the acute challenges facing Biden on both the economy and foreign policy. The president will travel to Saginaw, Michigan next week as part of his post-State of the Union tour of battleground states.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday said he’s not satisfied with the steps President Joe Biden has taken to get much-needed aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza.

During his State of the Union address, Biden is expected to announce that he will direct the US military to open a port in Gaza to increase the flow of aid to civilians.

Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether he is satisfied with Biden’s plan, Sanders said: “No, I’m not.”

“It’s a step forward,” the senator said, “but we have a long way to go.
“But the bottom line is, right now, Israel, in my view, certainly had a right to defend itself from the terrible Hamas attack on October 7th,” Sanders said. “They do not have a right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people.”

Pressure is building on hardliners to rein it in tonight and not cause a stir in the chamber during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday.

Top Republican leaders have been pressing GOP members to not create a scene and refrain from heckling the president. House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted his members would behave.

Rep. Matt Gaetz has also told GOP members to hold back: “If we make a scene, he looks more vigorous. Be best.”

But despite that, several hardliners are warning they are ready to push back loudly against the president.

“Well if he’s a liar he should be called out,” GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told CNN. “We’ll see how he talks tonight and then I’ll decide then.”

GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert added that an outburst is “never intended,” but added that when the president “refuses to acknowledge fallen service members that died under his watch under his disastrous embarrassing surrender in Afghanistan — you know, that kind of ignites something on the inside of me.”

There also could be other spectacles in the crowd. It is widely expected that there could be a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the gallery.

This post has been updated with remarks from Johnson.

Here’s a look at some of the topics and themes President Joe Biden will highlight in his State of the Union address, according to someone who’s been briefed on the speech: 

A major way to improve housing affordability in the US is to create more homes. Biden announced several efforts aimed at developers, financers and grant-makers to boost the number of homes built.  

The president is calling on Congress to pass legislation he says could result in the building and renovation of more than 2 million homes to close the housing supply gap and lower housing costs. 

Housing experts agree there are not enough homes available to rent or own compared to demand. Depending on who is calculating the size of the housing supply gap and what assumptions about housing are being made, the size of the gap ranges from a shortfall of 1.5 million units (according to the National Association of Home Builders) to 5.5 million units (according to the National Association of Realtors) to as many as over 7 million (according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition and Realtor.com).

The market is missing up to 7.2 million homes as the result of a decade of not building enough homes to account for population growth, according to findings from a recent analysis by Realtor.com.

Home prices are now over 40% higher than before the pandemic. What’s more, homebuyers are facing mortgage rates that have more than doubled since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate has risen from 2.65% in January 2021 to an average of 6.88% this week. And that is an improvement over rates last fall, which hit a 20-year high of 7.79%. 

Meanwhile, homeowners who refinanced or bought into ultra-low mortgage rates of 2% or 3% in previous years are reluctant to sell their homes and buy a new home at prevailing rates. Over 90% of current homeowners have mortgage rates at 6% or below and little incentive to move. 

In an attempt to tackle this stalemate, Biden will announce a pair of new tax credits, which would require congressional action. The first is a $10,000 refundable credit for middle-class homebuyers, which amounts to $5,000 per year for two years and essentially serves as an interest-rate buy-down. The administration estimates this program would help more than 3.5 million buyers close a deal on their first home over the next two years.  

For homeowners, there is a $10,000 tax credit aimed at getting people to put their starter homes on the market.  This would be a one-year tax credit to middle-class families who sell a home priced below the area’s median home price to someone who will live in the home. It is estimated to serve about 3 million sellers. 

There is one word that does not appear in President Joe Biden’s State of the Union remarks tonight: “Trump.”

 A White House official who reviewed the president’s prepared remarks tells CNN that the former president isn’t named in the address.

But even if we don’t hear Biden say the actual words “Donald Trump,” aides say it will be abundantly clear – at multiple junctures – that the president is referring precisely to his GOP opponent. 

That contrast – the Biden America vs. the Trump America – will be a major theme that runs throughout the speech. We already know one example: When discussing the need to protect American democracy, the president will refer to certain “other people my age” who see “an American story of resentment, revenge and retribution.”  

Biden’s remarks are months in the making. The drafting, editing and rehearsals were in full force over the weekend at Camp David, and the president did a full run-through this afternoon with aides at the White House, who fueled their day with Andy’s pizza. 

While last-minute minor edits are possible, the White House official said the speech was mostly finalized by this afternoon. 

 The reason? “He knows what he wants to say,” the official said.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill are expressing anxiety ahead of President Joe Biden’s address in the chamber tonight, acknowledging that they are hoping he does not have a slip up or moment that further fuels questions about his age and mental acuity. 

In text messages with members and aides, the stakes of tonight’s speech could not be clearer — it could help blunt those concerns, or it could serve to highlight them, depending on how Biden performs.

President Joe Biden will use tonight’s critical speech not only to communicate his accomplishments but also to touch on threats to democracy. It’s something the White House and the Biden campaign view as one of the central themes of the 2024 election, according to a source familiar with the address.

The White House sees this speech as the launch of the likely general election rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, the source said. The Biden administration views this election as even more important than the 2020 election.

The source said that some of the same themes that Biden touched on in his convention speech in 2020 — the soul of America, lightness vs. dark, character and decency — are also expected to appear in tonight’s address.

The goal is to create a clear contrast with the former president and now presumptive Republican nominee.

“He’s lived a lot of the American story. So has Trump. But Biden had learned lessons of building, creating, defending — not tearing down, bowing down to dictators, hoping to become one,” the source said.

In the days leading up to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the president huddled with his senior advisers at Camp David to fine-tune and rehearse the remarks. Thursday’s address is a high-stakes moment as he looks to convince voters to give him a second term in the White House.

Biden and his team drafted a speech heavy on economic populism, aides said, with calls for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy — an attempt to draw a sharp contrast with Republicans and their likely presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

The president will also push for lowering health care costs and discuss his efforts to go after drug manufacturers to lower the cost of prescription medications. These are all issues his advisers believe can help buoy what have been sagging economic approval ratings.

Depending on whether Biden and Trump debate each other in the fall — neither candidate has committed to the three traditional face-offs — Thursday’s speech could amount to the president’s largest television audience before November’s vote, making this year’s edition of the annual address perhaps the most important of his presidency thus far.

The president is planning to travel to two key battleground states in the days immediately after the speech, sources familiar with the plans said. Biden has yet to seriously ramp up his election-year politicking with large rallies, making the post-speech swing notable, and additional travel is expected through the month.

This year Alabama Sen. Katie Britt will be delivering the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address — a tradition that dates back more than five decades.

The first official “response” to the State of the Union by the opposing party was delivered by Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen and Rep. Gerald Ford in 1966.

Each television network offered a half-hour slot for response time, although the slots were not “roadblocked” (i.e. did not air at the same time on all networks) and did not air immediately after the president’s address.

In 1976, television time was available for the opposing party’s response immediately following the State of the Union.

The choice of speaker usually rotates between the opposing party’s House and Senate leadership, although on several occasions, party leaders have chosen multiple speakers. 

CNN’s Robert Yoon, Adam Levy and Liz Stark contributed reporting to this post.

In a statement Thursday, President Joe Biden’s campaign is trying to draw a contrast between Biden and former President Donald Trump, listing a colorful array of Trump associates it says are “guaranteed to repel the moderate Republicans already fleeing his toxic movement in droves.” 

“Donald Trump is kicking off the general election with a starting lineup guaranteed to repel the moderate Republicans already fleeing his toxic movement in droves: unhinged conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, Hungarian dictator Vicktor Orbán, and convicted felon Roger Stone,” Biden campaign Rapid Response Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said Thursday. 

“President Biden, on the other hand, is standing with our allies and the millions of women who live with less freedom today because of Trump’s bans. With America watching, our question for Trump is simple: who u wit?”

In contrast, the campaign notes, the Swedish prime minister, a Texas mother who was forced to seek abortion care outside her home state and Alabama IVF patients will join First Lady Jill Biden at tonight’s State of the Union address.

President Joe Biden will address Congress and the American people in what could be the most consequential speech of his presidency as he asks voters to give him a second term.

Here are some of the things the president is expected to talk about tonight:

What else to watch for:

Potential hecklers: GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wouldn’t say if she would heckle Biden again this year during his State of the Union address. Greene told CNN she will be handing out buttons for the speech in honor of Laken Riley — a 22-year-old nursing student who authorities believe was killed by an undocumented immigrant. The White House said Biden is prepared for any hecklers.

GOP response: After Biden’s address, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt will deliver the Republican response where she will attack Biden on his handling of the border and foreign policy, according to excerpts. Additionally, in a preemptive rebuttal to Biden’s address, Trump criticized Biden on border security and illegal immigration. He posted on Truth Social Wednesday that he intends to react to Biden’s speech in real-time.

What to expect: The address is set to start at 9 p.m. ET. Senate and House leadership members will escort the president into the chamber. The top members of each chamber of Congress will be seated behind the president: the president of the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. The president’s Cabinet, Supreme Court justices, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former members of Congress and members of the diplomatic corps are seated in front of lawmakers.

What else to look out for: You might see a lot of lawmakers wearing the same color. The Democratic Women’s Caucus has invited all members to wear white to unify around reproductive rights. Other lawmakers will be wearing various types of pins in an attempt to use fashion to make a political statement.

Former Rep. George Santos, who was expelled in December, was seen on the House floor ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday.

As a former member, he is allowed floor privileges but will likely have to stand in the packed chamber. He is wearing a white shirt, black jacket with a bedazzled collar. Santos was seen hugging Rep. Lauren Boebert.

New York lawmakers react: GOP Rep. Marc Molinaro — who helped lead the expulsion effort — told CNN he couldn’t “care less” that Santos showed up. 

He also said he doesn’t regret not stripping Santos’ floor privileges in the expulsion resolution, which lawmakers would have needed to do to ban him from the floor. 

Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who won Santos’ seat in a special election, said he had “no comment” on Santos.

This post has been updated with reactions from New York lawmakers.

With economics expected to be at the forefront of his State of the Union speech Thursday night, President Joe Biden will address the fact that prices are high for many Americans looking to buy a new home, an adviser to the president said.

“He knows that the American people, American families need a break here,” Biden’s senior adviser Anita Dunn told CNN’s Erin Burnett about two hours ahead of the speech. “… so yes, he’ll talk very directly about housing tonight.

But, Dunn acknowledged that polls still show a disconnect between what the administration sees as its signature achievements and how the American people view them.

While economists have said America’s economy has exceeded expectations set a year ago, Americans aren’t feeling so optimistic. In survey after survey, they’ve conveyed strong disapproval of the state of the economy, something Biden has struggled to wrap his head around.

“If you try to govern by polls, you’re not going to govern very well,” Dunn said. “Good government is, at the end of the day, the best answer for any of this. The president came to office determined to do his best for the American people, and that’s what he’s going to continue to do, and he’ll address issues that they care about.” 

This post has been updated with additional quotes from Dunn.

CNN’s Donald Judd contributed reporting to this post.

As you prepare to listen to President Joe Biden’s address tonight, catch up on some notable State of the Union milestones and facts:

CNN’s Robert Yoon, Adam Levy and Liz Stark contributed reporting to this post.

Former President Donald Trump said he will be responding to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address with comments in real-time on Thursday night.

“I am pleased to inform you that tomorrow night we will be doing a LIVE, Play by Play, of Crooked Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address. I will correct, in rapid response, any and all inaccurate Statements, especially pertaining to the Border and his Weaponization of the DOJ, FBI, A.G.s, and District Attorneys, to go after his Political Opponent, ME (something never done before in this Country!),” Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday.

CNN has asked the campaign for more details about what exactly this will look like. 

This week, Trump and his allies had been discussing ways to counterprogram the address, as Trump pivots toward the general election rematch against Biden. 

Protests in front of the White House from demonstrators demanding a ceasefire in Gaza led to some tense moments ahead of the State of the Union Thursday evening.

A large crowd gathered in front of the White House hours ahead of Biden’s remarks, holding signs that included the phrase “Biden’s legacy is genocide.”

Chants from the protests were audible from the White House as Biden prepared to head to the US Capitol for the speech.

US Secret Service closed off Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to the public, but demonstrators huddled at the top of Lafayette Park, across from St. John’s Episcopal Church, where they held signs criticizing the administration and Biden for supporting Israel.

At one point, a motorist appeared to park his car in front of the protesters before revving the engine loudly — the driver was forced from his car by law enforcement and taken into police custody.  

CNN has reached out to USSS and US Park Police for more details on the arrest.

The post was updated with more details on the protests.

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt will attack President Joe Biden on his border policy during the GOP response to the president’s State of the Union address, according to excerpts of prepared remarks shared with CNN.

“President Biden inherited the most secure border of all-time,” Britt is expected to say. “But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations, halted construction of the border wall, and announced a plan to give amnesty to millions. We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days.”

Britt, the youngest GOP woman elected to the US Senate, is also prepared to slam Biden on foreign policy, accusing the president of “abandoning allies” in Afghanistan and “desperately pushing another dangerous deal with Iran.”

“Where I’m from, your word is your bond,” Britt is set to say. “But for three years, this President has demonstrated that America’s word doesn’t mean what it used to.”

Britt previewed in a post on X last week that she will “outline the Republican vision to secure the American Dream for generations to come.”

According to the excerpts, Britt will also blame “Bidenomics” for high mortgage rates and childcare costs.

Watch a few State of Union addresses, or a few dozen, and they begin to look and sound the same. But tonight’s address feels different and consequential. President Joe Biden feels almost like an underdog as the general election gets underway.

This State of the Union offers Biden a chance former President Donald Trump does not have: unbroken time on TV to make the case that his presidency is working.

One thing to expect for sure is a lot of talk about abortion rights. One guest sitting with first lady Jill Biden will be Kate Cox, the Texas woman who fought a legal battle with the state after being denied an abortion to end a high-risk pregnancy.

 Here’s what else Biden could try to do: 

This post is excerpted from an analysis by Zachary B. Wolf from the What Matters newsletter. Sign up here.

Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska has declined an invitation to the State of the Union address in Washington, DC, due to scheduling conflicts, her office told CNN on Wednesday.

In a statement to CNN, Zelenska’s office said she was invited to attend the State of the Union address set to be delivered by President Joe Biden on Thursday night.

“Unfortunately, due to the pre-planned events in the First Lady’s schedule, including a visit of orphaned children to Kyiv, the First Lady will not be able to participate in the event,” the statement said.

The White House confirmed on Wednesday it sent Zelenska an invitation. Ukraine’s ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova attended the State of the Union in 2022 and 2023 as the guest of the first lady.

The longest State of the Union/annual message in terms of minutes was delivered by former President Bill Clinton in 2000.

It clocked in at 1 hour, 28 minutes, 49 seconds, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Clinton spoke before a joint session of Congress on nine occasions over two terms.

President Joe Biden’s address last year was 1 hour and 13 minutes long.

Nearly 30 House Democrats have invited guests tonight to the State of the Union who have some tie to reproductive rights, an issue that Democrats are hoping to draw a stark contrast with Republicans on in the upcoming election. 

The guests tonight range from people who have been personally affected by the overturning of Roe v. Wade to the heads of IVF clinics in members’ districts. 

Here is the list of members who are bringing reproductive rights guests:

Hakeem Jeffries Katherine Clark Peter Aguilar Diane DeGette Judy Chu  Julia Brownley Lois Frankel Jerry Nadler  Nydia Velazquez  Joyce Beatty Gwen Moore  Colin Allred  Shontel Brown Robin Kelly  Mike Levin Lori Trahan Gerry Connolly  Lisa Blunt Rochester Sydney Kamlager-Dove  Bobby Scott Annie Kuster Chuy Garcia  Melanie Stansbury  Shri Thanedar Raja Krishnamoorthi Jamie Raskin Susan Wild  Jim Himes

President Joe Biden on Thursday plans to offer a swipe at his presumptive general election opponent while also making implicit acknowledgement of his own age during his State of the Union address, offering a glimpse of how he’ll address the thorny topic that has become a backdrop to his campaign. 

“My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy. A future based on the core values that have defined America: honesty, decency, dignity, equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor,” Biden will say, according to excerpts shared with CNN ahead of the speech. “Now some other people my age see a different story: An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution. That’s not me.”

The reference to his age, which critics have raised as a weakness for Biden ahead of 2024’s general election matchup, reflects a more offensive tack for the president – last month, in an interview with comedian Seth Meyers, Biden told the late night host voters should not just consider how old a candidate is, but “how old (their) ideas are.”

At 81, Biden would be the oldest person elected president if he wins reelection in November, while Trump will turn 78 in June.

Vowing to restore Roe

Biden also plans to vow to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again” if Congress passes such a law, according to the excerpts.

“In its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court majority wrote, ‘Women are not without electoral or political power.’ No kidding,” Biden will say, according to the prepared remarks. “Clearly those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America.” 

The president plans to lean into the political potency of the issue of reproductive rights, by adding: “But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and won in 2022, 2023, and they will find out again in 2024.”

Taking credit for “greatest comeback story never told”

And Biden will work to take credit for a post-pandemic economic boom in his speech, even as many Americans still say in polls they feel sour about the state of the country and its economy.

“I came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in our nation’s history. And we have. It doesn’t make the news, but in thousands of cities and towns the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told,” Biden will say in his speech, according to advance excerpts.

The lines reflect what has been a persistent frustration for Biden and his team as the country emerged from the Covid pandemic: despite easing inflation and rising wages, few Americans say they feel the improvements and aren’t giving Biden credit.

In Thursday’s speech, Biden will say: “Let’s tell that story here and now. America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up – not the top down, investing in all of America – in all Americans – to make sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one behind.”

The White House invited Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, to attend the State of Union as a guest of President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, but she is unable to attend, two White House officials said.

The president met with Navalnaya and her daughter Dasha Navalnaya in San Francisco last month in the weeks after Navalny died while imprisoned in Russia.

Biden has rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin for Navalny’s death, and used the moment to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump, who refused to condemn Putin in the wake of the opposition figure’s passing.

The concept of a State of the Union address is enshrined in the Constitution, but it has evolved over its history.

Is the president required to give an annual State of the Union address? What’s the term for a guest mentioned by the president during the speech? Which president was the first to call it a “State of the Union” address?

Click here to test your knowledge and see how well you know the history of the yearly presidential address:

The president is ready for potential hecklers at his State of the Union speech on Thursday, a White House official told CNN.

When President Joe Biden delivered his address last year, Republicans in the House chamber shouted at the president as a way to demonstrate their opposition to his policy stances, on everything from immigration to Social Security. 

In one of the most memorable moments of the evening, Biden, at one point, fired back over the boos: “Those are the facts! Check it out! Check it out!”

The president and his top aides fully expect that raucous lawmakers could once again set out to interrupt Biden’s address tonight, particularly given the deep political divisions and heightened tensions roiling Washington on issues like border security and Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. 

Officials emphasized that Biden will be ready for whatever comes his way, particularly given how much practice the president has had with interruptions during speeches recently. Demonstrators popping up at Biden’s speeches to protest the president’s refusal to call for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war have become common in recent months.

“That kind of stuff happens all the time,” the official said. “He’s prepared for it.”

President Joe Biden plans to draw a contrast between his economic policy and congressional Republicans’ policy during his State of the Union speech Thursday, according to one White House official. 

Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Jared Bernstein told CNN that Biden will discuss in his speech how his economy is working for young people while Republicans’ tax policy “looks a lot like tax cuts for the very rich.”    

“It’s also really important in this setting to talk about and to tell young people about the contrast about who’s fighting for whom and this speech is replete with the president explaining who he’s fighting for, and how he’s fighting to lower costs prove the living standards of low-income families, good jobs, union jobs, standing up production in this country,” Bernstein said.

The president will also highlight how he has tried to cancel student loan debt, he said.

The economy remains a critical issue for the president and one on which his approval rating hasn’t broken 40% since December 2021. It currently stands at 37% among the full public, according to CNN’s polling.

When President Joe Biden returns to the House chamber to deliver his third State of the Union address tonight, two seats on the dais behind him will be reserved for the vice president and the House speaker.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is also the president of the Senate, will sit to the right behind Biden, and Johnson will be seated to his left.

Presidents and first ladies typically invite about two dozen guests to sit in the House gallery. State of the Union guests help put a human face to a president’s message for both policymakers and viewers at home.

The president’s Cabinet, Supreme Court justices who choose to attend, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former members of Congress and members of the diplomatic corps are seated in front of lawmakers.

House members aren’t assigned seats. Instead, seats in the chamber are doled out on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the speech. House members must stay seated in the spot they choose until the address begins, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Senators join their House colleagues in the chamber, sitting at the front, a report from the Congressional Research Service states.

The tradition of the State of the Union address, or annual address from the president, has evolved throughout its history.

In fact, the State of the Union was known as the “President’s Annual Message to Congress” until well into the 20th century, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

George Washington delivered the first “annual message” on Jan. 8, 1790, at Federal Hall in New York. John Adams also delivered the speech before Congress.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president, discontinued this practice in 1801, saying the elaborate, formal ceremony too closely resembled a king addressing his subjects.

Instead, Jefferson’s private secretary carried the written message to Capitol Hill, and it was read to the chamber by the Clerk of the House. The practice of written annual messages continued for 112 years. President Woodrow Wilson resumed the practice of addressing Congress in person in 1913, the report said.

President Franklin Roosevelt was the first to call his speech the “State of the Union” address, according to the Senate Historical Office, and the term was made official under President Harry Truman.

Take a trip back in time and see what the address looked like throughout history

President Joe Biden will take to the House chamber to give his third State of the Union address. It’s a critical opportunity for the president to tout his accomplishments in office and lay out his plans for another four years in the nation’s top job, aides said, as he ramps up reelection efforts.

Last year, Biden’s address was a message of unadulterated optimism – even in the face of open hostility.

The speech carried a strain of populism rooted in strengthening the middle class – vintage Biden, but delivered at a pivotal moment for his political future. It’s a theme that aides say will also be present in this year’s speech.

Here are some of the big themes from Biden’s last address:

In conversations prior to the State of the Union address, the Congressional Black Caucus asked President Joe Biden to use the platform to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

On March 7, 1965, police attacked scores of civil rights activists during a march in Selma, Alabama, that is today referred to as Bloody Sunday.

The caucus has asked the president to “remind America about its promise, its purpose and its potential. And to speak very directly about the challenges that we’re facing as a nation when it comes to race, as it comes to our democracy, and as it comes to our freedoms, our rights and the opportunities, which are also under attack,” Black Caucus Chair and Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford told reporters in advance of the address. 

First lady Dr. Jill Biden is hosting Bettie Mae Fikes in her box tonight, “an American singer and civil rights advocate who was a Bloody Sunday Foot Soldier,” the White House said, adding that she had also joined the president for an anniversary ceremony last year in Selma.

President Joe Biden plans to use his State of the Union address Thursday to highlight his initiatives to lower drug prices and expand access to health insurance, as well as to propose expanding his health care efforts, according to a White House fact sheet. 

Biden has repeatedly pointed to his measures to lower drug prices on the campaign trail as he seeks to show he’s reducing costs for everyday Americans struggling with high prices. But most people still have a dour view of the economy and Biden’s presidency.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which congressional Democrats approved in 2022, included multiple provisions aimed at reducing drug prices for senior citizens. It authorized Medicare to negotiate the prices of certain costly medications, the initial round of which is currently underway. The maximum fair prices of the first 10 drugs are scheduled to be announced by September 1, though drugmakers are attempting to halt the effort through multiple lawsuits.

Biden will call on Congress to let Medicare negotiate the prices of at least 50 drugs each year, rather than the 20-drug limit contained in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The 2022 law also places a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap on drugs for Medicare enrollees starting in 2025. Biden will ask lawmakers to expand the program to all Americans with private insurance. The president also wants Congress to make permanent the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of 2025.

The House voted on Wednesday to pass a package of six government funding bills as lawmakers race the clock to get the legislation through both chambers before an end-of-the-week shutdown deadline.

The Senate must next take up the measure as lawmakers face a pair of upcoming shutdown deadlines on Friday and March 22. President Joe Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress tonight, further compressing the timeframe to enact the package.

The finalized package of spending bills — backed by the top Democrats and Republicans in both chambers — represents a major breakthrough for lawmakers.

What’s in the package: Democrats and Republicans have both claimed wins in the spending package, which includes funding for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development as well as the Food and Drug Administration, military construction and other federal programs.

The package will support a wide array of programs and initiatives, including hiring new air traffic controllers and rail safety inspectors; medical care and benefits for veterans; and science, technology and research programs aimed at bolstering US economic competitiveness and competition with China in fields such as artificial intelligence.

Democrats have highlighted that the package funds key social safety net programs, including providing $7 billion for the WIC program — which delivers nutrition assistance for women, infants and children — along with funding for rental assistance and other child nutrition programs.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday focused on border security and illegal immigration in a preemptive rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

Trump, who is set for a presumptive general election rematch with the president, criticized Biden for undoing several Trump administration policies, including Title 42 and the so-called Muslim ban.

Trump, in a new video posted to Truth Social, repeated the inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become a hallmark of his campaign speeches, and said what’s happening at the US-Mexico border is a “horror show.”

Some context: Trump torpedoed a bipartisan border bill earlier this year so he could continue campaigning on Biden’s perceived weakness on the border. He lobbied Republicans both in private conversations and in public statements on social media to oppose the border compromise, according to GOP sources familiar with the conversations – in part because he wanted to campaign on the issue and didn’t want Biden to score a victory in an area where the incumbent president is politically vulnerable.

President Joe Biden’s remarks on border security during Thursday’s State of the Union are expected to be an extension of his repeated calls for Republicans to pass tough border security measures, including in a visit at the US-Mexico last week, according to White House officials.

The White House is weighing executive action that would restrict migrants’ ability to claim asylum at the US southern border if they crossed unlawfully, though no final decisions have been made and no new announcements are expected Thursday.

Biden is trying to seize an issue that has dogged his administration and bedeviled lawmakers for years — using the failed Senate border bill to lay blame on Republicans for not giving him the tools to secure the border. GOP lawmakers have scoffed at the accusation, arguing the administration already has the authority to do more.

But on Thursday, Biden is expected to urge Republicans again to pass that bill as he also leans on stricter border measures.

“I think the president is going to lay out what was at stake with the border bill and why it was important to secure the border. He had a plan with Republicans that secured the border and also was fair and humane. But it took strong actions and, honestly, was only stopped for politics,” White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden said on CNN Thursday. 

“I think the president will really lay out why stopping progress on a real problem for the American people only because of politics is wrong,” Tanden added. 

It will be a notable moment for Biden to lean in on issue that an increasing number of Americans have named as a top concern and one that former President Donald Trump has made a centerpiece of his campaign.

Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, who seized on border security in the special election in New York, told CNN’s Dana Bash that the president should talk about the border Thursday, citing it as a concern held among voters. 

“The most important thing the president has to do is say that ‘I am willing to compromise. I am willing to do a bipartisan compromise. I’m not going to get everything I want the way I want it but I’m willing to be flexible to try and solve this very real problem that exists,’” Suozzi said.

The State of the Union is traditionally delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives before members of both the House and the Senate.

Traditionally, Senate and House leadership members escort the president into the chamber. This year, those members will be:

Senate:

House:

Seated behind the president are the top members of each chamber of Congress: the president of the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Note: If there is no vice president, or if the vice president does not attend, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate sits in the vice president’s seat.

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s election-year State of the Union address to Congress, here’s a look at the data behind some of the topics and policies he could bring up Thursday evening.

The economy is solid, but prices are sky-high.

After inflation rose in 2021 and soared for most of 2022, it cooled to more reasonable levels by the end of 2023 and without triggering a recession. Still, Americans are feeling the effects of rising home prices and mortgage rates, putting home ownership and the “American Dream” out of reach for many.

Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness not as big of a dent as planned

The Biden administration has forgiven $138 billion in student loan debt for 3.9 million borrowers through a variety of programs.

The president’s broad, one-time student debt cancellation plan, which would have erased $430 billion in total federal debt for borrowers, was struck down by the Supreme Court last year.

See more graphs that show other key issues facing the US here.

US President Joe Biden is set to announce new steps to establish a port in Gaza for humanitarian aid during his State of the Union address Thursday evening, senior administration officials said.

“Tonight in the speech, the President will announce that he’s directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a port in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water medicine, and temporary shelters,” a senior administration official said Thursday.

The port will include a temporary pier, a second senior official said, which “will provide the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day” to be coordinated with Israel, the United Nations, and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. Initial aid shipments will come via Cyprus, the official said.

It was not immediately clear when the port would be up and running: “This new significant capability will take a number of weeks to plan and execute. The forces that will be required to complete this mission are either already in the region or will begin to move there soon,” a second official said. 

As Israel’s severe restrictions on aid entering the Gaza Strip drain essential supplies, displaced Palestinians have told CNN they are struggling to feed themselves and their children.

While US officials believe delivering aid via land routes is “the most efficient, cost-effective way to get assistance in,” Biden’s announcement underscores the urgency of the moment.

The Biden administration continued its efforts, as aides repeatedly say, to “reach Americans where they are” – beyond traditional media channels – ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. 

“The White House hosted about 70 creators, digital publishers, and influencers across three separate events” on Wednesday and Thursday, a White House official told CNN. 

That includes a briefing with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is scheduled to meet the with digital news outlets and creators on Thursday afternoon. 

The group has a combined social media following of “well over 100 million,” the official said. 

“The goal of these events is to brief creators on what’s going to be covered in the SOTU address, and reach audiences who aren’t as engaged with traditional media,” the official said. 

The move comes as Americans are increasingly looking to digital platforms to get their news and turning away from radio and print publications, according to the Pew Research Center. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer previewed tonight’s State of the Union address during his floor remarks, saying President Joe Biden will make it clear that “after so much adversity, America’s economy is growing, inflation is slowing, and Democrats’ agenda is delivering.”

He said Biden’s speech will highlight Democratic successes and show the chaos in the House Republican party in stark relief.

“The difference between the parties will be as clear as night and day. Democrats are focused on lowering costs, creating jobs, putting money in people’s pockets. But the hard right, which too often runs the Republican party in the House and now increasingly in the Senate, is consumed by chaos, bullying, and attacking things like women’s freedom of choice,” Schumer said.

“The Republican front-runner for president has made it abundantly clear that he’s not running to make people’s lives better, but rather on airing his personal political grievances.”

Schumer thanked Biden for his leadership and reiterated his belief that it is “imperative” Democrats “finish the job we began three years ago.”

New digital content from the White House released Thursday morning featured a conversation between President Joe Biden and a series of actors and actresses who have played presidents on television or in movies, offering advice to the real president on his State of the Union address.

“I’ve never spoken to so many presidents all at one time,” Biden said from Camp David, where he spent the weekend doing prep with top aides. 

He spoke with Morgan Freeman, Tony Goldwyn, Geena Davis, Michael Douglas and Bill Pullman in a virtual call. 

“Well sir, in my capacity as president, all I had to deal with was a meteor. One of the things that I came out of that with in my speech to the people: Hope. Hope is the strongest force we have in this country. It is the most useful and most effective,” Freeman said, reflecting on his time in the film “Deep Impact.”

Goldwyn acknowledged that he “behaved very badly” as president in the aptly named TV show “Scandal,” but offered Biden this advice: “Tell them that you exist for them – tell them that they make you a better man.”

Pullman offered his insight: “We can’t be consumed by our petty differences and we will be united in our common interests.”

And Davis took a page from her iconic turn in “A League of Their Own”: “There is no crying in politics,” she said. 

Biden invited the “ex-presidents” to the White House and said he would love to meet them in person. 

A handful of Democratic governors made their way through a gaggle of their colleagues last month to tell President Joe Biden directly what they’ve been stressing behind the scenes: He needs to be fighting harder.

The Democrats told Biden that he needed to show more of the fire that was on display in a closed-door meeting with governors when Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte handed him a letter demanding more action on the southern border. Biden flashed a smile, according to two of the governors standing there.

“State of the Union,” Biden said, teasingly.

That fighting attitude is anticipated to be on display during Thursday’s primetime speech, in which the president is expected to go much further than he is used to in bashing corporations for gouging consumers and racking up profits.

But with anger about rising prices driving so much of the bad vibes surrounding the economy — even the Cookie Monster X account posted about shrinkflation on Monday, prompting a response from the White House — Biden is going where he long resisted, to redirect the fury that has been weighing him down in the polls.

Leading Democrats say it’s far past time.

Read more about what Biden’s allies expect from the State of the Union.

President Joe Biden will lean in on his economic populist message during his high-stakes State of the Union address Thursday, detailing efforts to go after corporate greed, cracking down on price gouging and announcing a new plan to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

In a newly-unveiled tax plan, Biden would make some key changes, White House officials said, including:

He will also use his address this evening to highlight kitchen table issues and some tangible efforts to lower costs. Biden will “lay out his plans to lower costs and create a fairer tax system,” National Economic Council director Lael Brainard told reporters.

As a part of those plans, Biden is expected to highlight his efforts to:

President Joe Biden is expected to spend the day putting the finishing touches on the State of the Union address, one of the most high-stakes speeches he’ll deliver as he seeks re-election.

But the primetime address is the result of months of intense preparations by his team to identify the policies he should prioritize and the messaging to convince voters he’s ready for a second term.

In addition to his most senior advisers working on the State of the Union address, Biden once again turned to presidential historian Jon Meacham to help craft the address that will tout his accomplishments and lay out his vision for another four years in the White House, sources familiar with the preparations said.

Here’s what to watch for in Biden’s SOTU address: The speech is expected to be heavy on economic populism. The president will talk about raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He’ll highlight efforts to cut costs for the American people, including pushing Congress to help make prescription drugs more affordable.

Biden will talk about the need to preserve democracy and freedom, a cornerstone of his re-election bid. That includes protecting and bolstering reproductive rights, an issue Democrats believe will energize voters in November. Biden is also expected to promote his unity agenda, a key feature of each of his addresses to Congress while in office.

The guest list for first lady Dr. Jill Biden’s box offers a blueprint for the Joe Biden’s State of the Union address tonight, as he leans on personal stories to put faces to critical issues facing Americans.

Among those faces will be Maria Shriver, the journalist and women’s health advocate.

Shriver, who is a cousin of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., teamed up with the first lady to launch the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research.

Shriver’s family has been critical of RFK Jr.’s run for the presidency, including after his campaign aired a Super Bowl ad mimicking the jingle from President John F. Kennedy’s seminal 1960 campaign ad.

As President Joe Biden prepares for one of the most high-stakes speeches he will deliver as president, the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc has launched a scathing television ad focusing on Biden’s age and mental fitness.

The ad opens with Biden’s faltering response to questions during a recent news conference and shows video of him stumbling while walking. The ad questions whether or not Biden can “even survive” another presidency.

The ad was intentionally run on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, which has been reported to be Biden’s favorite television show, a source familiar with the placement told CNN.

The national ad buy will run on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, and Newsmax through Friday morning.

“Biden is weak, and America is suffering because of it. Tonight’s State of the Union will not silence those waiting in the wings from laughing every time Joe Biden stumbles or bumbles,” MAGA Inc CEO Taylor Budowich said in a statement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson says he has sent a “very clear” message to House members ahead of this year’s State of the Union, telling them to “turn the temperature down.”

In recent years, the speech has erupted into boos and heckling. Last year, Republicans repeatedly heckled President Joe Biden during his address, ignoring the occasional shushes from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“I do think we need to get back to decorum and respect the institution, and I’ve been trying to model that myself,” he said.

“I’ll probably disagree with almost everything President Biden says tonight,” he said, “but we have to respect this institution and respect the people and have an honest dialogue about how to move forward, and I think we can in the days ahead.”

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt will deliver the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s upcoming State of the Union address, according to the House speaker’s office.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Thursday that Britt will deliver the response on March 7, shortly after Biden’s remarks before a joint session of Congress. The GOP leaders touted Britt as a leading voice in a new generation of Republican lawmakers.

“Senator Katie Britt is an unapologetic optimist, and as one of our nation’s youngest Senators, she’s wasted no time becoming a leading voice in the fight to secure a stronger American future and leave years of Washington Democrats’ failures behind,” McConnell said in a statement.

Britt made history with her win in 2022, becoming the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama. She succeeded retiring Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, whom she previously served as chief of staff.

Britt said she was “grateful” for the opportunity to deliver the response, adding in a post on X that she will “outline the Republican vision to secure the American Dream for generations to come.”

Speaker Mike Johnson announced his full guest list for the State of the Union this evening, using the platform to highlight issues including immigration, crime, Israel, the fentanyl crisis and more.

Here’s who they are, according to a statement released by Johnson:

President Joe Biden on Thursday will address Congress and the American people in what could be the most consequential speech of his presidency, seeking to boast about his first term while also warning the country about what he views as a ruinous threat to its very existence.

While State of the Union addresses have typically been opportunities for presidents to present themselves at their most bridge-building and presidential, the primary results on Super Tuesday, which effectively consolidated the 2024 campaign into a two-man race, gives this year’s speech a political hue.

Here’s what to watch for in the president’s speech:

Touting his economic record, even if Americans aren’t perceiving a windfall

The United States economy has outperformed experts’ expectations since a year ago, when many economists thought it would be undergoing a recession right now. That hasn’t happened for a variety of reasons. It’s not looking like it will anytime soon either with an unemployment rate that’s stayed below 4% for the past 24 months. But Americans aren’t feeling so optimistic. In survey after survey, they’ve conveyed strong disapproval of the state of the economy, something Biden has struggled to wrap his head around. Inflation is at the core of their consternation.

Failed border deal and abortion rights provide a contrast with Trump

Following the failure, at Trump’s urging, of a bipartisan deal that would have included significant border concessions from Biden, the president promised to make his case directly to the American people – blaming Trump directly for an issue that many Americans say is their top concern heading into November.

Biden will have his largest platform yet to do so on Thursday.

Here’s a glimpse of what else to expect in this evening’s speech.

President Joe Biden is giving his State of the Union address tonight, a high-stakes moment as he looks to convince voters to give him a second term in the White House.

Here’s a look at some of the topics and themes that could come up tonight:

President Biden will deliver his third State of the Union on Thursday in front of a divided Congress. It’s Biden’s last State of the Union before the 2024 presidential election where he will likely face a rematch with former President Donald Trump.

The US Constitution requires the president to brief Congress on the state of the union. Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution says:

“He (the President]) shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Some historical background: The idea for a State of the Union address originated from a ritual from the British monarchy. The king or queen gives a speech from the throne at the opening session of the British Parliament.

The US State of the Union address used to be known as “the President’s Annual Message to Congress.” Franklin Roosevelt titled his 1934 speech, “Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union,” according to his papers.

According to the House Clerk’s office, the speech was informally referred to as “the State of the Union” from 1942 to 1946. It was first officially called the “State of the Union” address in 1947 under Harry Truman.

George Washington delivered the first “annual message” on January 8, 1790, at Federal Hall in New York. 

Additional context: Even though Biden gave an address to a joint session of Congress in 2021, it was not called the State of the Union. Since 1977, new presidents have not called their first speech before a joint session of Congress a “State of the Union.” They are often referred to as an “annual message” or a message/address on a particular topic.