U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday delivered his first State of the Union (SOTU) address, using it to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin and show support to Ukrainians. On the domestic front, he pushed his legislative agenda and outlined plans to fight inflation.
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“He [Mr. Putin] thought he could roll in Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met with a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined. He met Ukrainian people,” Mr. Biden said, as he asked everyone to stand in solidarity with Ukraine. The country’s ambassador to the U.S. was a special guest of First Lady Jill Biden for the address.
Mr. Biden said he had spent months building coalitions in Europe and elsewhere – a veiled reference presumably to the retrenchment of the U.S. from multilateralism during the Donald Trump presidency.
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“Putin is now isolated from the world more than he has ever been,” Mr. Biden said. He warned Russian oligarchs that the U.S. was going to go after their “ill-begotten” wealth, announcing a Justice Department taskforce for this purpose. He also announced that U.S. airspace would be closed to Russian flights.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had asked Mr. Biden to send a strong and “useful” message about the invasion of his country by Russia, CNN reported.
While he outlined the types of assistance that was being provided to Ukraine, Mr. Biden reiterated that American troops would not fight in Ukraine but support NATO countries, in the event that Mr. Putin would send his army further west.
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Both China and Afghanistan barely received any mention – a sign of the changing preoccupations of American foreign policy and its current focus on Russia.
On the domestic front, Mr. Biden outlined a plan to keep inflation under check by lowering prescription drug costs and childcare costs, investing in manufacturing within America. Much of this would require legislative backing.
The President also used his speech to push his legislative agenda – asking Congress to pass Bills related to innovation and hiking the minimum wage among others.
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He called for resources for police, to train them better.
“We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police, it’s to fund the police,” he said, to applause. He talked about the progress made with fighting COVID-19 – no masks were required in the House chamber during the speech. However, Mr. Biden also made clear that the fight against COVID-19 was not over and that unity was required.
“So stop looking at COVID-19 as a partisan dividing line. See it for what it is: a god-awful disease. Let’s stop seeing each other as enemies. Let’s start seeing each other for who we are: fellow Americans.”
Mr. Biden’s poll ratings are at a low – from the late thirties to the early forties (percentage terms).