WASHINGTON, DC — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other Republican lawmakers were highly critical of President Joe Biden’s “hyper-partisan” State of the Union speech when speaking with reporters after his remarks Thursday night.
In a press gaggle after doing a television interview, Johnson spoke with a horde of reporters and emphasized that Biden offered no unifying moments when a journalist asked for his “general reaction to the speech.”
“Well, we were disappointed,” Johnson said. “I mean, look, usually in a State of the Union, you have at least segments of it that are bipartisan, where we can unify and agree on things. President Biden gave none of them tonight; it was a completely hyper-partisan speech. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was a campaign speech and a pretty vitriolic one at that.”
“And so, you know, people are saying that I made funny facial expressions,” he added, unprompted. “I tried to keep a poker face, but it was very difficult. I disagreed so vehemently with so much of what he said, and I think people back home did as well.”
President Joe Biden speaks during the State of the Union address on Capitol Hill, Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Washington, as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Mike Johnson of La., watch. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) emphasized the partisanship of the speech while speaking with Breitbart News moments after Biden’s remarks ended.
“It was very partisan, so was last year’s and this one was quite rowdy,” Ogles said. “You know, you had chanting, and you had lots of heckling, much more than last year. It was a spectacle to behold.”
Breitbart News also asked Ogles for his take on Biden’s mispronunciation of Laken Riley’s name. Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student allegedly murdered by an illegal alien on February 22, and Biden pronounced her name as “Lincoln” on Thursday amid pressure from Republicans, many of whom wore Laken Riley pins, to address the case.
“So I was the first to speak to him as he came into the chamber, and I pointed out, I said, ‘Laken Riley,’ I showed him my pin,” Ogles explained. “His only response was, ‘I like your pin.’ It didn’t even register as to who she was, and then when he said her name, he said it wrong.”
Breitbart News and another reporter also caught up with Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA), who said he had never seen a State of the Union speech so partisan.
“But this President is very partisan,” he emphasized. “And in an election year when he’s so underwater in the polls, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s going to be shrill and angry – an old man shouting, ‘Get off my lawn.’”
Cline says this “absolutely” struck him as a campaign speech.
“I mean, this is a man who has been in Washington for 50-plus years, and his policy prescription showed it: more gun control, more tax and spend liberalism, more inflationary policies that increase the deficit, and dividing us by class, by race, by gender by all the different categories that Democrats love.”
Cline said he also noticed the president mispronounced Riley’s name.
“I can’t even count the number of times I had to turn to my colleagues and say, ‘What is he talking about? What did he say?’ because it was really challenging to understand him,” Cline added.
