White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients had promised Americans would see a “very energized president” in Thursday night’s State of the Union—and Joe Biden certainly came out swinging. In an at-times fiery speech, the president laced into MAGA Republicans, Supreme Court conservatives, and especially 2024 rival Donald Trump—though he pointedly declined to mention his predecessor by name. “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,” Biden said. “To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.”
“Some other people my age,” he added of the former president, “see a different story.”
Biden sought to contrast the two visions he and his predecessor represent: “The issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are—it’s how old our ideas are,” the president said, directly addressing the age issue that has hung over his reelection campaign. “You can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future of what America can and should be.”
Biden outlined his economic accomplishments and vision, including with a call to raise taxes on billionaires and a shout-out to unions. He also renewed demands for an assault weapons ban and for climate action; decried attacks on reproductive rights and IVF in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision; and attempted to thread the needle on the Middle East, expressing support for Israel while also pushing for a temporary ceasefire, more aid to Gaza, and a two-state solution. “Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip,” Biden said of Israel. “Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.”
But his overarching theme Thursday was that of his 2020 and 2024 campaigns: threats to democracy at home and abroad. “Democracy must be defended,” Biden said early on in the speech, pressing Congress to pass aid to Ukraine for its defense against Russia and condemning the ongoing attempts to “bury the truth of January 6th.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who helped lead some of those 2020 subversion efforts, smirked and rolled his eyes as he sat behind Biden. After all, it was that kind of night: In addition to Marjorie Taylor Greene in her red Trump hat, there was Congressman Troy Nehls, clad in a tee-shirt bearing the former president’s mugshot. There was expelled Republican Representative George Santos, simply attending in order to announce the congressional campaign nobody asked for. And there were, of course, repeated jeers from the Republican side of the aisle, which Biden mostly succeeded in batting back. “Oh, you don’t like that bill, huh?” he said, as he sparred with GOP hecklers who helped kill the more stringent border measure they, themselves, had been demanding. “I’ll be damned. That’s amazing.”
It was a solid address—especially compared with the bizarre Republican rebuttal Alabama Senator Katie Britt gave afterward—and he delivered it with vigor. Will it erase concerns about his age, or smooth over the divisions that threaten his 2020 coalition, or cure Americans’ apparent amnesia about the Trump years? Perhaps not. But it was certainly the kind of Biden the public should see more of.
