The state of Biden’s union with a GOP Congress: It’s tense

The State of the Union rarely previews big battles in Congress. Tuesday night’s row between President Joe Biden and GOP lawmakers may prove to be an exception.

Biden’s speech began as a promise to play nice with newly empowered House Republicans. Things then went stunningly off-script as GOP jeering escalated throughout the roughly 75 minutes, drowning out some of the president’s biggest moments and foreshadowing a long two years to come under divided government.

By the end, the GOP’s heckling — from “secure the border!” to “bullshit!” — marked an ominous start for Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s high-stakes partnership this year. The California Republican, who began the night vowing to play the adult in the room, instead found himself sitting stoically at the dais as his GOP hardliners heckled the president.

“This is not the House of Parliament. I wish there were more decorum, but it seems like we just keep going further downhill every State of the Union,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who set off a different kind of political storm after telling disgraced Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) that he didn’t “belong” in the chamber for the speech. (Romney later called the serial fabricator’s behavior, including an attempt to shake hands with Biden, “an embarrassment.”)

After McCarthy promised before the speech that his members would avoid “playing childish games,” the State of Union highlighted yet again just how tough it will be for him to corral his fractious Republicans on any given day. And for Biden, the evening demonstrated that his heady days of accomplishment during the last Congress have abruptly come to a close.

The theatrics began midway through Biden’s speech, as he scolded Republicans about their past interest in cutting the nation’s biggest entitlement programs in a bid to set the stakes for the upcoming debt limit battle. As the jeers escalated from the opposition, Biden began battling the GOP in real time — ad-libbing his own prepared remarks to challenge Republicans who were shouting at him from the chamber floor.

“Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” Biden said as the GOP side of the chamber erupted in boos. It was a reference to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) proposal last year to wind down all laws after five years, an agenda that split Scott’s party and that Biden has attacked repeatedly.

Then, veering from his own remarks, Biden attempted to clarify — “I don't think it is a majority of you" — though he could barely be heard above the GOP outcry on the floor. “So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare, off the books now, right?” Biden said.

Republicans had hoped McCarthy’s Tuesday pledge that the GOP wouldn’t touch the two programs in the debt limit fight would keep the president from hitting them on it, despite the fact that some of them remain broadly interested in changing the popular entitlements. They were livid.

“The president was trying to score political points, despite the fact that Republican leadership has made it clear that Medicare and Social Security benefits are off the table,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.). “Republicans made clear their dissatisfaction with his ploy.”

The tensions only grew from there. Biden’s back-and-forth on the debt battle seemed to embolden his critics — chief among them, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, sitting in the far back row in a stark white, fur-lined jacket. As the Georgia Republican sat, she rarely looked up from her phone except to occasionally shout at Biden.

“Liar!” she shouted at first, in response to Biden’s accusation of GOP cuts to Social Security and Medicare. “Bullshit!” she called later. And when Biden called for action on the deadly drug fentanyl — one of the GOP’s biggest priorities — Greene shouted: “It’s coming from China.”

She was hardly alone: Dozens of other Republicans joined in with chants to “secure our border” as Biden spoke of the need for an immigration overhaul. Several other Republicans called out “liar," and at least one shouted “it’s your fault” as Biden touted efforts to lower fentanyl deaths.

“That’s just not acceptable in the type of country we are and the leader of the free world,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said of the ruckus. “Might be accepted in a Third World country. But not here.”

But Republicans weren’t done after the speech. Scott fumed of Biden afterward: “He’s been lying about me for a year. He’s a liar.”

The tenor of the speech, at times, clashed with the pomp and circumstance of one of Congress’ biggest nights. Ahead of the address, Capitol hallways were packed with the return of lawmakers' State of the Union guests — a tradition that got nixed during the height of the pandemic.

Other parts of Biden’s remarks, though, went just as expected.

He received standing ovations on bipartisan issues like support for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving. Republicans cheered when Biden lamented that the U.S. would be “on oil and gas for a while” — a nod to Manchin, who chairs the Energy Committee and hails from a deep-red fossil-fuel state.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as well as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), remained seated when Biden mentioned McCarthy’s name for the first time.

But for Democratic leaders, the speech was just what they were looking for: combative at times, heavily focused on economics and not filled with lofty rhetoric. As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) dipped into an elevator to head home for the night, the back-and-forth between Biden and Republicans did little to dampen his good mood.

Americans thought “he’s talking right to me,” Schumer said of the presidential address. “My needs, my dreams, my hopes. It wasn’t high-falutin’, it wasn’t high up in the stratosphere. It was aimed right at them.”