He wants to “finish the job”, give popular America back its “pride” and the divided nation its “unity”: Joe Biden, who plans to run for a second term, delivered a speech to Congress on Tuesday which had already country accents.
If the exercise of the “State of the Union speech” is generally a stuffy exercise, punctuated by the ovations of the presidential party, the 80-year-old Democrat this time had to deal with the invectives of certain parliamentarians from the radical right. .
In a combative mood, visibly relaxed, Joe Biden replied with a few jokes, without turning away from his message: “We must be the nation that we have always been when we were at the top. Optimistic. Full of hope. Looking to the future. »
Even where supporters of Donald Trump tried, on January 6, 2021, to prevent Congress from certifying his election, the president considered that American democracy, admittedly “bruised”, remained “inviolate and preserved”.
Complimented by Trump
The former president also commented live on Tuesday on Joe Biden’s speech on his social network, Truth Social, even giving him an extremely rare compliment: “I oppose the majority of his policies, but he put words on how he felt and ended the evening much better than he started it, ”he said.
Another rare manifestation of unity in an extremely divided America: the entry of Joe Biden into the hemicycle was, with a few exceptions, greeted by a standing ovation.
Throughout his speech, the American president presented himself as a man who “understands” the difficult end of the month, devoting most of his speech of more than an hour to the problems of daily life.
Promising to work for the “forgotten” of growth, those whom the previous president and current candidate Donald Trump was able to seduce in part, Joe Biden lamented that “for decades, the middle class [ait] been crushed”.
“And, over time, we lost something else. Our pride. Our confidence in us, ”he regretted, promising to restore them.
Struggling in the polls, he played the pragmatist card, reporting – in great detail – on his big bills that were supposed to bring back jobs and factories, and make life easier for consumers.
Tax billionaires
Joe Biden has also called on Republicans to join him in passing a whole series of major reforms – knowing full well that he will never be followed by the most radical parliamentarians, on whom the Republican Party depends to control the House of Representatives.
Joe Biden has called for a “permanent” ban on assault rifles, heavy taxes on billionaires and multinational corporations, a cap on the price of insulin, tough regulation of tech giants who “conduct experiments on [les] children and siphon off data from teenagers to fuel their profits”.
The president also applauded the parents of Tire Nichols, a young African-American man who died after being beaten up by police in Memphis, and judged that America “could not turn away” from the problem of police violence.
In the camp of the president, we are frankly delighted: “Joe Biden must be delighted, it was a masterstroke”, applauded David Axelrod, former adviser to Barack Obama.
The current president knows, however, that, according to the polls, the Americans do not want a second match between him and Donald Trump in 2024. But where the Republican presents himself as a providential man, the only one capable of saving America of a generalized “decline”, the Democrat is betting that his message as chief optimist will end up uniting.
While a year ago, Joe Biden, speaking a few days after the invasion of Ukraine, had insisted a lot on international issues, this time he passed on the subject quite quickly.
Inviting parliamentarians to give the Ukrainian ambassador, present in the room, a standing ovation, he promised that the United States would support Ukraine “as long as necessary”.
But the president was especially expected on China: the affair of the Chinese balloon shot down on Saturday after flying over American territory for several days having earned him criticism of weakness on the right.
America “will act” if Beijing “threatens its sovereignty”, he warned, calling however, there too, for “unity” between Democrats and Republicans to win the “competition” with Beijing.
In response, China said on Wednesday it would “firmly” defend its interests, while urging the United States not to view the bilateral relationship solely as adversarial.
“We will firmly defend China’s sovereignty, security and development interests” but we call on Washington to “work with us to put bilateral relations back on the path of healthy and stable development,” he told reporters. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy.