Monitoring Desk
WASHINGTON: An optimistic US President Joe Biden will try to lift the spirits of a tense nation Tuesday with a State of the Union speech showcasing his efforts to revive the US economy — and setting the stage for his bid for re-election in 2024.
After two years of the exit from the Covid-19 pandemic, an end to the 20-year Afghanistan war debacle, the Western response against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and extreme US political tensions, Joe Biden feels he has much to celebrate.
“I want to talk to the American citizens and let them know the state of affairs,” President Biden said Monday. “Just have a conversation with the people of America.”
On Capitol Hill, Biden will address the full Congress, nearly every senior government member, and a large number of television audience, buoyed by news that the economy is strongly recovering from the pandemic, with the lowest unemployment ratio in 50 years.
“This is a president who is exceptionally optimistic,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
But the dramatic downing on last Saturday of a huge Chinese balloon by a US Air Force fighter leaves the unstable relationship with the communist superpower looming over the Biden administration.
And there are troubles nearer to home, with two new surveys showing that well over half of voters do not want President Biden, the oldest person ever in the US presidency, to seek a second term in 2024.
Biden spend weekend at presidential retreat Camp David
President Biden spent the weekend at the presidential retreat Camp David, and met with speech writers and top advisors to finesse the speech. Jean-Pierre said tweaks continued until the last minute.
Early on Tuesday, the White House announced the guests of First Lady Jill Biden for the speech. These include Ukraine’s ambassador, Oksana Markarova, the rock band megastar, and HIV/AIDS campaigner Bono.
The most eye-catching, though, maybe Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old man who disarmed the gunman in a January mass shooting in California, and RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, the parents of Tyre Nichols, a man whose death after a prolonged police beating in Memphis, Tennessee, shocked the nation.
