If Tuesday night’s speech boosts Biden, it will likely stem from the vigorous case he made for the way his leadership has united Western nations in punishing Putin for invading Ukraine and his vow to help the Ukrainians “defend their country and help ease their suffering.”
One potential problem is continuing uncertainty whether, even with additional Western aid, the Ukrainians can survive the Russian onslaught despite their far greater resistance than the invaders probably expected.
Biden again ruled out direct U.S. intervention, declaring “our forces are not engaging — and will not engage — in the conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine.” He said the thousands of American troops he has sent to Europe are there “to protect countries including Poland, Latvia and Estonia.”
But he warned the Russian president that, if he seeks to go beyond Ukraine’s borders into other Eastern European countries, “the United States and our allies will defend every inch of territory that is NATO territory with the full force of our collective power. Every single inch.”
Biden’s Ukraine comments comprised just 12 minutes of the hourlong speech. When he segued into the more standard laundry list of proposals that he had planned before the Russian invasion, divisions re-emerged. Democrats frequently cheered, while Republicans largely sat on their hands — erupting with boos when he criticized Trump’s 2017 tax cut as largely benefiting “the top 1 percent of Americans.”
The partisan divide was evident when Biden hailed his major bipartisan achievement of the past year, an infrastructure bill passed with 19 Senate Republican votes. GOP applause was sparse, reflecting the fact that most House Republicans opposed it though some later touted its benefits.
The domestic portion was largely an effort by Biden to persuade Americans that his policies have succeeded in taming the COVID pandemic and creating a vigorous economic recovery, despite the highest inflation in four decades. Polls show that up to half of those sampled believe the economy is in a recession, despite low unemployment and the addition last year of 6.5 million jobs, more “than ever before” in a president’s first year, Biden noted.
Looking ahead, he said, “My top priority is getting prices under control,” calling for lower costs, rather than lower wages, and urging enactment of the House-passed package of climate and social programs that two fellow Democrats blocked in the Senate.
He listed its many popular proposals, like lower prescription drug prices, expanded federal support for day care and increased Obamacare subsidies, and seemed to scrap the words “Build Back Better” in describing the bill. “I call it building a better America,” he said.
Also looking toward November, Biden sought to bury the slogan that Republicans have used successfully against many Democrats, declaring that the answer to fighting crime “is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police. Fund them. Fund them.”
And he displayed typical Biden optimism, declaring, “The state of the union is strong” but “we’ll be stronger a year from now than we are today.”
Unless more Americans believe that, Biden and his party won’t be.
