President Biden's 2023 State of the Union address

President Biden said, "We’ve already created, with your help, 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years." 

Facts First: Biden's figures are correct; however, the "good-paying" qualifier is subjective and can't be independently verified for each of those 800,000-plus positions.  

The US economy added 803,000 manufacturing jobs from Biden's first full month in office, February 2021, through January 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The job growth rate during Biden’s first two years in office was 6.58%. The last time a comparable growth rate was higher was in 1979. 

The average hourly wage in the manufacturing industry was $31.57 for all employees and $25.84 for production and non-supervisory positions in January, preliminary BLS data shows. Nationally, the average hourly wage was a projected $33.03. 

Former President Donald Trump released a video message recorded before president Joe Biden’s State of the Union address where he criticized the current administration for inflation, the ongoing border crisis and rising crime rates.  

“Here’s the real State of the Union," Trump opened.

He accused Biden's administration of "waging war on free speech," "leading us to the brink of World War III" and weaponizing the Department of Justice.

“On top of all of that, he's the most corrupt president in American history," he said. "And it's not even close."

At the end of his two-minute video, Trump reminded viewers that he intends to run for president "to end the destruction of our country and to complete the unfinished business of making America great again.”

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin strongly criticized the Republican representatives who heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address, saying it was “awful, childish" and “distasteful."

“No matter who does that, it’s just not acceptable, awful, childish, it’s not who we are as a country,” Manchin said. He also said he “hopes” Speaker Kevin McCarthy “says something about it.” 

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin also added it was “really unbefitting.”

McCarthy didn’t comment to CNN when asked about the heckling from Republicans.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise wouldn’t criticize his members, instead calling on Biden to stop his rhetoric about a GOP push to cut entitlements.

Some context: The yelling started when the president accused some Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare.

The White House has repeatedly accused Republicans of wanting to make cuts to the programs, but McCarthy explicitly said recently that those cuts were off the table. 

Former vice president and potential 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pence said on Twitter that President Biden’s State of the Union shows that it’s “time for new Republican leadership” to get back to the Trump-Pence administration’s “strength and prosperity.” 

“Tonight’s #SOTU showed one thing: That it is time for new Republican leadership to get our Nation back to the strength and prosperity we had under the Trump-Pence Administration,” Pence wrote on Twitter.

He then went on to list what he called “Biden’s failed leadership at home,” noting high inflation and gas prices, and Biden’s “failed leadership abroad,” pointing to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the “disastrous” Afghanistan withdrawal.

Pence also argued that Biden’s police reform bill “would be a disaster for law enforcement and the American people they serve. It would leave an under-equipped, underfunded, and demoralized police force even worse off," he said in another tweet.

“If we want to improve policing in America, we can’t kneecap police in America. That will only make police more afraid to do their job and more likely to make a bad decision in the moment,” he added.

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney recounted a heated interaction during State of the Union with GOP Rep. George Santos. Romney said he told Santos that he doesn’t belong in Congress.

He strongly criticized Santos for standing in the front aisle “trying to shake hands” with President Joe Biden and senators “given the fact that he's under ethics investigation.”

He also told CNN’s Manu Raju that “yes” he’s disappointed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hasn’t called on Santos to resign. 

Romney, a Republican from Utah, continued to blast Santos saying: “He says he, you know, that he embellished his record. Look, embellishing is saying you got an A when you got an A-. Lying is saying you graduated from a college that you didn't even attend and he shouldn't be in Congress. And they're gonna go through the process and hopefully get him out … But he shouldn't be there and if he had any shame at all, he wouldn't be there.”

Rep. Juan Ciscomani from Arizona delivered the Republican Spanish-language response to the State of the Union address and said the country is at a "critical point" in its history.

More on Ciscomani: When he was elected in November 2022, Ciscomani became the first Latino Republican elected to Congress from Arizona. He was born in Mexico and immigrated to the US with his family as a child, previously worked at the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and was a senior adviser to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

The tradition of a Spanish-language response started in 2004. This year will be the first Spanish response to the address since 2020. 

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the GOP response in English.

Arkansas' Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called for a new generation of GOP leadership in her party's response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address Tuesday night.

She pointed to the economy and inflation, seeking to draw a generational contrast with Biden.

"At 40 I’m the youngest governor in the country. At 80 he is the oldest president in American history," she added.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders criticized President Joe Biden's foreign policies in dealing with China and US border security.

"The Biden administration refuses to secure the border and save American lives. And after years of Democrat attacks on law enforcement and calls to defund the police, violent criminals roam free while law-abiding families live in fear," she said Tuesday in the Republican response to Biden's State of the Union address. 

"Beyond our border, from Afghanistan to Ukraine, from North Korea to Iran, President Biden's weakness puts our nation and the world at risk," she said. "And the president's refusal to stand up to China, our most formidable adversary, is dangerous and unacceptable.

"President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies and defend our people. He is simply unfit to serve as commander-in-chief," she added.

In calling to revive the Democrats’ enhancement of the child tax credit in 2021, President Biden pointed to the fact that the provision helped slash the child poverty rate that year. 

“Let’s restore the full child tax credit, which gave tens of millions of parents some breathing room and cut child poverty in half, to the lowest level in history,” he said. 

Facts First: This is true. The child poverty rate was cut nearly in half in 2021, and the expanded child tax credit was the major factor. The enhancement accounted for the bulk of the reduction.  

The child poverty rate fell from 9.7% in 2020 to 5.2% in 2021, according to the US Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes into account certain non-cash government assistance, tax credits and needed expenses.  

That’s a reduction of 46%, sending the rate to the lowest level since the supplemental measure began in 2009. 

The child tax credit – both the traditional credit and the enhancement – reduced the child poverty rate from 9.2% to 5.2%, or 43%, according to the Census Bureau. Without the beefed-up credit, the rate would have only fallen from 9.2% to 8.1%, or 12%. 

As part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that passed in March 2021, Congress enhanced the child tax credit for one year, beefing up payments to $3,600 for each child up to age 6 and $3,000 for each one ages 6 through 17, for lower- and middle-income families. For the first time, half the credit was paid in monthly installments from July through December, while parents could claim the other half when they filed their 2021 taxes this year. 

Also, more low-income parents became eligible for the full amount because lawmakers made it fully refundable.