President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address

President Joe Biden delivers the annual State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the Capital building on March 7 in Washington, DC.

President Joe Biden delivered a raucous third State of the Union address that could be among his most important speeches as he seeks reelection.

His list of objectives was long: Tout his accomplishments in office, look ahead to a second-term agenda, allay concerns about his age and fitness, and provide a contrast with Republicans, including his rival Donald Trump.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Catch up on all of the takeaways from Biden’s third State of the Union address.

President Joe Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address, one that could be among the most important speeches he has given during his presidency.

See some of the best photos from the end of the night:

President Joe Biden delivers his third State of the Union address.

Civil rights activist Bettie Mae Fikes, bottom center, stands as she is recognized by Biden.

A Congress member holds up four fingers as Biden speaks, calling for four more years of his presidency.

Biden speaks to the join session of Congress.

A heckler interrupts Biden's speech.

Members of Congress hold signs calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Biden greets members of Congress after his speech.

George Santos is seen in the House chamber shortly before the State of the Union address at the US Capitol on March 7.

House Republicans criticized former GOP Rep. George Santos’ appearance at the State of the Union last night, which he used as a jumping off point for his primary challenge against Rep. Nick LaLota.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, another New York Republican, said he was not surprised by Santos’s announcement. “When it comes to George Santos, there’s very little that surprises I think anyone for that matter. I think that again, you know, he was expelled from this institution, not just by New Yorkers who dislike him. He was expelled because he’s a stain on this institution.”

Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro, another freshman New Yorker, said he didn’t think anything of Santos last night – but noted that the State of the Union should be treated with respect, no matter which party the president belongs to. 

President Joe Biden's 2024 campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez applauds at the Biden for President 2024 campaign headquarters on February 3 in Wilmington, Delaware.

President Joe Biden’s reelection team is making a monthlong push to amplify the president’s State of the Union message and build on its infrastructure, kicking off what it’s calling the “I’m on Board” campaign.

In the weeks to come, Biden will hit the road and visit key battleground states that he narrowly won in 2020 in hopes of galvanizing voters that will prove crucial to clinching a second term in office.

There are plans for Biden and Harris to travel to every battleground state in the coming weeks, the campaign said Friday.

The president kicks off that travel Friday with a visit to Pennsylvania followed by Georgia on Saturday, putting him on track for another split-screen moment with Donald Trump who will also be in the Peach State. Next week, Biden will head to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, will focus her travel on Arizona and Nevada, in an effort to shore up Latino voters.

The campaign will spend this month “dramatically expanding our brick-and-mortar presence across key states,” said battleground states director Dan Kanninen, including more than 100 new offices and 350 new team members, who will spend the month training volunteers. 

Contrasts with Trump: After Biden spent much of Thursday’s address drawing contrasts with former President Donald Trump, whom he did not name, one of Biden’s top advisers extended that contrast to how they run their respective campaigns. 

“Trump’s bleeding cash. He’s really behind and building an infrastructure that you’d expect to be seeing of a former president. He’s really not focused on building new people to his side,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, a former top White House adviser turned campaign chair. 

Among the voters the Biden campaign is trying to bring into its coalition are those who voted for GOP candidate Nikki Haley, arguing that Trump has dismissed them while the Biden campaign has embraced them.

Ad push: The campaign will also launch a $30 million, six-week paid media campaign on digital and television targeting voters in battleground states. This push will include running ads around highly-watched programming, on Black and Hispanic-owned media outlets, and on sports and cultural channels. That includes ESPN and Comedy Central, which airs The Daily Show, which Jon Stewart has been hosting on Monday nights. The campaign also is planning a push around the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament.

Biden campaign national co-chair Mitch Landrieu described President Joe Biden’s use of the term “illegal” during his State of the Union as a “small mistake” following criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates. 

“He probably should’ve used a different word and I think he would know that. But what you should notice about that is not that he made a small mistake. The big thing that he did right, and this is what this president always does, is express empathy to people,” Landrieu told CNN’s Sara Sidner Friday. 

Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, immediately expressed concern over Biden’s use of the term “illegal” when referring to the suspect in Laken Riley’s killing during Thursday’s State of the Union. 

“Laken Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal … To her parents, I say my heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand,” Biden said as he picked up a pin GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene handed to him earlier Thursday evening.

It was a notable moment for Biden, whose administration has moved away from using the term that’s long been decried as a dehumanizing slur. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed House Republicans for their lack of decorum last night at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, calling their behavior “a complete embarrassment” and framing the divide between Democrats and Republicans as “team get stuff done versus team extreme.” 

He praised all aspects of Biden’s speech last night, declaring: “Smokin’ Joe Biden was on fire during the State of the Union address. He was lit” and said that Biden “crushed MAGA extremism” in his speech. 

When pressed on some outrage from House Democrats over Biden’s usage of the term “illegals” last night he dodged, saying, “Joe Biden delivered an incredible speech that was very well received by the American people beginning, middle and end.”  

On expelled former Rep George Santos, Jeffries said: “It is kind of an extraordinary thing this guy won’t go away.”

Rep. Ryan Zinke leaves a House Republican Conference speaker of the House election meeting in Longworth Building on Tuesday, October 24, 2023.

Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke said that “the bar was set low” for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and that “he stayed within the margins,” but that the substance “pointed towards a far-left agenda.”

The Republican congressman, who has endorsed Donald Trump in 2024 and previously served in his administration as Interior secretary, did acknowledge that whenever the “president does well, I think that’s in the best interest in the country.”

Looking ahead to the general election, Zinke argued that there’s “an opportunity” for Trump to repair his relationship with Nikki Haley.

“It is how to get the moderate voters back, engaged in our politics,” the congressman said. 

Read more about how other Republicans are reacting to Biden’s State of the Union address.

Rep. Debbie Dingell praised President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, declaring that “the country sees the man that will be president for another four years.” The Michigan Democrat, however, insisted that “we need a ceasefire” and that it’s “just unacceptable that we cannot get humanitarian aid” into Gaza.

“I do not know what’s going on behind closed doors … I think we’ve got to stand up to Netanyahu,” Dingell, who represents significant Arab and Muslim communities, told Kasie Hunt on CNN This Morning.

The congresswoman pushed back on Republican criticism that Biden was overly partisan in his speech, arguing that the president made clear he wants to work with Republicans on border security. 

“This is a man that’s like me. He wants to work across the aisle. He wants to work with everybody,” Dingell said.

The congresswoman did not critique Biden’s use of the term “illegal” during the State of the Union in response to GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene heckling him over the death of former University of Georgia student Laken Riley. 

Catch up on how other Democrats are reacting to Biden’s State of the Union speech.

President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address in Washington, DC, on March 7.

The Biden campaign had its most lucrative hours of online fundraising since the reelection launch during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday, a campaign official said. 

The 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. hours were the best fundraising hours the campaign has seen with grassroots donors, the official added. Online donations in the 10 p.m. hour exceeded the 9 p.m. hour. The official declined to provide an exact amount raised during the two-hour period.

The Biden campaign previously said it raised $1 million in the lead up to the State of the Union address Thursday and $1.5 million in the 24 hours after Super Tuesday. 

This week’s online hauls come after the campaign saw its strongest grassroots fundraising month of the cycle in February, including raising nearly $2 million in donations on the final day of the month. The campaign and Democratic Party raised at least $42 million in February with exact numbers expected to come later this month.

When President Joe Biden turns to the trail Friday, delivering campaign remarks from the suburbs of Philadelphia, he won’t be the only member of his administration taking their message to the road — starting immediately, members of Biden’s Cabinet and senior administration officials will fan out across the country to highlight his domestic agenda.

Steve Nikoui, the father of a US Marine killed during the 2021 US evacuation from Afghanistan, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night for interrupting the speech, according to a statement by the Capitol Police obtained by the New York Times. 

The Capitol Police warned Nikoui to stop and removed him from the House chamber when he did not.

Nikoui yelled “Abbey Gate” and “United States Marines” toward the end of the president’s speech after Biden said, “America is safer today than the year I took office.”

US Capitol Police confirmed Nikoui’s arrest in a statement to CNN saying, “at approximately 10:15 p.m., a man disrupted the State of the Union Address by yelling. Our officers warned him to stop and when he did not, the man was removed from the House Galleries and was arrested.”

The misdemeanor charge of illegally disrupting Congress carries a $50 fine and is typically resolved without going to court, according to the statement obtained by the Times.

Nikoui is the father of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui who was one of 13 US servicemembers killed in the August 26, 2021, suicide bombing attack on Abbey Gate outside of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Nikoui was a guest of Republican Rep. Brian Mast. Mast posted on X that Nikoui was arrested because he “cried out to Joe Biden to remember his son.”

President Joe Biden delivers the annual State of the Union address on March 7, in Washington, DC.

This version of Joe Biden could beat Donald Trump.

At the State of the Union address on Thursday night, the 81-year-old president set out to defuse his biggest liability: deep-seated fears among millions of Americans that he’s too old to serve a second term.

There is nothing worse for a president than looking weak. So every word, gesture, joke and admonition of Biden’s appearance was geared toward the goal of making him look strong.

And in the most important moment of the 2024 election campaign so far, Biden appeared to succeed.

He projected vigor and forcefulness. His voice, which has seemed reedy at times, was sonorant. He was quick off the mark as he goaded heckling Republicans, who again walked into his trap by showcasing their extremism to millions of viewers.

Biden was a trenchant master of the chamber of the House of Representatives, effectively wielding the theatrics of the presidency and commanding an hour of unfiltered primetime television.

Such an energetic performance from Biden has been in far less evidence as he’s perceptibly aged and been weighed down by the burdens of office.

If he is to overcome the kind of low approval ratings that typically doom first-term presidents, he will have to emulate this performance over and over in the coming months.

Read Collinson’s full analysis of Biden’s State of the Union address.

Here’s how many minutes President Joe Biden spent on the following topics in his third State of the Union address:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, left, talks with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address.

Some Democrats applauded President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, while others said he could have gone further on certain issues.

Here’s how they reacted to the speech:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised Biden’s address for laying out “a bold vision” for the future.

Sen. Joe Manchin applauded Biden’s speech and said he had no issue with it being a political attack at moments against Republicans. 

Manchin said Republican outbursts were ”shameful,” adding “the whole world is watching. We can do better than that.” But Manchin said he was happy to see Biden show voters tonight he is up for the job of another four years. 

Biden “still has a little gas left in the tank,” Manchin said. 

Sen. Mark Warner also commended the president, saying “I thought he showed a lot of energy.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was also complimentary of the address.

Rep. Gerry Connolly applauded Biden for giving Republicans some grief tonight and argued Biden needs to keep giving Republicans hell on the trail. 

Rep. Jamaal Bowman told CNN’s Manu Raju he wishes the president had more directly called for an immediate ceasefire amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza during his address, but commended his criticism of Israel.

There was one moment though tonight that caught several Democrats off guard: when Biden used the term “illegals.”

Rep. Delia Ramirez told CNN she was shocked and her phone immediately started to receive notifications.

Rep. Chuy Garcia said he is “extremely disappointed” in President Biden for using the word “illegal” in his speech. 

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Ben Cardin said he hoped that Biden’s focus on Ukraine would lead to the passage of supplemental funding for Kyiv.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin countered criticism of Biden’s stamina and age.

The post was updated with more Democratic reactions to Biden’s address.

President Joe Biden speaks with Sen. Mitt Romney, right, and Sen. Joe Manchin as he arrives to deliver the State of the Union address.

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address struck many GOP members of Congress as too political. Some Republicans jeered and interrupted Biden during his speech.

Here’s how some Republican lawmakers responded:

House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News that instead of taking responsibility for his record as president, Biden “tried to lay blame.”

Asked about the border portion of Biden’s speech, Johnson said, “He has executive authority, we all know. He could solve that problem right now. He’ s been able to do that for three years, but he won’t.”

Social media users picked up on Johnson’s facial expressions during the speech – shaking his head, rolling his eyes as he sat right behind Biden.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune released a video attacking Biden, arguing the US must “reverse course.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan sharply criticized Biden’s address as “the most partisan State of Union I’ve been in,” pointing to Biden’s many references to former President Donald Trump.

Sen. Mitt Romney told CNN Biden showed “he has energy and voice” during his address, but he criticized the partisanship in the speech — and on display on the House floor.

Rep. Garrett Graves said that Biden’s address won’t allay concerns from many voters about the president’s mental acuity. 

Rep. Bill Huizenga said he wished Republicans wouldn’t yell during the speech.

The post was updated with more Republican reactions to the Biden address.

Delivering the official Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said, “We have the worst inflation in 40 years.” 

Facts First: This claim is false. Britt could have accurately said, in past tense, that inflation was at a 40-year high when it hit its Biden-era peak of 9.1% in June 2022. But inflation has declined sharply since that June 2022 peak, and the most recent available rate, for January 2024, was 3.1%. The Biden presidency aside, that rate was exceeded as recently as 2011 – far less than 40 years ago.  

 Like Britt, former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have repeatedly ignored the decline in inflation since June 2022 to criticize Biden in the present tense. 

President Joe Biden delivers his annual State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the Capital building on March 7 in Washington, DC. 

 President Joe Biden claimed during his State of the Union address that the average federal tax rate for billionaires is 8.2%. 

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the alternative calculation itself; the administration economists who came up with it explained it in detail on the White House website in 2021. Biden, however, has tended to cite it without any context about what it is and isn’t, leaving open the impression that he was talking about what these billionaire families pay under current law.  

So what do the wealthiest billionaire families pay under current law? It’s not publicly known, but experts say it’s more than 8%. 

“Biden’s numbers are way too low,” Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute think tank, told CNN in 2023. Gleckman said that in 2019, University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman “estimated the top 400 households paid an average effective tax rate of about 23 percent in 2018. They got a lot of attention at the time because that rate was lower than the average rate of 24 percent for the bottom half of the income distribution. But it still was way more than 2 or 3,” numbers Biden has used in some previous speeches, “or even 8 percent.” 

 In February 2024, Gleckman provided additional calculations from the Tax Policy Center. The center found that the top 0.1% of households paid an average effective federal tax rate of about 30.3% in 2020, including an average income tax rate of 24.3%. 

People watch President Joe Biden deliver the State of the Union during a State of the Union watch party at Manny's on March 7 in San Francisco, California.

A 56% majority of Americans who watched President Biden’s State of the Union address say that his economic policies will move the US in the right direction, according to a CNN Poll of speech watchers conducted by SSRS, with 44% saying that his policies will move things in the wrong direction.

That’s an improvement from a survey conducted in the days before the speech, when 55% of those same people said Biden’s economic proposals would move things in the wrong direction. 

Following last year’s State of the Union, however, a larger 66% majority of those who watched that speech said Biden’s economic policies would move the US in the right direction; in 2022, that number was 62%, and following Biden’s 2021 presidential address, it was 72%.

Positive marks from speech watchers are typical for presidential addresses to Congress, which tend to attract generally friendly audiences. 

About the poll: The CNN poll was conducted by text message with 529 US adults who said they watched the State of the Union on Thursday, and are representative of the views of speech-watchers only. Respondents were recruited to participate before the speech and were selected by a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques. Results for the full sample of speech-watchers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points

Sen. Katie Britt.

While delivering the official Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt said that just after taking office in 2021, Biden “suspended all deportations.”  

“President Biden inherited the most secure border of all time. But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations,” she said.

Facts First: This needs context. Hours after taking office, Biden did call for a 100-day pause on deportations, but not “all deportations.”   

The moratorium excluded individuals suspected of terrorism or espionage, among other groups. But, more importantly, the suspension never took effect. A federal judge in Texas immediately blocked the action and it was never revived. 

In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden said that the gap between the amount of goods the US imports from China and the amount it exports to China was the narrowest in more than 10 years. 

“Our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade,” Biden said. “We’re standing up against China’s unfair economic practices.” 

Facts First: What Biden said is true but needs context. The US trade deficit with China in 2023 was $279 billion, the US Commerce Department reported earlier this year. That was the lowest it has been since 2010.  

But the reason for the narrowing trade gap isn’t because of any Biden administration policy. Inflation has driven American consumers away from discretionary purchases, such as electronics – stuff that is primarily made in China. Instead, they’re buying more non-discretionary items, such as groceries. 

On top of that, the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods, which Biden’s administration left in place, have made Chinese goods less popular for Americans, because of the added cost. 

That’s why, for the first time in two decades, the United States imported more goods from a country other than China: Mexico exported more goods to the US than any other country last year.