Joe Biden wants to improve his record and his image during the State of the Union speech

by Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Joe Biden intends to use his fourth State of the Union speech on Thursday evening to accentuate the contrast with Donald Trump, while highlighting his economic record and trying to reassure voters about his age eight months before the presidential election.

The annual speech by the President of the United States to both houses of Congress will take place at 9:00 p.m. in Washington (02:00 GMT Friday) and will be broadcast live on television.

For Joe Biden, this is a unique opportunity to try to convince voters that he remains the best alternative to a return to power for Donald Trump, promised the Republican nomination after the withdrawal of Nikki Haley from the primaries. day after “Super Tuesday”.

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The polls give Joe Biden, 81 years old, and Donald Trump, 77 years old, neck and neck both at the national level and in the “swing states”, those states which sometimes vote Democratic, sometimes Republican, where the outcome of the The November 5 ballot will be played out again this year.

This repetition of the 2020 election, of which a strong majority of Americans have continued to repeat in poll after poll that they do not want, leaves great uncertainty surrounding the level of mobilization.

To convince Democratic voters, but also independents and moderate Republicans likely to vote for him, Joe Biden will once again appear before Congress as the protector of democracy in the face of Donald Trump who continues to assert against all evidence that the 2020 election was rigged and threatens to throw anyone who opposes him in jail.

THE RIGHT TO ABORTION, ELECTORAL ARGUMENT

The outgoing president will also commit to protecting the right to abortion, seriously called into question by a decision of the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority since the previous mandate of Donald Trump, and by a certain number of states led by the Republicans. The argument has allowed Democrats to win numerous local elections and partial legislative elections in recent years.

“We intend to remind voters of the chaos and lasting damage caused by Trump as president,” underlines Joe Biden’s campaign team.

Joe Biden intends to present himself as a defender of the middle classes hard hit by inflation. He will submit to Congress a new proposal aimed at raising the minimum tax level for businesses and Americans whose fortune exceeds $100 million.

Such tax reform is unlikely to succeed unless the Democrats obtain a majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives, in addition to winning the White House next November.

To demonstrate his commitment in this area, Joe Biden intends, however, to recall his support for unions in the automobile sector, which have obtained significant salary increases, as well as his legislative successes in terms of infrastructure or the production of computer chips – a sector which has carried the Wall Street Stock Exchange in recent months, reassuring the many Americans who benefit from a funded retirement.

According to one of his collaborators, the American president will also insist on the place of the United States in the world by illustrating it through its support for Ukraine and Israel, a new opportunity for him to ask the House of Representatives, led by Trumpist Mike Johnson, to finally vote for aid of 95 billion dollars intended for these two countries and Taiwan.

Joe Biden will thus respond directly to Mike Johnson, who criticized him on Wednesday for having weakened the American economy and the reputation of the United States in the world.

AVOID ANY SLAPPING

However, the American economy is doing much better than that of other developed countries, with strong growth in employment, wages and consumer spending despite the persistence of high interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to curb the inflation.

“He is a president who has done more in three years than most presidents have accomplished in two terms,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre argued on Wednesday.

Despite this good record, a majority of Americans say they have more confidence in Donald Trump to manage the economy.

Joe Biden will also have to remobilize minorities, in particular African-Americans, while a civil rights organization, the NAACP, called on him to present a solid action plan in favor of the electoral rights of blacks, often flouted in states with a Republican majority, as well as a reform of criminal justice to make it more egalitarian.

Beyond his program, Joe Biden must reassure about his physical and cognitive abilities after a series of slips of the tongue and missteps, the videos of which are widely distributed by the Republican campaign teams and their supporters. Each of the outgoing president’s words and gestures will be closely observed during his speech of at least an hour to Congress.

He risks having to face an audience that will seek to destabilize him, like the elected officials of the Trumpist “MAGA” (“Make America Great Again”) movement who loudly heckled him during his speech on the state of the Union last year.

“It’s an opportunity for him to really project himself (on the election) and possibly allay some concerns about his age,” underlines historian Thomas Alan Schwartz, specialist in the American presidency and professor at Vanderbilt University. .

(With contributions from David Lawder and David Morgan; French version Tangi Salaün, edited by Sophie Louet)