President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night was billed as a plea for unity, but due to his frequent digs at Republicans and at least one obvious untruth, the speech quickly degenerated into a yelling war.
Republicans in Congress loudly refuted numerous of his assertions about them, but particularly when Biden said that the GOP was planning to slash Social Security benefits.
And only days after a surveillance balloon from the communist nation passed over the US last week, Biden hardly addressed China in the 70-minute speech, which also elicited jeers accusing the president of being to blame for the surge in fentanyl deaths.
At one point of the speech, President Joe Biden stated: “instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset.” and sparked the most outrage among Republicans.
Biden’s effort to quell the jeers by declaring, “I’m not saying it’s a majority.” was met with an even more angry response by the Republican caucus.
“Anybody who doubts it, contact my office, I’ll give you a copy of the proposal,” the President said in response.
“Liar!” Rep. MTG shouted. Watch:
While McCarthy and other conservatives push for cuts to discretionary spending and a repurpose of unused pandemic stimulus funds as part of a debt ceiling impasse, Biden has repeatedly claimed that the GOP wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. This is despite McCarthy publicly and repeatedly ruling out that possibility.
The White House has justified Biden’s rhetoric by citing support for raising the retirement age for future recipients from members of the sizable House Republican Study Committee.
On another note, Republicans had criticized Biden over the previous two years for not doing more to combat the scourge of the synthetic compound Fentanyl, which is increasingly mixed into non-opioids and counterfeit prescriptions, killing unwitting users.
The House chamber, which was packed with senators, Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and other US government leaders, once again descended into chaos as Biden spoke about the rising number of fentanyl overdoses.
“Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year,” “So let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, end the sale and trafficking, with more drug detection machines, inspection of cargo to stop pills and powder at the border,”
MTG shouted again in response that the drug came from China. Other members shouted “It’s your fault”.
The President never mentioned the source of the chemical drug than is killing more and more Americans every year.
After being criticized for not paying enough attention to the issue, Biden fumbled the number of US fentanyl deaths while bringing up the subject with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador last month.
In the years 2018 to 2021 alone, fentanyl murdered almost 196,000 Americans. Although statistics for 2022 is not yet available, early estimates indicate that the death toll will likely stay at or close to all-time highs.
Republicans in Congress, led by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind. ), twice requested a meeting with Biden to talk about fentanyl and blamed him for not doing enough to curb the flow of the poison.
Despite the highly divisive statements, there was some applause from both parties in support of regulating insulin costs and apprehending those responsible for stealing COVID-19 relief funds.
