Joe Biden gave his first official State of the Union address. He did give an address to a joint session of the House and Senate in 2021, but when the president has just been inaugurated a month or two prior and gives that address, it’s just not called the State of the Union. So it was sort of the second one, the first official one. 

And if I just cut to my grade for first, I would basically call it a B. 

I think the opening and closing of Joe Biden’s State of the Union was strong, and it was mostly related to Ukraine and Russia, and he set the right tone. 

He said the things that were expected.

Biden: And as I’ve made crystal clear, 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.

He made it unabashedly clear that Vladimir Putin is the aggressor, is the so-called bad guy to pick a very simple term in this particular situation. And that the country stands with Ukraine. 

Biden also announcing a number of new restrictions and sanctions on Russians and Russian businesses, including the closure of US airspace to all Russian airlines and some other things. And so that was strong.

In the middle, there was a lot of okay stuff. Now it was certainly made more difficult by the fact that even good things, Republicans won’t clap for. Joe Biden, accurately laying out his jobs creation record and his GDP growth numbers.

Biden: In fact, our economy created over 6.5 million new jobs just last year… The economy grew at a rate of 5.7 last year — the strongest growth rate in 40 years.

Which you can say, well, he lacked context, but what he said was true, and it was positive, and yet Republicans were motionless.  

At one point, Mitch McConnell. It almost looked like the video had frozen McConnell was just motionless. Almost looked like he had had some bad clams, maybe an hour or two before the State of the Union address.

So that’s Republicans getting in the way. They certainly weren’t going to help Joe Biden. 

But then in terms of the things Joe Biden did wrong, there were many vague policy type things thrown out, which will never see the light of day and which weren’t even plausibly explained. And what I mean by that is not that it’s wrong to aspirationally lay out priorities during a State of the Union address. Of course, you wouldn’t expect every policy idea is laid out in detail, but you lay out what are those ideas.

The problem I sort of had with the way Joe Biden did it, was first of all, very kind of herky jerky transitioning between different unrelated things and just throwing out, we’re gonna do this. We’re gonna do that. And a lot of the things just really didn’t make sense and have no shot of being done. 

At one point, Joe Biden said, we’re gonna crack down on those who are overcharging people for things, paraphrasing. 

Biden: Tonight, I’m announcing a crackdown on those companies overcharging American businesses and consumers.

Are you talking about price controls? Are you talking about a congressional bill, executive orders? Are there specific industries where you’re just, you’re just gonna say these are the prices.

It’s not the type of thing because it, it would require so much to really do something like that. That to me makes sense to just kind of throw out there. The people that kind of like it will be confused, and the people that want to oppose you are going to say, wow, that really doesn’t sound like the way our government typically operates. So like that’s one example. There were a ton of these different things thrown out and remember they don’t even have all 50 democratic senators united behind the things that they want to do at the Biden White House. 

So almost all of these things are never going to see the light of day. And I don’t think it was even.. if it had been done in a way where it’s like, okay, this stuff probably won’t happen, but here’s like a real clear path as to morally and economically why these are the right things.

Okay. It was just very herky jerky. Like I mentioned.

The State of the Union also contained the most violent and disgusting moment of any State of the Union address that I’ve ever watched. There was a moment sort of in the middle of the speech where Joe Biden started talking about military casualties and military deaths. And he started to talk about his own deceased son, Bo Biden, who died from brain cancer. And it’s, theoretically, it’s possible that the brain cancer could have been caused by exposure to chemicals and smoke while he was enlisted in the military. 

This is Joe Biden’s deceased son. And as Joe Biden starts talking about his son who died, Lauren Boebert gets up and yells some trash statement about Biden being responsible for 13 dead soldiers. 

Biden: A cancer that would put them in a flag draped coffin.  I know. 

Boebert:13.

Crowd: Boo.

And it was such a vile moment that even some Republicans said sh, and I think Lindsay Graham was seen mouthing shut up, and I think the most disrespectful and vile moment that I’ve ever seen previously. 

If you had asked me, what’s, what’s the most disrespect you’ve seen during a State of the Union, I would’ve said, well, it was when Republican Congressman Joe Wilson yelled, “you lie” at Barack Obama, 

Obama: The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

Wilson: You lie!

Crowd: Booing

And that was disrespectful and totally out of order. That was nothing compared to this. And I’m not excusing what Joe Wilson did some years ago, but this is just vile.

These people have no business. I don’t, I don’t even wanna say jobs because I don’t wanna say, like I was gonna say they have no business teaching kindergarten or being a cashier or, you know, mowing your lawn. But I, I don’t, I don’t wanna insult people who do those jobs. I don’t even know, they, they have no business  doing anything where they come in contact with anyone or affect anyone. People like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert, both of whom also turned their backs on Joe Biden as he was walking in, just desperate for attention, and listen, they got it to some degree because they’re so disgusting. And the lowest, absolute moment of any State of the Union that I can remember. 

So I would give it a B overall Joe Biden’s speech. 

Let’s see now, if it furthers any bipartisanship, any aisle crossing, at minimum, when it comes to the situation in Russia and Ukraine, where there’s already been some bipartisanship, and let’s see if Joe Biden is able to get any other major policy done before the midterm elections that are now at this point just about eight months away.