President Biden's 2024 State of the Union address

During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden cited a 2021 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy think tank that found that 55 of the country’s largest corporations had made $40 billion in profit in their previous fiscal year but not paid any federal corporate income taxes.

He said, “Remember in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion and paid zero in federal income taxes. Zero. Not anymore. Thanks to the law I wrote and we signed, big companies have to pay a minimum of 15%.” 

Facts First: Biden’s “not anymore” claim is false, an exaggeration. While his 15% corporate minimum tax will reduce the number of big companies that don’t pay any federal taxes, it’s not true that “not anymore” will any big company – such as the ones on the list of 55 companies Biden mentioned – ever do so. That’s because the minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, only 14 of the companies on its list of 55 non-payers reported having US pre-tax income of at least $1 billion. 

In other words, there will still be some large and profitable corporations paying no federal income tax despite the existence of the tax. The exact number is not known. 

Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told CNN in 2022 that the new tax is “an important step forward from the status quo” and that it would raise substantial revenue. But he also said: “I wouldn’t want to assert that the minimum tax will end the phenomenon of zero-tax profitable corporations. A more accurate phrasing would be to say that the minimum tax will 'help' ensure that 'the most profitable' corporations pay at least some federal income tax.” 

During his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Joe Biden, as he was discussing the state of the country four years earlier, said more than 1 million American lives were lost to Covid-19, implying it was under the Trump administration  

Facts First: Biden’s figure needs context. Many lives were lost to Covid-19 during the Trump administration, but the US didn’t reach its millionth death until May 2022 when Biden was in office. 

While there were a significant number of lives lost to Covid during the Trump administration, on President Donald Trump’s last full day in office the US death count reached at least 400,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. At that point during the pandemic there had been a winter surge in cases and someone was dying from the virus in the US every 26 seconds, according to KFF, a health policy and research organization. The death rate from Covid-19 in the US at the time was lower than in many other countries, but with the country’s large population, the death numbers exceeded all other countries at that time.  

Officially the US surpassed a million deaths from Covid in May 2022 during the Biden administration. As of this February, more than 1.18 million people in the US have died from Covid-19 according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt slammed President Joe Biden, saying that he is “out of touch” and does not understand the issues facing American families.

Delivering the GOP’s response to Biden’s State of the Union address, Britt said the president’s remarks were a “performance of a perm politician.”

Britt, who is the youngest Republican woman elected to the US Senate, said Biden has been in office for “longer than I’ve been alive.”

Republicans believe having the 42-year-old senator following the 81-year-old president would draw a stark contrast ahead of the November election.

Britt, a rising star in the GOP, delivered the Republican response from her kitchen table in Alabama, one person familiar with the setting tells CNN, as her party tries to draw a stark contrast ahead of the November election.

Britt is speaking from her home state, where the Republican-led legislature scrambled this week to pass legislation after a Supreme Court ruling that imperiled IVF access in the state.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins contributed to this post.

President Joe Biden claimed during his State of the Union address Thursday night that violent crime has fallen to one of its lowest levels in “more than 50 years.”   

Facts First: This is true, at least based on preliminary 2023 data that should be treated with caution. The preliminary 2023 data published by the FBI, running through the third quarter of the year, showed that violent crime was down 8.2% compared to the same period in 2022 — a decline that would be “historically large” for a year, crime data expert Jeff Asher wrote in a December article. The data generally confirms Biden’s description of violent crime falling across the nation, though some communities have seen increases. Asher wrote: “The quarterly data shows violent crime down in big cities, small cities, suburban counties, and rural counties, pretty much across the board.” 

Asher, co-founder of the firm AH Datalytics, told CNN in late February that, if the decline in reported violent crime for the full year of 2023 ended up being greater than 1.6%, 2023 would have the lowest violent crime rate since 1970. The 2022 rate was the second-lowest since 1970, worse than only 2019.  

As always, whether crime is rising or falling, it’s important to note that it is notoriously difficult to pinpoint the reasons that crime has increased or decreased at any given time, since there is a long list of economic, social and political factors at play; the impact of the president is unclear. 

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt criticized President Joe Biden's stance on securing US borders in the GOP response to his State of the Union address, saying that "our country can do better."

She said that Biden "inherited the most secure border of all time," but during his time as president he "didn't just create this border crisis, he invited it."

In his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Joe Biden claimed the economy created a record 15 million jobs in the first three years of his term.  

Facts First: Biden’s claim is correct: the US economy added about 14.8 million jobs between Biden’s first full month in office, February 2021, and January 2024, more jobs than were added in any previous four-year presidential term. However, it’s important to note that Biden took office in an unusual pandemic context that makes meaningful comparison to other periods very difficult. 

Biden became president less than a year after the US economy had shed nearly 22 million jobs over two months, March 2020 and April 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The jobs recovery then began immediately after that, under then-President Donald Trump, but there was still an unprecedented hole to fill when Biden took office. 

Nonetheless, Biden is free to argue that his stimulus legislation and other policies have helped the country gain jobs faster than it otherwise would have. The US has had an extraordinarily strong labor market under Biden, and its overall economic recovery from the pandemic has outpaced those of many other major countries.    

South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace called President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech the most “loud and divisive” speeches she's heard. 

"It was basically one giant playscheme, how's it going to pay for all that?" Mace told CNN. "Basically it was like a buying votes scheme tonight." 

Former President Donald Trump’s “play-by-play” response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address rolled out haltingly as Truth Social appeared to have a series of outages during the speech. Many of Trump’s responses were delayed, as he watched Biden with a handful of advisers and aides from a war room set up at his Mar-a-Lago home. 

In between outages, Trump fired off posts mocking Biden’s appearance, his demeanor and his cough.

Trump did respond directly to the substance of parts of the speech amid the personal attacks, often bringing the argument back to immigration and the border.  Trump also addressed Biden’s comments on NATO. 

Trump appeared to get agitated as Biden ramped up his attacks, claiming that inflation under Biden was killing America, and saying that he, Trump, was responsible for any actions helping veterans as well as reduction pricing — he also claimed that Biden wanted to take away “everyone’s gun.”

Trump also attacked various lawmakers who have been critical of him, including Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

At his State of the Union address Thursday night, President Joe Biden claimed that the economy has added “800,000 new manufacturing jobs” during his administration.  

Facts first: Biden’s figure is correct. The US economy added 791,000 manufacturing jobs from Biden’s first full month in office, February 2021, through January 2024, the last month for which Bureau of Labor Statistics data is available — though it’s worth noting that the growth largely occurred in 2021 and 2022 (with 746,000 manufacturing jobs added starting in February 2021) before a relatively flat 2023.