President Biden rails against ‘my predecessor’ in fiery State of the Union speech

Calling out the “outrageous” behavior of “my predecessor” over and over again, President Biden teed up the general election with a fiery State of the Union speech pledging to defend Americans from a resurgent Trump-led right.

Biden described Donald Trump’s “failed” efforts to overturn the 2020 election as “the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War,” and said the country needed to “be honest the threat remains.”

“My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6th,” Biden said early in his remarks. “I will not do that. Here’s the simple truth: you can’t love your country only when you win.”

Never mentioning Trump by name, Biden pledged to sign a bill restoring abortion rights lost after “my predecessor” succeeded in overturning Roe v. Wade. He castigated Republicans for not passing a bipartisan border bill after “my predecessor” told them to abandon it. He demanded they approve aid for Ukraine to repel Russia’s invasion and attacked “my predecessor” for encouraging attacks on NATO allies. He said he would stop “my predecessor” from again trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He chastised “my predecessor” for refusing to take action on guns after mass shootings. He boasted of imposing new restrictions on Chinese technology that “my predecessor” did not. He asked Americans to remember life under “my predecessor” when the pandemic was still raging and murder rates were spiking.

Biden warned that Republicans will “cut Social Security and give more tax cuts to the wealthy” and got into repeated back-and-forths with members as they booed and jeered. In a jarring exchange with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Biden held up a pin honoring murdered Georgia student Laken Riley and said she was “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal” before calling for changes to the immigration system.

Addressing his age, Biden framed the coming election as a debate over “how old our ideas are.”

“Hate, anger, retribution are the oldest of ideas, but you can’t lead America with ancient ideas — only take us back,” Biden said.

The speech marked an unofficial kickoff of the president’s reelection push, laying out a message that he plans to take on the road to Michigan on Friday and Georgia on Saturday, where Trump is speaking the same day. The campaign and allied groups are also expected to ramp up advertising and build new volunteer and staff infrastructure in the coming weeks.

Biden’s message was notable for its directness, if mostly unsurprising in its content. He built on the same themes Democrats have run on throughout his presidency: Protecting abortion access, opposing the MAGA movement, and promising help on kitchen table issues like health care, taxes, and education.

But Democrats mostly aren’t concerned about Biden’s message, they’re anxious about his age and ability to run a credible general election campaign against Trump, who looks strong in recent polls. On that score, the speech clearly provided the boost the White House wanted. He stayed on offense, hit some high-energy moments, and paused for chants of “four more years” from the Democrats in attendance.

It didn’t hurt that Republicans had set the expectations bar to the ocean floor. An ad by a pro-Trump super PAC ahead of the broadcast asked whether Biden would soon drop dead — all he had to do was keep breathing to show them up. He benefited from the same dynamic at key points in 2020, as well as at the last State of the Union. His age may be his biggest liability, one that will hover over the entire election cycle, but the speech was a reminder that there are downsides to recklessly attacking him over it as well.

Republicans tapped the 42-year-old Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. to call the 81-year-old Biden a “dithering and diminished leader” from her kitchen in the official party rebuttal.

The main focus of her remarks was immigration. In a long and harrowing passage, her voice cracking with emotion, Britt denounced Biden’s record on the border and described tales of human trafficking and rape.

“President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace,” she said. “This crisis is despicable. And the truth is it is almost entirely preventable.”

The former president promised a play-by-play rebuttal of sorts to Biden’s speech, and didn’t disappoint: He spent the evening over on Truth Social, where he alternated between attacking the content of Biden’s speech (“IVF was just approved in Alabama, and the Republicans are totally in support of helping women,” he wrote in one post) and commentating on Biden’s performance. On the latter, Trump at one point noted that Biden’s “hair is much better in the front than on the back.” In other posts, he addressed Biden’s coughs: “DON’T SHAKE PEOPLE’S HANDS GOING OUT – HE KEEPS COUGHING INTO HIS RIGHT HAND!”

Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. said Biden “showed that he’s ready to run for re-election, he’s ready to win.“

“I was apprehensive going in tonight about the energy the president would show,” Larsen admitted. “I just didn’t know it would be 100% of the energy, 100% of the time.”

“I think you saw a reaction from the Republicans that was muted because it was more of a ‘State of Division’ than a State of the Union in its tone and in its tenor,” Rep. Jake Elizey, R-Texas told Semafor.

Other Republicans focused on Biden’s aggressive speaking style.

“It was like an angry old man with a poor memory shouting at people to get off his lawn,“ Rep. Bob Good, R-Va. said. “He’s telling half the country to get off the lawn essentially.“

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas was upset with Biden’s reference to an “illegal” murdering Laken Riley. “I think it’s dangerous rhetoric,” he said, per the Texas Tribune’s Matthew Choi. “And I think that the President is getting bad advice from his advisors and speech writers.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed the moment on CNN: “He should have said undocumented, but that’s not a big thing,” she said, adding his focus was on showing sympathy towards Riley’s family.

Fun fact: A 40-year old Biden delivered the Democratic response to Ronald Reagan’s1983 State of the Union. C-SPAN resurfaced the video ahead of Thursday’s speech.

Kadia Goba and Joseph Zeballos-Roig contributed.