State of the Union: what to watch for as Joe Biden addresses the nation
President Joe Biden will address a joint session of Congress Thursday night in his last state of the union speech of his presidential term. He’s expected to highlight his legislative record in office, with the rapidly-approaching election raising the stakes.
How to watch Biden’s State of the Union address:
Biden’s state of the union address is scheduled for 9pm ET/6pm PT tonight – 7 March – and will be broadcast on most major news networks, including ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX. It will also be carried by CSPAN and streamed live on the White House website here.
What to watch for:
Biden will likely portray this election as he did in 2020: a contest between democracy and Trump, whose authoritarian rhetoric has escalated since he lost the 2020 election to Biden.
Biden has been consistently been polling behind Trump and will likely cast himself as the last line of defense against autocracy.
It is unclear how Biden will position himself on foreign policy. His administration faces mounting pressure from the right to abandon its support for Ukraine, which for more than two years has been fighting a Russian ground invasion. And he faces calls from a progressive anti-war movement to push for a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by
Israel’s military campaign. During his speech, Biden is expected to announce the creation of a port on the coast of Gaza to deliver more aid to the besieged enclave.
A week ago, Biden and Trump made dueling visits to the US-Mexico border, underscoring the centrality of immigration policy to the 2024 race – and the shift to the right that Biden and other Democratic politicians have made on the issue. During his speech in Brownsville, Texas, Biden called on Trump to support the bipartisan bill to restrict immigration on the southern border, which is languishing in Congress. How, and if, Biden speaks about immigration, will be a prelude to his approach during the months ahead on the campaign trail.
This speech will also offer Biden an opportunity to address abortion rights, an issue that has mobilized Democratic voters since the supreme court decision protecting abortion access, Roe v Wade, was overturned. An Alabama supreme court ruling in February that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law – threatening to cut off access to in vitro fertilization there – brought concerns about reproductive healthcare access back to the fore. Biden has expressed his personal misgivings about abortion on religious grounds, but has defended Roe v Wade.
attending?
What notable guests are
Among Biden’s guests in attendance will be Latorya Beasley, whose second round of in vitro fertilization was canceled following the Alabama supreme court ruling on IVF, and Kate
Cox, who was forced to flee her home state of Texas to seek an abortion. Beasley’s experience, the White House said, is “yet another example of how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to reproductive health care for women and families across the country”.
Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union, will join Beasley, Cox and first lady Jill Biden in a “viewing box” in the House gallery.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, and Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, were invited but declined to attend.
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, will also have guests in attendance, including family members of people thought to be taken hostage by Hamas and family members of service members killed during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Johnson also invited the parents of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter imprisoned in Russia.
Who is delivering the rebuttal?
Katie Britt, a first-term senator from Alabama – and the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the Senate – will deliver a rebuttal to Biden’s address. Britt is a rightwing Republican and a staunch Trump supporter. In the wake of the Alabama court ruling on frozen embryos, Britt defended IVF services and is expected to counter Biden’s talking points on reproductive health.