March 7 (UPI) — President Biden will tout his achievements, lay out his future agenda, and make his case to voters to elect him for a second term during his State of the Union address at 9 p.m. EST tonight.
The president is expected to focus heavily on economic populism, according to his aides, call for higher taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans and vow to restore Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Broader healthcare issues also will be a centerpiece of the president’s speech.
And according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “That includes lowering costs for Americans and giving people more breathing room, lowering healthcare premiums and taking on Big Pharma to lower the cost of prescription drugs, making the wealth and corporations pay their fair share in taxes, saving our democracy and protecting our democratic institutions, protecting women’s reproductive health in the face of relentless attacks from Republican elected officials, making progress on his Unity Agenda, ending cancer as we know it, delivering on the sacred obligation to veterans, tackling the mental health crisis and beating the opioid and overdose pandemic.”
One expected highlight of tonight’s speech is the president officially announcing the construction of a temporary port along the coast of Gaza to allow more humanitarian aid into the region as the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza continues.
Meanwhile, the families of American hostages being held in Gaza are scheduled to attend the speech to call attention to their loved ones who have been held by Hamas since Oct. 7.
Other guests include two New York Police Department officers who were attacked in January in Times Square, several Border Patrol agents, whose attendance is designed to highlight illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, and two women who fled their states for abortions following the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.
Kate Cox, who will attend as first lady Jill Biden’s guest, was more than 10 weeks pregnant when she learned of her fetus’ fatal anomalies. Cox sued Texas for the right to terminate the nonviable pregnancy and later had to leave the state to receive abortion care.
An Indiana doctor who provided abortion care for a 10-year-old girl after she was raped and was denied an abortion in Ohio is also scheduled to attend.
For the lawmakers in attendance, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has urged Republicans to maintain decorum during the address. Many Republicans, including Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor-Greene, made repeated outbursts during last year’s speech.
Johnson made his request during a closed-door GOP conference meeting Wednesday morning, three Republican lawmakers who attended the gathering told The Hill.
“Decorum is the order of the day,” Johnson told members, according to one lawmaker.
“He said we should carry ourselves with good decorum,” another member said.
Greene was non committal when asked if she would follow Johnson’s directions. “People have asked me a lot about decorum,” Greene said Thursday outside the Capitol. “And my answer back is … the House of Representatives, Congress as a whole and even the White House has broken decorum a long time ago. The American people are $34 trillion in debt, and the Biden administration’s open-border policies with over 10 million illegal aliens, 2 million got-aways and innocent Americans like Laken Riley being murdered — that broke [decorum].”
She continued, “So it depends on what the president has to say tonight. We’ll see what I think and feel at the time.”
Greene was referring to Laken Riley, a Georgia student who allegedly was killed by a 26-year-old man who officials have said was in the United States illegally.
