The President of the United States, Joe Biden, will address Congress and US citizens this Thursday (7) in what could be the most important speech of his Presidency, seeking to highlight positive points of his first term while warning the country about what it considers to be a threat to its very existence.
A CNN Brazil broadcasts the Democrat's speech live, at 11pm, Brasília time, in a special program with analysis.
While State of the Union addresses have typically been opportunities for presidents to present themselves at their most constructive and presidential, the results of the Super Tuesday primaries last Tuesday (5), which cemented the 2024 campaign between Biden and Donald Trump, give this year's speech a political tone.
While it is not yet known how often Biden will quote Trump, or even whether he will choose to do so, the 2024 general election campaign will, for all intents and purposes, begin with this speech.
Biden will draw the attention of what could well be his biggest audience before November, giving voters worried about his age and stamina a crucial barometer for whether the 81-year-old president has four more years in power.
This comes a month after a special counsel's report said the Democrat's memory and cognition are impaired.
The event also gives Biden the opportunity to present his administration's biggest victories directly to the American people, bypassing traditional media outlets, which he has often complained overshadow his accomplishments and support base.
Economy in focus
The United States economy exceeded experts' expectations a year ago, when many economists thought the country would be going through a recession at this time, which did not happen for several reasons.
Additionally, it doesn't look like a recession will happen anytime soon, with an unemployment rate that has remained below 4% for the past 24 months.
But Americans are not so optimistic. In poll after poll, they have conveyed strong disapproval of the state of the economy, something Biden has struggled to understand.
Inflation is at the center of the consternation. Although price increases slowed significantly two years ago, Americans are paying 18% more for goods and services compared to before Biden took office, according to data from the Consumer Price Index.
This is a problem that Biden has acknowledged in the past and committed to solving.
His rhetoric on the economy has recently taken on a more populist tone, with Biden saying in comments earlier this year that “despite everything we've done to lower prices, there are still too many companies in America [Estados Unidos] who deceive people.”
“Price hallucination, junk feeds, greed, reduflation,” Biden said in remarks in Columbia, South Carolina, adding that the country is “tired of being made a fool of.”
Two days before Thursday's speech, the Biden administration launched a new strike force with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission “to root out and stop illegal corporate behavior” that results in higher prices for Americans.
This effort, which aims to demonstrate to Americans that he has not lost sight of the impact that high prices are having, will appear in Biden's comments this Thursday, according to White House national economic advisor Lael Brainard to journalists in a conference call on Monday night (4).
The U.S. government has also focused on reducing drug prices and health care costs more broadly, both through laws designed to reduce costs and administrative proposals designed to increase competition.
For example, the federal administration in November proposed a rule governing the financial incentives that health insurers offering Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D drug plans can provide to brokers and agents.
The proposal would establish guardrails to prevent plans from providing excessive compensation to brokers and agents for steering potential enrollees toward their policies rather than those that serve the best interests of senior citizens.
Border crisis and abortion
After the failure, at Trump's request, of a bipartisan agreement that would have included significant concessions from Biden, the president has promised to make his case directly to the American people, blaming Trump for an issue that many Americans say will be their top concern in November.
Visiting the US-Mexico border on the same day as Trump last week, Biden asked the former president to work with him to find a solution that would strengthen the United States' southern border and overhaul its immigration system.
Trump, who hopes to use illegal immigration as a political cudgel against Biden, has not accepted a truce.
The Democrat repeatedly cited what he said was Republican cowardice in confronting Donald Trump as the main reason for the failure of an agreement. He will have the chance this Thursday to directly call on Congressional Republicans.
He will also have the opportunity to shed light on his efforts to protect the right to abortion in the United States and the threat that these rights would pose if Trump were elected again.
The president and his administration have spent much of the time since the 2022 overturn of Roe vs. Wade, which regulated abortion across the country, by the Supreme Court blaming Trump for the decision.
Defending the US role abroad
Speaking directly to the Republican-controlled House, which blocked a border deal that contained funding for Ukraine and Israel, Biden will have the opportunity to lay out in detail the price of the GOP's hesitation over support for Ukraine.
The lack of more U.S.-funded munitions has had serious consequences for Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, and Biden has often said that history will judge harshly the lack of resolve shown in continuing to fund the country's defense.
The speech comes weeks after Ukraine announced its withdrawal from the strategic town of Avdiivka, after fighting caused heavy Ukrainian casualties, and as other world leaders doubt the future of American leadership abroad in a hypothetical second Trump term.
The Republican, who has always been cautious about making any kind of criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, caused controversy when he discussed the United States' withdrawal from international partnerships.
He said he would encourage Russia to attack U.S. allies who are not complying with NATO spending guidelines and did not criticize Putin over the death of his main opponent, Alexei Navalny.
Perhaps in an effort to drive home Biden's point, the White House announced that Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska had been invited to watch Biden's speech. Neither of them will be able to attend.
The president will also have the opportunity to defend his position on Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, as his support for the conflict, although increasingly tepid, threatens to turn a key progressive group against him.
Warning about democracy and internal threat
Joe Biden posted on social media on Tuesday (5) a photo of himself reading the first page of the draft of his speech during preparations at Camp David.
Although that page contained the president's customary greetings to the speaker of the House, members of Congress, the vice president and the American people, a closer look reveals a name that Biden had hoped to mention in his speech, at least in his initial drafts. .
Visible semi-transparently on the first page is President Franklin D. Roosevelt's name and the beginning of his 1941 speech to Congress, in which the nation's 32nd president proposed four fundamental freedoms: speech, worship, want, and fear; and extolled the virtues of democracy throughout the world.
Opening his speech, Roosevelt told members of the 77th Congress that he was speaking to them “at an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.”
“I use the word 'unprecedented' because at no time before has American security been so seriously threatened externally as it is today,” Roosevelt mused.
Biden has made his own warnings — increasingly pointed in recent months — about a threat to the security of the United States. But this threat, the president warned, comes from within.
Roosevelt's speech was delivered on January 6, 1941, exactly 80 years before a mob incited by Trump stormed the building where Biden will address the country, in a violent attempt to disrupt the democratic process that put him in office.
*With information from Elisabeth Buchwald and Tami Luhby, CNN
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
