Closing summary
Joe Biden capitalized on his State of the Union performance by announcing campaign stops across the United States and cheering yet another month of positive employment growth. Donald Trump, meanwhile, launched a volley of attacks on the president’s annual address, which was the third of his presidency and potentially the last, if Biden does not win re-election. The former president was otherwise busy posting a bond in the massive defamation judgment author E Jean Carroll won against him, while pushing for a new trial.
Here’s what else happened today.
The Republican National Committee made Trump’s daughter-in-law Laura Trump its co-chair, as the former president moves to install loyalists atop the party.
The Senate is scrambling to pass a government fund package ahead of a midnight deadline to prevent a shutdown.
No Labels is moving forward with fielding a third-party presidential ticket – but does not have any candidates lined up yet.
Biden’s campaign responded to outcry over the president’s use of the word “illegal” to describe an undocumented murder suspect.
Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman and Trump ally, advertises himself as a retired Navy rear admiral, but was in fact demoted following a scathing inspector general report into his work as White House physician.
On his website, Republican congressman and former White House physician Ronny Jackson describes himself as a retired Navy rear admiral.
The Washington Post reports that’s not the case. Jackson, a Texas lawmaker and Donald Trump ally, was demoted to captain by the Navy following an inspector general’s report that documented inappropriate behavior during his time as doctor to the president.
“The substantiated allegations in the DoDIG [Department of Defense inspector general] investigation of Rear Adm. (lower half) Ronny Jackson are not in keeping with the standards the Navy requires of its leaders and, as such, the secretary of the Navy took administrative action in July 2022,” Navy spokesman Joe Keiley told the Post.
Here’s more:
Jackson is now a retired Navy captain, those people said — a demotion that carries a significant financial burden in addition to the social stigma of stripped rank in military circles.
Despite the demotion, Jackson has continued to refer to himself as a retired rear admiral, including in statements released since the Navy reclassified him as a retired captain. Former president Donald Trump and other Republicans have also continued to publicly describe Jackson using his former rank; it’s unclear if they were aware of his demotion.
Jackson’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the Navy’s 2022 personnel action and his demotion. The former White House physician has become a prominent voice in the 2024 campaign, repeatedly affirming Trump’s fitness to serve while castigating President Biden’s.
After publication of this story, the Navy provided Jackson’s service record, which shows the rank of captain retroactively applied to the date of his retirement in December 2019.
For an officer who served 24 years like Jackson, there is a more than $15,000 difference in annual pension payouts between a retired one-star admiral, the rank that Jackson held when he retired from the Navy in December 2019, and a retired captain, according to an estimate by Katherine L. Kuzminski, a military policy expert at Center for a New American Security. That payout gap is likely to widen over time as the military periodically increases its pay rates for each position.
Kuzminski also said that it was inappropriate for Jackson to describe himself as a retired rear admiral. “While it is possible that others will mistakenly refer to him as ‘Admiral’ in perpetuity, he himself should not make that mistake,” she said.
As he departed Washington DC for a campaign event this evening in Philadelphia, Joe Biden reiterated that he would sign legislation to ban social media app TikTok, if it makes it through Congress.
Legislation to force TikTok’s parent company to divest or be banned in the United States was passed unanimously by a House committee earlier this week, leading the app to encourage its users to call their congress members to speak against it.
Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Kari Paul:
The Senate has voted to advance a $467.5bn spending package that would fund several federal agencies, but it remains unclear whether the chamber will be able to pass it in time to avert a partial government shutdown due to begin at midnight.
The bill passed a procedural hurdle by a bipartisan vote of 63 to 35, setting up a vote on final passage. While the Senate is expected to approve the measure, progress was slow in getting the bill to a final vote and it is unclear whether lawmakers will meet their midnight deadline.
The measure, which contains six annual spending bills, has already passed the House and would go to Joe Biden to be signed into law. Lawmakers are negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded before the 22 March deadline.
Joe Biden’s seemingly off-the-cuff use of “illegal” to describe people who are undocumented during his State of the Union address drew disappointed reactions from experts who have long argued the term is inaccurate and outdated.
Responding to heckling from conservative congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who demanded Biden mention the name of Laken Riley – a Georgia nursing student who was allegedly killed by a person who is undocumented – Biden held up a button of Riley’s face and said she was an “innocent, young woman who was killed by an illegal”.
In unscripted moment, Biden holds up Laken Riley button that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) gave him, using it as an opportunity to again call for the bipartisan border bill:
— The Recount (@therecount) March 8, 2024
“How many thousands of people being killed by illegals? … Get this bill done. We need to act now.” pic.twitter.com/lkOzRF1Gd8
Democrats and immigrant rights organizations said Biden’s use of “illegal” as dehumanizing. The Illinois congresswoman Delia Ramirez said she was “disappointed” in Biden’s use of what she called “dehumanizing rightwing rhetoric” to describe immigrants. “No human being is illegal,” Ramirez said. Another Illinois representative, Chuy García, added:
As a proud immigrant, I’m extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the world ‘illegal’.
Immigration advocates have long argued that the term “illegals” is an inaccurate term, as entering the US without documents is not a criminal offense. It is also a racially charged term that can promote violence and discrimination, according to the Drop the I-Word campaign, which advocates for media organizations not to use it when describing immigrants.
Updated
Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, has said he would support Donald Trump as the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee despite his history of criticizing the former president.
Speaking to WMUR on Thursday, Sununu – who had endorsed Nikki Haley in the GOP primary – said:
I’m going to support the ticket. I’m going to support Donald Trump. But my focus is definitely going to be here in the state.
Asked about his previous comments calling Trump a “loser” and making fun of his age, Sununu said:
Look, I don’t take any of that back, to be sure. But again, understand this is an alternative. I mean, the alternative is Biden, and I think folks are seeing a lack of management, a lack of understanding of what’s happening with immigration, a lack of fiscal responsibility.
The four-term governor, who will not be running for re-election in November, pushed back on Trump’s legal arguments, including that the president has complete legal immunity from all prosecution.
“No, no. That’s crazy,” Sununu said. “Just because you’re a politician does not put you above the law, period.”
Updated
The day so far
Joe Biden is capitalizing on his State of the Union performance by announcing campaign stops across the United States and cheering yet another month of positive employment growth. Donald Trump, meanwhile, launched a volley of attacks on the president’s annual address, which was the third of his presidency and potentially the last, if he does not win re-election. The former president was otherwise busy posting a bond in the massive defamation judgment author E Jean Carroll won against him, while pushing for a new trial.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The Republican National Committee appointed Trump’s daughter-in-law Laura Trump its co-chair as the former president moves to install loyalists atop the party.
No Labels is moving forward with fielding a third-party presidential ticket – but does not have any candidates lined up yet.
Biden’s campaign responded to outcry over the president’s use of the word “illegal” to describe an undocumented murder suspect.
It’s always a tough job to deliver the rebuttal to a president’s State of the Union address, but Republican senator Katie Britt’s response was viewed by her fellow party members as particularly bad.
Today in the Capitol, reporters asked Britt’s Alabama counterpart, Republican Tommy Tuberville, for his thoughts on her speech. He praised it, while noting Britt was asked to give the remarks because she is “a housewife”, HuffPost reports:
Tuberville says Britt’s delivery was good:
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) March 8, 2024
“She was picked as a housewife, not just a senator, somebody who sees it from a different perspective…I mean, she did what she was asked to do. I thought she did a good job. And it's hard when you've never done anything like that.”
Third party group No Labels announces plans to field presidential candidates
No Labels, the centrist group that has been fielding a third-party candidate for the November presidential election, just announced that it will be moving forward with launching a campaign – but hasn’t decided yet who will actually run.
In a statement, Mike Rawlings, No Labels’s national convention chair, said he had held discussions today with 800 delegates from across the country, who encouraged him to press on.
“Even though we met virtually, their emotion and desire to bring this divided nation back together came right through the screen. I wasn’t sure exactly where No Labels delegates would land today but they sent an unequivocal message: keep going,” Rawlings said.
“Now that No Labels has received the go-ahead from our delegates, we’ll be accelerating our candidate outreach and announcing the process for how candidates will be selected for the Unity Ticket on Thursday, March 14.”
In recent months, various Republican and Democratic politicians have been reported as potential candidates for a No Labels ticket, including Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia who was a thorn in his party’s side in recent years, and Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of blue state Maryland who is seen as a leading centrist. But both men opted not to participate in whatever No Labels has planned, with Manchin instead retiring from the Senate, and Hogan launching a long-shot bid for an open seat representing his state in the chamber.
Updated
Donald Trump’s attempts to delay his criminal trials until after the 2024 presidential election – in the hope that he secures the presidency – lack solid a legal basis, according to justice department veterans.
Peter Stone reports for the Guardian:
Claims by Donald Trump and his lawyers that holding any of the four criminal trials he now faces before the US election in November would be “election interference” lack a solid legal basis and are brazen ploys to delay trials until post election, former justice department officials say.
As he campaigns to return to the White House, Trump is facing unprecedented legal and political perils: trials are pending in four federal and state jurisdictions, where he’s been charged with 91 felony counts including 17 about conspiring with allies to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in 2020.
To thwart any damaging verdicts and negative trial coverage pre-election, the former US president and his lawyers have pushed legal and political arguments by invoking election interference and presidential immunity, as they’ve sought to convince judges and courts to postpone trial dates until after November.
Trump’s drive to have trials held post-election is premised heavily on hopes of winning the presidency again, and then telling DoJ to kill the federal charges, say DoJ veterans.
For the full story, click here:
Updated
Republican National Committee votes to appoint Lara Trump as co-chair
The Republican National Committee voted on Friday to appoint Michael Whatley and Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump as its new chair and co-chair.
Whatley and Trump will replace the RNC’s outgoing chair, Ronna McDaniel, who announced her resignation last month after Trump endorsed a slew of loyalists for key RNC roles.
The appointment of his daughter-in-law marks Trump’s expanding influence across the GOP, despite criticisms of him from other Republicans, in addition to his mounting legal woes as the country gears up for the 2024 election.
Last month, Lara Trump vowed to spend “every single penny” of RNC funds to ensure her father-in-law’s re-election.
Speaking to Newsmax, she said: “The RNC needs to be the leanest, most lethal political fighting machine we’ve ever seen in American history … That is the goal over the next nine and a half months. If I am elected to this position, I can assure you, there will not be any more $70,000 – or whatever exorbitant amount of money it was – spent on flowers.”
“Every single penny will go to the No 1 and the only job of the RNC – that is electing Donald J Trump as president of the United States and saving this country,” she added.
Updated
A federal appeals court has reinstated bribery and fraud charges against Brian Benjamin, the former New York lieutenant governor.
Here is more from the Associated Press:
The decision by the 2nd US Circuit court of appeals in Manhattan reversed a December 2022 ruling by a lower-court judge that wiped out the bulk of the case against the Democrat, leaving only records falsification charges.
The appeals court said in its written decision that a jury could infer from the alleged facts in the case that Benjamin promised to allocate $50,000 in state funds to a non-profit organization controlled by a real estate developer in return for campaign contributions from the developer.
“We conclude that the indictment sufficiently alleged an explicit quid pro quo,” the 2nd Circuit said. “Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings.”
In an opinion written by Judge Steven J Menashi, the three-judge panel concluded that Benjamin had fair warning that his alleged agreement with the developer “was illegal and that it would not become legal if he simply avoided memorializing it expressly in words or in writing.”
For further details on Benjamin’s 2022 resignation after his arrest, click here:
Updated
Joe Biden will have a busy schedule next week, traveling to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan, the White House announced.
All three states are must-wins for the president if he is to be re-elected. The first stop will be in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Monday, where Biden will “deliver remarks on lowering costs for American families” then participate in a campaign event, the White House said.
On Wednesday, he’ll travel to Milwaukee, and the following day to Saginaw, Michigan, both for unspecified “political events”.
Updated
Biden campaign downplays president's use of 'illegal' to describe undocumented murder suspect
Asked by a reporter about his use of the word “illegal” to describe an undocumented murder suspect, Joe Biden’s campaign on Friday sought to shift the focus to Donald Trump and his hardline immigration rhetoric.
“I know it may have been difficult to hear over the incessant heckling of Marjorie Taylor Greene last night,” Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director, said on a call with reporters, “but we should be very clear about what the president was saying when it comes to fixing our broken system and to rejecting the cruelty in the hateful extremism that’s being pushed by people like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who were actually just trying to demonize immigrants in an attempt to score political points.”
While Biden was working to pass bipartisan immigration reform, Tyler said Trump is using immigrants as a “political punching bag” and “peddling Nazi rhetoric”.
He then enumerated Trump’s immigration proposals, including a return of family separation, mass deportation and ending “birthright citizenship”.
“Are we going to deal with this issue with the dignity and the humanity it demands or are we going to fall back with Donald Trump’s xenophobia, his racism and his inaction?” Tyler said. “That’s the fundamental choice for the American people in this election.”
Asked whether this would hurt the campaign’s outreach effort with Latino voters, the campaign insisted they would continue to “demonstrate the clear contrast” with Trump on the issue of immigration and how the candidates are treating members of the Hispanic and Latino communities.
“We are running this campaign against a man who was promising to rip kids away from their mothers again, who’s promising to erect mass deportation camps, who is promising to end birthright citizenship and is using hate as one of its chief political currencies,” Tyler said.
“Our community knows Joe,” said campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. “They know who is fighting for our community; they know who’s fighting for us. They know the incredible track record that he has in investing and so many areas that are benefiting our community and they also know his values, his values of faith, of family, of hard work. All of those are so consistent with what our community stands for. And in this election we know that those values will continue to shine through as voters make their choice.”
Updated
Donald Trump is continuing to fight E Jean Carroll’s defamation judgment, with his lawyers earlier this week requesting a new trial, the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports:
Attorneys for Donald Trump have requested a new trial in the defamation case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, hours before he was unofficially crowned the Republican party’s presidential candidate.
Trump’s attorneys, led by Alina Habba, filed papers in federal court on Tuesday arguing that the jury’s compensatory and punitive awards of $83m for denying he sexually abused her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s are out of proportion and should be reduced.
The former president’s lawyers identified case law that they said could reduce punitive damages to no more than $36.6m – and less if the compensatory component of the judgment, including millions to restore Carroll’s reputation, were reduced as well.
In court papers, the attorneys also argued that a district court could grant a motion for a new trial because evidence had been excluded from the case and the jury had been “erroneously instructed”.
“This Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump posts $91.6m bond in E Jean Carroll defamation case
Donald Trump has posted a $91.6m bond as he appeals the judgment against him in the E Jean Carroll defamation case.
It comes after US district judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan on Thursday denied Trump’s request for more time to secure an $83m bond to pay damages to the former Elle magazine columnist.
In January, jurors agreed with Carroll that Trump had defamed her in June 2019 by denying he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. The jury awarded $83.3m to Carroll in her trial against Trump
Kaplan made the verdict official on 8 February and gave Trump 30 days to post a bond or come up with cash during his appeal, which is expected to challenge the jury’s finding of liability and the amount of damages.
Trump had sought to delay enforcement of the verdict until the judge ruled on his motions to throw it out, which he filed on Tuesday. But the judge said Trump should not have waited 25 days after the verdict before seeking a delay, adding that Trump failed to show how he might suffer “irreparable injury” if required to post a bond.
Updated
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said “smokin” Joe Biden was “on fire” during his State of the Union address on Thursday, adding that the president “was lit.”
The president “delivered a compelling vision” for the American people while “crushing Maga extremism” in his speech, Jeffries told reporters at his weekly news conference.
Asked about Biden’s response to far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s heckling and demand that he say the name of Laken Riley, who is suspected to have been killed by an undocumented migrant, Jeffries said the president “acknowledged the horrific nature of the murder and emphasized the need to keep our community safe”.
Jeffries was then asked about Biden’s language referring to the Venezuelan national who police say killed Riley as “an illegal”. Asked if there were members of his caucus who were upset with Biden’s language, Jeffries said:
Joe Biden delivered an incredible speech that was very well received by the American people – beginning, middle and end.
Updated
Biden reacts to February jobs report: 'The great American comeback continues'
Joe Biden has welcomed the latest jobs report, which showed employers added 275,000 jobs across the US last month.
A statement by the White House hailed the “days of trickle-down” as being “over”, adding that “the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.” Biden’s statement reads:
The great American comeback continues. Last night, I put forward my vision for America’s future: one where we build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, where we invest in all Americans, and where the middle class has a fair shot and we leave no one behind.
Three years ago, I inherited an economy on the brink. Now, our economy is the envy of the world. We added 275,000 jobs last month – nearly 15 million since I took office. Unemployment has been under 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years. Wages keep going up. Inflation keeps coming down. And I’m taking action to continue lowering costs by taking on Big Pharma, getting rid of hidden junk fees, and making housing more affordable.
Across the country, the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told. The days of trickle-down are over.
Updated
Joe Biden joked that he wished sometimes that he was “cognitively impaired” as he spoke with the New York congressman Jerry Nadler on the floor of the House chamber after his State of the Union address.
“No one’s gonna call you cognitively impaired now,” Nadler told him after his speech.
Biden quipped:
I kinda wish sometimes I was cognitively impaired.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) after the SOTU: "No one's gonna talk about cognitive impairment now!"
— The Recount (@therecount) March 8, 2024
President Biden: "I kinda wish sometimes I was cognitively impaired." pic.twitter.com/CYKpIcKzG9
Biden, 81, faced criticism after failing to undergo a cognitive exam as part of his annual physical last month, which came after a justice department report that described him as an “elderly man with a poor memory”.
Updated
Katie Britt’s Republican response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address drew responses ranging from the baffled to the satirical to the appalled, even among fellow rightwingers.
“What the hell am I watching right now?” an unnamed Trump adviser told Rolling Stone.
“It’s one of our biggest disasters ever,” another unnamed Republican strategist told the Daily Beast.
The 42-year-old Alabama senator is a rising Republican star, widely respected on Capitol Hill and her selection to respond to Biden was a golden opportunity to introduce herself to the wider American electorate.
In his address Biden used his bully pulpit effectively, attacking Republicans in a fiery speech and inviting a strong response. But Britt’s speech, delivered with overt theatricality, oscillating in tone between the wholesome and the wholly horrific, did not land well even in her own party.
Updated
A majority of Americans who watched Joe Biden’s State of the Union address had a positive reaction to the speech, according to a flash poll.
More than six in 10 Americans who watched the speech reacted positively, according to the CNN poll, with 35% reacting very positively.
That pattern mirrors the reception for Biden’s speeches in previous years, the outlet reported. Last year 72% of viewers reacted positively, with 34% saying their reaction was very positive.
In a survey conducted before Biden’s speech last night, 45% of respondents said the president’s policies are moving the country in the right direction. That number increased to 62% after Biden’s address, the poll showed.
US adds 275,000 jobs in February as labor market continues to grow
Employers added 275,000 jobs across the US last month, as the labor market continues to grow at a clip in the face of the high interest rates.
Job growth exceeded expectations of 200,000 on Wall Street in February and rose from the previous month’s revised rate of 229,000.
Unemployment stood at 3.9%, according to data released on Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a 0.2% increase compared to January.
Industries that saw an increase in jobs include healthcare, government employment and food services and drinking places.
Disgraced ex-congressman and noted fabulist George Santos announced yet another run for Congress during a surprise appearance at Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday.
Despite currently facing federal criminal charges, Santos wrote on X during the speech that he’s looking to face off against his former colleague Representative Nick LaLota. LaLota, who actively helped remove Santos from office, previously called Santos “a sociopath” and attention seeker.
Some of Santos’s bizarre lies included claims that he graduated from Baruch College and earned an MBA in international business from New York University when he had never graduated from any college. He said that his mother was working in finance at the World Trade Center on September 11 when she wasn’t even in the US. He alleged his maternal grandparents were Jews who fled the Holocaust when they were not. He also claimed that his company lost several employees in the 2016 Orlando, Florida, shooting at Pulse nightclub. None of the deceased had ever worked with Santos.
Upon his removal, Santos became the first House member to be expelled in more than 20 years. Among his sweeping criminal charges, Santos faces seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, two counts of making materially false statements and more.
Santos’s presence on the House floor set social media ablaze, with many questioning how he was allowed to attend the State of the Union address. He was seen laughing on camera alongside Representatives Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz.
Notably, despite his December 2023 expulsion, he still has floor privileges.
Updated
The father of a US Marine killed in the 2021 Kabul airport bombing was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for interrupting Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, according to Capitol police.
Steve Nikoui shouted “Abbey Gate” during the president’s speech, a reference to the place where his son, Lance Cpl Kareem Nikoui, and 12 other troops were killed during the final days of the US presence in Afghanistan’s capital.
Police officers warned Nikoui to stop and quickly removed him from the House chamber when he did not. Nikoui, 51, was an invited guest of Republican congressman from Florida, Brian Mast, who said he had invited Nikoui to remind Biden about the “damage he has done to national security and American families”.
The Gold Star father who yelled at President Biden during his State of the Union speech tonight was Steve Nikoui, father of Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, one of the 13 service members killed outside the airport in Kabul during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
— POLITICO (@politico) March 8, 2024
“Abbey Gate,… pic.twitter.com/D4hY1O67Bq
The misdemeanor charge of illegally disrupting Congress carries a $50 fine and is typically resolved without going to court, the New York Times reported.
Updated
The Biden campaign said it had its best fundraising hours on Thursday night as the president delivered his State of the Union address.
The campaign told Politico that the campaign received more donations in the 9pm and 10pm hours than at any point since its launch last April. It later told the Washington Post that the 11pm hour ended up outperforming the 10pm hour.
Biden hits the campaign trail hard on the back of fiery State of the Union speech
Joe Biden will travel to Philadelphia today for a campaign event just hours after he delivered a forceful State of the Union address on Thursday, repeatedly taking aim at his general election rival, Donald Trump, without once saying his name. Biden and Trump will then separately headline campaign events in Georgia on Saturday.
Today marks the start of an at-least-month-long tour for Biden, who along with Kamala Harris, Jill Biden, cabinet members and senior White House officials will be traveling across the country to tout the president’s agenda. On the itinerary for the next week include New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Ohio and Arizona.
Here’s what else we’re watching:
Republican National Committee (RNC) members are set to vote on new leadership during a Houston meeting where RNC chair Ronna McDaniel plans to stand down. Members are set to elevate Trump’s endorsed candidates – North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley and Trump’s own daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold his weekly news conference at 9.45am ET.
The House is out but the Senate is expected to take up a $467.5bn package of spending bill before a midnight Friday shutdown deadline. Lawmakers are negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded before a 22 March deadline.
Updated
More than a dozen House Democratic women used fashion to make a powerful statement at the president’s State of the Union address, arriving in head-to-toe suffragette white.
As lawmakers from both sides of the aisle filed into the House chamber, many were seen wearing white suits as a nod to the women’s suffrage movement – most notably in an effort to show support for reproductive rights.
“As the hours count down to President Biden’s State of the Union, I’ve joined my @DemWomenCaucus colleagues in all white to symbolize our joint commitment to women’s rights,” the Democratic representative Robin Kelly of Illinois tweeted before Biden’s speech.
We will never stop advocating for women, from reproductive rights to workplace equality.
As the hours count down to President Biden's State of the Union, I've joined my @DemWomenCaucus colleagues in all white to symbolize our joint commitment to women's rights. We will never stop advocating for women, from reproductive rights to workplace equality. pic.twitter.com/GhNfORwvYW
— Robin Kelly (@RepRobinKelly) March 8, 2024
The Democratic representative Kathy Castor of Florida said in another missive:
We are standing up for your right to make your own health care decisions including abortion.
🇺🇸 House Democratic women in suffragette white: We are standing up for your right to make your own health care decisions including abortion #SOTU2024 pic.twitter.com/7MKYLsyBIK
— U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (@USRepKCastor) March 8, 2024
The color white has long been symbolic in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1908, at a rally in London’s Hyde Park, more than 300,000 protesters showed up to support a “votes for women” campaign and wore white; they were encouraged to do so by the suffragette, and a key member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence.
According to The Telegraph, Pethick-Lawrence was the key driver of making purple, white, and golden yellow the official colors of the suffrage movement. White became the primary color used because black-and-white photos were what people had at the time – and it was cheaper.
Biden re-emphasised need to raise corporate minimum tax to 21%
Joe Biden also re-emphasised his wish to introduce a corporation tax hike should he be voted in at the next election.
Speaking during his State of the Union address, the US president said: “The way to make the tax code fair is to make big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their share.
“In 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40bn in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes. Not any more!
“Thanks to the law I wrote and signed big companies now have to pay a minimum of 15%. But that’s still less than working people pay in federal taxes.
It’s time to raise the corporate minimum tax to at least 21% so every big corporation finally begins to pay their fair share.
“I also want to end the tax breaks for big pharma, big oil, private jets, and massive executive pay! End it now!”
BIDEN: “It’s time to raise the corporate minimum tax to at least 21%.”#SOTU2024 pic.twitter.com/Epx4xqCzXc
— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) March 8, 2024
Updated
President Joe Biden said he wanted to make college more affordable for Americans in his State of the Union address.
“Let’s continue increasing Pell Grants for working- and middle-class families and increase our record investments in HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities) and Hispanic and minority-serving institutions”, he said.
“I fixed student loan programs to reduce the burden of student debt for nearly four million Americans including nurses firefighters and others in public service like Keenan Jones, a public-school educator in Minnesota who’s here with us tonight.
“He’s educated hundreds of students so they can go to college now he can help his own daughter pay for college.”
Joining me at my State of the Union is Keenan, a public school educator from Minnesota.
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 8, 2024
He's prepared hundreds of students for college.
And because of fixes we made to our Public Student Loan Forgiveness program, he can now afford to send his own daughter to college. pic.twitter.com/Ew618KoCXj
Updated
Commentators have been enjoying Joe Biden’s reaction to seeing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wearing a visibly pro-Donald Trump outfit at the State of the Union address.
Greene, who represents Georgia’s 14th district, wore a bright red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, which appeared to have been signed by the former president.
Her look was complete with a matching sports jacket – featuring various badges replete with Trump campaign slogans – and a white T-shirt which read “say her name”, apparently a reference to Laken Riley, a a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University, who was allegedly murdered last month by an undocumented immigrant who had been released on parole.
Greene had heckled Biden about Riley during the speech, shouting “It’s about Laken Riley,” as Biden talked about the border. “Say her name!”
The combined effect of Greene’s ensemble clearly left an impression on Biden when he encountered her after the speech, as can be seen in this clip:
Biden’s face at seeing Marjorie Taylor Greene is killing me pic.twitter.com/65XUOkOyYT
— B.W. Carlin (@BaileyCarlin) March 8, 2024
Updated
President Joe Biden promised that if Americans voted for Democrats, he would restore Roe v Wade, the decision which protected the right of women to have an abortion.
The decision was overturned by a largely Republican supreme court in 2022.
Speaking in his State of the Union address, Biden said: “Clearly, those bragging about overturning Roe v Wade have no clue about the power of women in America.
“They found out though when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and won in 2022, 2023, and they will find out again, in 2024.
“If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v Wade as the law of the land again!
“America cannot go back. I am here tonight to show the way forward. Because I know how far we’ve come.”
President Biden: “Those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women, but they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and we won in 2022. And we’ll win again in 2024.” pic.twitter.com/jqOeFg0emg
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 8, 2024
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Rightwing commentators have lambasted the Alabama senator who Republicans chose to deliver the rebuttal to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
Katie Britt delivered the Republican response from what appeared to be her kitchen.
The dramatic and intense tone of her delivery has left some political operatives from her own party dismayed.
Charlie Kirk, the founder of right wing group Turning Point USA, wrote on X: “Joe Biden just declared war on the American right and Katie Britt is talking like she’s hosting a cooking show whispering about how Democrats ‘dont get it’.”
A Republican staffer said it was “giving high school freshman speech”, Business Insider reported. “She really thinks she’s killing it. But it’s comical, like SNL quality,” they added.
Enough is enough.@JoeBiden: Innocent Americans are dying. And you only have yourself to blame. Reverse your policies. End this crisis. And stop the suffering. pic.twitter.com/iPftbVmhct
— Katie Britt (@KatieBrittforAL) March 8, 2024
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President Joe Biden called on members of Congress to guarantee the right to IVF treatment nationwide, during his State of the Union address.
The Democratic leader said a social worker from Birmingham, Alabama, called Latorya Beasley was in the chamber listening to the speech.
He said: “14 months ago tonight, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl thanks to the miracle of IVF.
“She scheduled treatments to have a second child, but the Alabama supreme court shut down IVF treatments across the state, unleashed by the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade.
Latorya Beasley’s dream of having another child was put on hold after the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 8, 2024
This was unleashed by Donald Trump and the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
It’s time to guarantee the right to IVF nationwide. pic.twitter.com/yFSdRwaONV
“She was told her dream would have to wait.
“What her family has gone through should never have happened. And unless Congress acts, it could happen again.
“So tonight, let’s stand up for families like hers!
“To my friends across the aisle, don’t keep families waiting any longer. Guarantee the right to IVF nationwide!”
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The speaker of the United States House of Representatives accused Joe Biden of “Gaslighting the American people” in his State of the Union address.
Speaker Mike Johnson said: “Tonight, President Biden suggested that the state of the union is strong, but we all know that’s not true. We are a nation in decline across every measurable category: on the world stage, in terms of our sovereignty, and economically.”
The 56th speaker of the House, who is a Republican politician, added: “Gaslighting the American people is not going to work.”
Tonight, President Biden suggested that the state of the union is strong, but we all know that's not true. We are a nation in decline across every measurable category: on the world stage, in terms of our sovereignty, and economically.
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) March 8, 2024
Gaslighting the American people is not going… pic.twitter.com/vSDumvaZui
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Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, called Joe Biden a “mad” disgrace to the United States on Friday and said the US president had no right to compare himself to Franklin D Roosevelt.
“Even though Roosevelt was an infirm man in a wheelchair, he raised America from the Depression; Biden, on the other hand, is a mad, mentally disabled individual who set his mind on dragging humanity to hell,” Medvedev, a former president who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on X.
“Roosevelt together with allies including the U.S.S.R., was fighting for peace; yet, Biden is actively and persistently trying to start WWIII.”
“Roosevelt was fighting against fascists, but Biden is fighting for them,” Medvedev wrote in English. “He is the United States disgrace!” Medvedev, who cast himself as a liberal moderniser when he was president from 2008-2012, now presents himself as an anti-western Kremlin hawk. Diplomats say his views give an indication of thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite.
In the State of the Union address, Biden compared himself with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That’s a so-so comparison. Obviously, not in his favour.
— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) March 8, 2024
First, even though Roosevelt was an infirm man in a wheelchair, he raised America from the Depression; Biden, on the other hand, is…
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Would it be a withered old man or a human dynamo? Would it be a rambling, gaffe-prone politician or an inspiring leader touched with fire? Would it be Geriatric Joe or Dark Brandon?
Within the first few minutes of Thursday’s State of the Union address in Washington, millions of Americans had their answer. Joe Biden, 81, had brought the fight. But will it be enough?
Read our US Politics Sketch here:
Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, who delivered Republicans’ formal response to Biden, attacked him over immigration and the economy.
“The true, unvarnished State of our Union begins and ends with this: Our families are hurting. Our country can do better”, she said.
At 42, Britt is the youngest Republican woman ever to serve in the Senate and she attacked Biden over his age, telling viewers: “What we saw was the performance of a permanent politician who has actually been in office for longer than I’ve been alive.”
The first-term Alabama senator was speaking on the heels of her state’s supreme court ruling that frozen embryos are “children”.
"What we saw was the performance of a permanent politician who has actually been in office for longer than I've been alive," Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) says in the GOP response to Pres. Biden's State of the Union address.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 8, 2024
"President Biden just doesn't get it. He's out of touch." pic.twitter.com/25wCzW3cR8
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Trump labels Biden's speech 'angry, polarizing, and hate-filled'
Former president Donald Trump, during Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, sent a steady stream of messages blasting Biden on Truth Social.
“He looks so angry when he’s talking, which is a trait of people who know they are ‘losing it,’” Trump wrote. “The anger and shouting is not helpful to bringing our Country back together!”
He added: “This was an angry, polarizing, and hate-filled Speech. He barely mentioned Immigration, or the Worst Border in the History of the World.
“He will never fix Immigration, nor does he want to. He wants our Country to be flooded with Migrants. Crime will raise to levels never seen before, and it is happening very quickly!”
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As he spoke, the president was heckled by far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She demanded he say the name of Laken Riley, who is suspected to have been killed by an undocumented migrant.
Biden, who usually wants nothing to do with Greene, took her up on the offer. Biden acknowledged Riley – and then, in a reference to efforts to reduce gun violence, referred to greater numbers of people killed in incidents unrelated to migrants in the country.
In unscripted moment, Biden holds up Laken Riley button that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) gave him, using it as an opportunity to again call for the bipartisan border bill:
— The Recount (@therecount) March 8, 2024
“How many thousands of people being killed by illegals? … Get this bill done. We need to act now.” pic.twitter.com/lkOzRF1Gd8
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Biden said Trump tried to 'bury the truth about January 6' in fiery address
President Joe Biden accused Donald Trump of trying to “bury the truth about January 6” in a fiery State of the Union speech.
The Democrat leader accused Trump and Republicans of trying to rewrite history about the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot by the former president’s supporters seeking to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory.
“My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6. I will not do that,” Biden said, a signal that he will emphasize the issue during his re-election campaign. “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Here are other key moments from Biden’s speech:
He opened by declaring democracy under threat at home and abroad and criticizing Trump, who he did not mention by name, for inviting Putin to invade Nato nations if they did not spend more on defense.
The president said efforts to restrict abortion were an “assault on freedom”, and he derided the supreme court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade, with members of that court seated just feet away.
Biden knocked Republicans for seeking to roll back healthcare provisions under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and driving up deficits, and jibed them for taking money from legislation they had opposed.
He proposed new measures to lower housing costs, including a $10,000 (£7,807) tax credit for first-time homebuyers while boasting of U.S economic progress under his tenure.
In a nod to Republican attacks over his age, Biden mentioned he was born during the second world war, but defended his vision for the country as fresh. “You can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.”
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