Did Biden pass or fail? Former presidential speechwriters grade the State of the Union address
Saddled with negative approval ratings and trailing former President Trump in the latest polling average of their general election rematch, President Biden went for the jugular in prime time Thursday evening as he delivered the State of the Union address with eight months to go until the November showdown. Biden early and often took aim at Trump, whom he only referred to as “his predecessor,” and also fired numerous salvos at Republican lawmakers sitting directly in front of him as the president delivered his address to a joint session of Congress. “My predecessor, a former Republican President, tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want,’” Biden charged three minutes into his speech. It was the first of thirteen references to Trump, who this week became the GOP’s presumptive nominee. While Democrats applauded the tone and tenor of the president’s address, Republicans savaged the speech for crossing the line. BIDEN TARGETS TRUMP AND CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS IN STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS “This was the most partisan State of the Union I’ve heard in my lifetime,” said Bill McGurn, who served as chief speechwriter for then-President George W. Bush. “No outreach to Republicans, and the clear message was this: the era of big government is back, with a vengeance,” added McGurn, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member and columnist as well as a Fox News contributor. FOX EXCLUSIVE: TRUMP REACTS TO BIDEN STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS Marc Theissen, who also served as a speechwriter for Bush, argued Biden’s speech was an “utter disgrace.” “Attacking his opponent directly in the first minutes of his speech is unprecedented and perhaps the most partisan start to a State of the Union address in modern memory,” Theissen emphasized in a social media posting. It was a very different take from Dan Cluchey, who served as a speechwriter for the president in the Biden White House. “With energy and vigor, the President laid out the clear choice facing America — a choice between two starkly different visions for our future. Will we expand freedom, or restrict it? Will we defend democracy, or attack it? Will we continue to grow the economy for all, or rig it on behalf of billionaires and the wealthiest corporations? President Biden made it crystal clear where he stands — and he did it while commanding the room with equal parts sharp oratory, disarming banter, and matter-of-fact moral authority,” Cluchey told Fox News. And Cluchey argued that “State of the Union addresses don’t get better than this.” Longtime Democratic consultant Maria Cardona told Fox News “the contrast with Trump was brilliant and scathing. He pulled no punches, told the truth, and he was everything he needed to be.” “Of course, Republicans thought it was too political. If that’s their only criticism, they know he had a homer, and they have nowhere else to go,” added Cardona, a Democratic National Committee member and veteran of multiple presidential campaigns. Cardona argued that the president “was energetic, direct, funny, eloquent, and he laid out his accomplishments clearly and relevantly, connecting them with peoples’ lives.” McGurn agreed that the 81-year-old Biden “was vigorous, more than we’ve recently seen.” But he added that the address “had a get-off-my-lawn-you-rotten-kids! quality to it.” And Clark Judge, who served as a speechwriter for the late President Ronald Reagan, concurred that Biden’s address “sounded angry. For its force, it depended upon him basically shouting and projecting outrage.” And he charged that the speech was “a laundry list of bad solutions for the problems he [Biden] caused.” Biden used a portion of his address to spotlight the economic rebound during his tenure in the White House. “I inherited an economy that was on the brink,” Biden noted before touting “now our economy is the envy of the world.” And he spotlighted that “wages keep going up and inflation keeps coming down!” But poll after poll indicates that Americans aren’t giving the president much credit for the easing in inflation. And Biden went on offense against Trump and congressional Republicans on another issue where he’s politically vulnerable, the crisis at the nation’s southern border. But Colin Reed, a veteran Republican strategist, said that when it came to the economy and the border, “both were buried deep within the confines of the speech.” “On the two most important issues, he whiffed big time,” said Reed, a campaign veteran who served as a top adviser this cycle on a super PAC supporting former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2024 GOP nomination bid. Biden is the oldest president in the nation’s history. And polls indicate a majority of Americans harbor serious questions about his physical and mental ability to handle another four years in the White House. “I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while. And when you get to my age, certain things become clearer than ever before,” Biden quipped near the end of his address. Seasoned Democratic strategist and communicator Chris Moyer acknowledged that the president “can’t stick his head in the sand and pretend voters don’t know he’s old, and this was the first time he took on his age directly. It was smart to do so, and I think he’ll refine this more and more over the course of the campaign.” And Moyer, who’s served on multiple Democratic presidential campaigns, noted that “this was more campaign speech and less State of the Union address.” But he argued that Biden “did what he needed to do, showing a fighting spirit and hitting many of the expected notes on popular issues.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Chicago quietly moves migrants from airports after Senate committee probe
Illegal immigrants are no longer camping out at Chicago’s two major airports after the Senate Commerce Committee probed the mayor’s office this year about how much in federal resources was being spent to keep them there. A week after the committee’s letter to Mayor Brandon Johnson in late January, the migrants were quietly relocated after being camped out at O’Hare International Airport and Midway Airport for months. Johnson’s office, the airports nor the Federal Aviation Administration responded to Fox News Digital’s repeated requests for comment about where the migrants were transferred. “Mayor Johnson’s office is still withholding crucial information from Congress and taxpayers about the housing of illegal aliens at O’Hare airport,” Senate Republican Commerce Committee spokesperson Melissa Braid told Fox News Digital in a statement Thursday night. SENATE COMMERCE REPUBLICANS PROBE MIGRANT SHELTERS AT CHICAGO AIRPORTS “Lawmakers are actively working on aviation safety and funding legislation. The requested information will help ensure taxpayer airport infrastructure money is being used for valid purposes rather than diverted to pay for sanctuary airports caused by Biden’s open border crisis,” she said. According to a Chicago Tribune report last month, Johnson’s office announced there were no more migrants camped out at the airports. The removal comes as thousands of migrants were also moved from Chicago’s police stations in December. The report noted that Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, told reporters the removal was part of an ongoing effort to rapidly place migrants in shelters or housing in other cities. Pacione-Zayas noted that the $150 million Johnson earmarked for the emergency migrant response this year would likely be spent by April. CHICAGO’S O’HARE AIRPORT USED AS MIGRANT SHELTER AS CRISIS OVERWHELMS CITY: ‘LIKE A SCENE FROM MAD MAX’ “Every day we’re in meetings, on calls with the state, with the county, to figure out what the long-term plan is to get through the calendar year together,” Pacione-Zayas said. The Republicans, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote to Johnson about the city’s move to house migrants at O’Hare International Airport since March 2023 and, more recently, at Midway International Airport. Images emerged last year of hundreds of migrants camped out in a section of O’Hare. It came as the city struggled to deal with an influx of tens of thousands of migrants since mid-2022. “Repurposing airport facilities and infrastructure to house illegal aliens not only degrades taxpayers’ investment in the national airport system but, at least in the case of O’Hare, as federally-funded airport facilities are withdrawn from public access and use, it violates the requirement that these federally funded facilities ‘be available for public use as an airport,” the letter reads. “No rational person would define an airport as a facility that houses illegal aliens,” they write. ILLEGAL MIGRANTS ARE SLEEPING IN TERMINALS OF BOSTON AIRPORT ON ‘DAILY’ BASIS AS CRISIS OVERWHELMS SHELTERS The lawmakers sought answers about the number of migrants being housed at the airports, the related costs, the hazards it has created, if it received any federal waivers, and if it consulted with the TSA on matters of aviation safety and security. The committee says it has not received a response from the city. Last year, Johnson boasted about his administration’s efforts to provide housing, health care and schooling for the migrants coming to the city, but he has appealed for additional federal help to keep up with the ongoing demand. He’s also asked for nearly $5 billion in assistance from the Biden administration. On Wednesday, the committee sent additional letters to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Massachusetts Port Authority for more information about the sheltering of migrants at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Boston Logan International Airport. Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
Rand Paul demands Fauci, NIH scientists disclose pharmaceutical royalties
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wants federal employees to disclose royalties they receive from new innovations, an issue he says he’s been “concerned about for years.” “During COVID, we had vaccines that were developed by Pfizer and Moderna. And then these vaccines were mandated on people throughout government, throughout the military, by different governors around the country, and yet, we don’t know whether the people that were approving either the vaccines or the mandates were receiving money from big Pharma,” Paul told Fox News Digital in an interview Thursday. Paul’s bill, the Royalty Transparency Act of 2024, unanimously passed in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee markup on Wednesday. PETA PLEADS WITH NIH TO STOP FUNDING FOR ANIMAL STUDY, CALLS SLEEP EXPERIMENT ‘CRUEL AND HORRIFIC’ If passed, it would require that royalties paid out to federal employees be made public on their financial disclosures for anyone to view in an online database. “This is something that I inquired when I had [Dr.] Anthony Fauci in our committee,” Paul said. “I’d said, you know, we need to know this, this is a basic conflict of interest problem, and he basically thumbed his nose at the American people.” Fauci is the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and former chief medical adviser to the president. Paul said the bill will allow people “to know whether or not any of the people” approving drugs are “receiving money from the same companies that manufacture the vaccines.” For decades, there’s been controversy surrounding the transparency of National Institutes of Health (NIH) royalty payouts because they have refused to disclose how much its researchers are getting paid. NEW ALZHEIMER’S TREATMENT ACCELERATES REMOVAL OF PLAQUE FROM BRAIN IN CLINICAL TRIALS NIH scientists have reportedly received $400 million in royalty payouts from third-party companies for medical inventions they produced. Some were even found to be linked to foreign entities, including the Chinese Communist Party. Last summer, the government watchdog group OpenTheBooks found that more than 1,800 government scientists collected 27,244 royalty payments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars from 2009 to 2016. It’s not the first time that royalty payments have come under scrutiny. In 2005, an Associated Press investigation laid bare the potential conflict of interest arising when a government employee works on clinical trials for a product while simultaneously receiving royalty payments for it. FAUCI ADMITS SOCIAL DISTANCING NOT BASED ON SCIENCE, ‘SORT OF JUST APPEARED’ After that report, the NIH promised that scientists would fully disclose the payments to patients, but some lawmakers are now pushing for more transparency. “So, it’s not a small amount of money,” Paul said. “It’s a significant amount of money … to scientists, and so some of them are getting million-dollar paydays from big pharmacy companies, and it’s not being disclosed to the public.” Paul’s bill would need to pass the full Senate and the House of Representatives and be signed by the president before it becomes law. Fox News Digital has reached out to the NIH and Fauci for comment but did not hear back at press time. Fox News’ Paul Best contributed to this report.
Some swing state voters say economy will impact their 2024 presidential vote
It looks like President Biden and former President Trump will face off once again in the 2024 presidential race. But fox polling shows a majority of Americans don’t like either candidate. The latest Fox News Power Rankings show there are eight battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin, most aren’t thinking about what’s going on in Washington yet. But people in Washington are thinking about Wisconsin. “I don’t really like politics,” Jennifer Linville said. “It doesn’t matter what side I feel like at this point, like, show me what you’re going to do for us.” Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania are fiercely competitive toss-up states. FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: TRUMP LEADS A DISSATISFIED ELECTORATE “I anticipate that a lot of people in Wisconsin are going to be sick of being asked what we think about the election,” Reba Kreuger said. Six out of 10 Americans don’t like either candidate. “I probably am not going to vote. Neither side looks good to me,” Wisconsinite Jose Ortez said. The economy is a big issue for voters in the 2024 election and a majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation and the economy. “I’ve been a nurse for a year,” Carlie Olson said. “I thought I was going to make more than I do compared to the prices of things. And I feel like the cost of things has continued to go up.” HOW PRESIDENTIAL BATTLEGROUND STATES HAVE CHANGED OVER THE YEARS Linville is planning to open a new business in downtown Eau Claire in the coming months. “Everything just keeps getting more and more expensive. The cost of construction has gone up through the roof. So, that has kind of set me behind a little bit,” Linville said. Some Wisconsin voters say they’re hopeful about the economy. “I think there are definitely signs that the economy as a whole is getting better,” Kreuger said. “During election years, we hear people talk about the economy over and over and over again. What can we do to actually change things?” Kreuger said efforts on student loan forgiveness and investments in infrastructure for her when thinking about economic policy. “I’ve lived in rural Wisconsin most of my life and we have seen with crumbling roads and bridges and not having access to broadband looks like. And so, I see a lot of just like scarcity impacting the local economies that I’ve lived in,” Kreuger said. But House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson says Trump and Republicans can really turn things around. “Republicans have the right answers. You’ve seen what the Democrats have delivered,” Johnson told Fox. THIS IS A ‘TALE OF TWO ECONOMIES’: SANDRA SMITH University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire economics professor Dr. Thomas Kemp says unemployment and inflation in the U.S. are low, a good sign for the economy. “The president at any given time just doesn’t really have that big of an impact on the economy at that time. Of course, they get the credit for it right? If it’s going good, and they take the blame if it’s going bad,” Kemp said. Inflation is down from it’s 2022 high at 3.4% and unemployment is at 3.7 percent. Menzie Chinn is a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin’s La Follette School of Public Affairs. He studies the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, a monthly survey of how consumers feel about the economy. He finds it a mystery that how consumers feel about the economy doesn’t match up with actual economic conditions. “The indicators by all accounts from economists or macroeconomists are that the US economy is doing quite well and, in comparison to other countries, even better,” Chinn said. LAYOFFS SURGED IN FEBRUARY TO HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE 2009 Chinn says there are a few explanations for why consumers feel so negatively about the economy, despite conditions improving. He says none of the reasons are the full answer. Chinn says the impact of partisanship has increased, inflation was remarkably high compared to the past, good economic news takes time for people to register and news reporting on macroeconomic conditions is biased. Biden’s allies realize the need for the president to address economic challenges, especially during the State of the Union, if he wants a second term. Democratic Congresswoman Dina Titus represents Nevada’s first district. She represents another key swing state. “I want him to brag about what we have accomplished. Talk about investments in infrastructure, talk about the creation of good union jobs in renewable energy, talk about building the speed train to California,” Rep. Titus said. “We also have to admit that there’s more work to be done because people still feel high prices at the grocery store. So, I want him to come out strong about what his plans are to address those issues.”
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Republicans blast Biden State of the Union as campaign ‘stump speech,’ Dems tout ‘strong’ address
Republican and Democratic lawmakers walked away from President Biden’s State of the Union address with very different impressions on Thursday night — as expected. GOP legislators in the House and Senate called the 81-year-old president an “old man” while blasting his speech as a political campaign speech ahead of the November election. Democrats, meanwhile, praised Biden’s energy and “strong” address. “This was not supposed to be a progressive stump speech, this was supposed to be a State of the Union, and I’m not sure we really got that,” Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. BIDEN’S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS: BRET BAIER, MARTHA MACCALLUM TO LEAD FOX NEWS CHANNEL’S SPECIAL COVERAGE Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., called Biden’s speech “the most political” State of the Union he’s ever heard. “It was not a dignified State of the Union address. It was a partisan stump speech,” Bacon said. Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital, “It sounded more like a campaign speech than it did a State of the Union.” “He talked a lot about his predecessor, which is also his opponent, so he used this platform to run for office as opposed to telling the American people that he’s accountable for what’s happened the last three and a half years with 20% inflation since he’s been in office, you know, trillions of dollars in debt, and more big government, more spending more regulation,” Hern said. ALABAMA SEN KATIE BRITT TO DELIVER REPUBLICAN RESPONSE TO BIDEN STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS: ‘TRULY HONORED’ Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., told Fox News Digital that Biden seemed “very shrill and very angry.” “And his solutions are very tired – I mean, he’s been here 50 years, his solutions are the same tax and spend policies that got us into this inflationary spiral that we’ve been in,” he said. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said, “It was a campaign rally. It wasn’t a serious speech.” Biden’s allies, like Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, came away with a very different view. “I’ve been here for 12 years, that was probably the best State of the Union I’ve ever heard,” Schatz told Fox News Digital. JIM BANKS CALLS ON BIDEN TO ‘PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGE’ LAKEN RILEY AT SOTU Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., suggested Biden was able to dispel concerns about his age while also painting a distinct contrast between himself and the GOP. “I thought it was great. He had lots of energy,” Beyer told Fox News Digital. “It’s not about his age, it’s about the quality of his ideas, and he clearly laid out two different Americas — our America, which is based on dignity, humanity and decency. And the contrary view which is revenge and hate and retribution.”
Biden’s State of the Union speech reinforced mental acuity and age concerns, Republicans say
Congressional Republicans slammed President Joe Biden’s “angry” State of the Union address on Thursday night, claiming it furthered concerns over both his age, at 81 years old, and his mental acuity. Biden spoke to a joint session of Congress for the final SOTU address of his term, emphasizing the threat he said his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, poses to democracy. But for many Republican lawmakers, their takeaway was Biden’s heavily-scrutinized mental faculties. BIDEN ASSAILS ‘PREDECESSOR’ TRUMP AND GOP IN SHARPLY PARTISAN STATE OF THE UNION “A lot of the time it was hard to understand what he was saying,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va. “He was kind of mumbling and slurring.” “We couldn’t understand him. He was so mad,” agreed Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. “The volume was up and down.” At several points, Biden did raise his voice to emphasize his points, particularly when referring to Trump. EXCLUSIVE:TRUMP REACTS TO BIDEN’S FEISTY STATE OF THE UNION AS 2024 RACE COMES INTO FOCUS BIDEN USES TERM FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS DURING SPEECH THAT HIS OWN ADMIN WARNED AGAINST Marshall added he was “very concerned” about Biden’s health. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla. observed: “He kind of slurred over words occasionally.” “It was a long speech. He had a teleprompter. I think that helps,” she said. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, remarked the president’s annual address was “reminiscent of an old, angry man standing on his porch screaming ‘get off my front lawn.’” According to Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., Biden assured the country Thursday night “that he does in fact have mental problems.” “He was yelling the whole time,” reiterated Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. ALABAMA SEN. BRITT SHREDS BIDEN ON ‘DESPICABLE’ BORDER CRISIS IN REPUBLICAN REBUTTAL While Republicans tended to regard Biden’s address as angry and evidence of his cognitive decline, congressional Democrats believed his speech showcased his energy. The president was “Very energetic. Very engaged. Very forceful and very optimistic,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also praised Biden’s delivery, remarking, “He was feisty!” “He was great. He was really fantastic,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who also described Biden as “energetic” and “clear.” Even Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Neb., conceded: “I think in fairness, [Biden] had a good night.”
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Biden, in State of the Union, uses term for illegal immigrants that his DHS warned against in 2021
During his State of the Union address Thursday, President Biden referred to the alleged killer of Georgia student Laken Riley as “an illegal” — but the term is in contrast to guidance from his Department of Homeland Security, which had told staff to stop using terms like “illegal alien.” Biden was heckled by Republican lawmakers to say the name of Laken Riley, who was allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant last month in Georgia. Republicans have cited the death as a consequence of the border crisis, which they blame on Biden policies. Biden in turn used the address to restate his calls for Congress to pass a bipartisan border bill. But Biden picked up a button with Riley’s name on it that lawmakers had been given out and made reference to her — although he misstated her first name. BIDEN ADMINISTRATION URGES DHS OFFICIALS TO STOP USING ‘ILLEGAL ALIEN’ IN FAVOR OF ‘INCLUSIVE’ LANGUAGE “Lincoln Riley [sic],” he said. “An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal, that’s right.” The use of the term “illegal,” even in reference to an alleged illegal immigrant murderer, rankled some Democrats. “Let me be clear: No human being is illegal,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on X, formerly known as Twitter. HOUSE REPUBLICANS ZERO IN ON BORDER CHAOS WITH VIDEO SERIES ON ‘FACES OF BIDEN’S STATE OF THE UNION IN CRISIS’ “As a proud immigrant, I’m extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the word ‘illegal,’” Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., said. Many on the left have, for years, urged against the use of the term “illegal” to refer to illegal immigrants, claiming it is dehumanizing, preferring terms like “undocumented” or simply just calling them immigrants. It’s also a term that the Biden administration itself has warned against using. In 2021, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) memo urged officials to refer to “undocumented individual” or “undocumented noncitizen” rather than “illegal alien.” “This change is designed to encourage more inclusive language in the agency’s outreach efforts, internal documents and in overall communication with stakeholders, partners, and the general public,” a spokesperson said at the time. “The guidance does not affect legal, policy or other operational documents, including forms, where using terms (such as applicant, petitioner, etc.) as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act would be the most appropriate.” Since then, “undocumented noncitizen” is commonly used to refer to illegal immigrants in DHS press releases. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will also often refer to those “unlawfully present” in the country. On Thursday, Biden focused more on urging Congress to pass the bipartisan border agreement, which includes staffing, funding and a mechanism to stop entries into the U.S. when it exceeds an average of 5,000 a day. But conservatives have said the mechanism normalizes already high levels of illegal immigration and that Biden can fix the border himself. “Look folks, it’s been a simple choice,” Biden said. “We can fight about fixing the border or we can fix it. I’m ready to fix it. Send me the border bill now.”