Joe Biden urges US blue-collar resurgence in feisty speech

US President Joe Biden has urged unity and touted a blue-collar economic resurgence in a rousing State of the Union speech before a raucous congress.

Jill Biden, US second gentleman Doug Emhoff, top right, Irish singer-songwriter Bono, former speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, centre, and Brandon Tsay, bottom left, applaud Ukrainian envoy to the US Oksana Markarova. Picture: AFP

US President Joe Biden has urged unity and touted a blue-collar economic resurgence in a rousing State of the Union speech before a raucous congress that doubled as a bid to persuade voters he still has what it takes to seek re-election at the age of 80.

The Democrat, who has been written off even by some supporters as too old, gave as good as he got on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) in an unusually boisterous event, with right-wing Republicans heckling and mocking the President throughout.

At times smiling and joking, at times showing anger, Mr Biden concluded his address, viewed on television by tens of millions of Americans, saying: “Because the soul of this nation is strong, the state of the union is strong.” And without mentioning the 2024 election, he said: “Let’s finish the job.”

The speech, clocking in at an hour and 12 minutes, was remarkable for the granular focus on kitchen table issues, rather than soaring rhetoric or foreign affairs.

The first mention of Ukraine, which Mr Biden vowed would get US support against Russia for “as long as it takes,” came just under an hour into the speech.

China, which Mr Biden warned would face a US response whenever it “threatens our sovereignty” – as in last week’s shooting down of an intruding high-tech Chinese ­balloon – came even later.

Mr Biden has yet to announce his run for a second term but is expected to declare soon. The State of the Union speech could serve as an opening audition.

He pitched a centrist, populist vision of a country healing after Covid and the turmoil of Donald Trump’s one-term presidency. And Mr Biden’s patient, even humorous ripostes to Republican jeering backed up his claim to represent a calmer alternative to the still powerful Trump wing.

With the event sounding more like the British parliament’s question time than the staid annual US tradition, Mr Biden declared that US democracy was “bruised” but “unbowed and unbroken”.

On a number of occasions, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Republican heading the party’s narrow new majority in the House of Representatives, stood to applaud Mr Biden – and he appeared to try to quiet his more radical party members in the chamber.

At the core of the speech was a full-throated call for Made-in-America nationalism and populist policies to rebuild the US industrial heartland – the kind of rhetoric that once helped Mr Trump lead Republican gains in Democrat working class strongholds.

Mr Biden touted unemployment figures, now at a half-century low, and the stabilising of inflation, as he promised to fight for the “forgotten” people of the economy. For decades, “manufacturing jobs moved overseas, factories closed down”, he said. “Jobs are coming back. Pride is coming back,” he said. “This is my view of a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America.”

Among Mr Biden’s proposals in the speech was a new “billionaire tax” designed to “reward work, not just wealth”. And he hit out at big oil companies he accused of making “outrageous” profits. “I ran for president to fundamentally change things to make sure our economy works for everyone, so we can all feel that pride,” he said. Mr Biden warned Republicans in strong terms not to use their newfound power in the house to block the usually uncontroversial procedure of extending the US debt limit – something that could send the US crashing into default on its national debt. “Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage,” he said. “Let’s commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never, ever be questioned.”

Republicans say they want to see budget cuts to reduce the debt, but Biden went off script to pile pressure on plans floated by a minority in the opposition party to cut popular social security programs.

The most emotional moment came when Mr Biden called for reforms to policing and gun ownership laws. In the audience as First Lady Jill Biden’s guests were Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old who disarmed the gunman in a January mass shooting in California, and also RowVaughn and Rodney Wells – the parents of Tyre Nichols, who died after a prolonged police beating in Memphis.

“We can’t turn away,” Mr Biden said, recalling the fear black parents have of police when their children go outside. “Do something,” he said, prompting Nichols’ parents to stand and applaud.

Delivering the Republican rebuttal to Mr Biden, former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders lashed out at the “radical left” and what she said was an attack against the “freedom and peace” of patriotic Americans. “It’s crazy and it’s wrong,” said Ms Sanders, who was elected governor of Arkansas in November and is a ­rising star on the right.

AFP