Washington (AFP) - An optimistic President Joe Biden will try to unite a divided, angry America Tuesday with a State of the Union address showcasing economic resurgence and demonstrating, despite polls showing widespread doubts, that at 80 he still has what it takes to seek reelection.
After two years of managing the exit from the Covid pandemic, an end to the 20-year Afghan war debacle, the Western response against Russia's Ukraine invasion, and extreme US political tensions, Biden feels he has much to celebrate.
On Capitol Hill, he'll address the full Congress, nearly every senior government member, and a vast television audience, buoyed by news that the economy is recovering strongly from the pandemic, with the lowest unemployment in 50 years.
Biden said he'd engage in a "conversation" with the American people.
White House officials say Biden will lean on his folksy side, the "middle class Joe" persona that helped him win the presidency in 2020 as a centrist populist.
Andrew Bates, a spokesman, said among Biden's proposals in the speech will be a new "billionaire tax." At the same time, officials say, Biden will call for unity, stressing the growth of high-skilled manufacturing jobs around the country and his success in getting Congress to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure building splurge.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the world would see an "optimistic" president.
But the dramatic downing on Saturday of a huge Chinese balloon by a US Air Force fighter leaves the increasingly unstable relationship with the communist superpower looming over Biden.A new CBS poll shows only 39 percent approval for the administration's general China policy.
And there are troubles closer to home, with multiple polls showing strong dissatisfaction on the economy and hostility toward the idea of Biden, the oldest person ever in the presidency, seeking a second term in 2024.
The White House announced the guests of First Lady Jill Biden for the speech.These include Ukraine's ambassador, Oksana Markarova, and rock band mega star and HIV/AIDS campaigner Bono.
The most eye-catching, though, may be Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old man who disarmed the gunman in a January mass shooting in California, and RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, the parents of Tyre Nichols, a man whose death after a prolonged police beating in Memphis, Tennessee, shocked the nation.
Trouble ahead
For Biden, here's the good news.
Inflation, which just a few months ago seemed a near-existential threat to the Biden presidency, is steadily ticking downward.On Friday, new figures showed joblessness hitting that half-century low.
Even if Biden has yet to formally announce his 2024 candidacy, the speech -- followed by two very campaign-like trips Wednesday and Thursday to Wisconsin and Florida -- is expected to give him a big push.
However, the Chinese balloon drama -- Beijing claims it was an errant weather research balloon but the US government says it was a high-tech espionage device -- shows how narratives in Washington easily take dangerous new turns.
When Biden speaks, half of the Congress members in the chamber, as well as Speaker Kevin McCarthy sitting directly behind him, will be Republicans vowing to use their new, narrow House of Representatives majority to block his policies.
"The state of the union is weaker and American families are suffering because of Joe Biden," Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said."All they'll hear from Biden are excuses."
Already, a major crisis is brewing over Republican refusal to extend the US debt limit, usually a rubber stamp procedure.Biden's government warns of financial calamity, with major international implications, if Republicans stick to their guns, potentially pushing the United States into default.
Those kinds of uncertainties, as well as doubts over Biden's ability to serve a second term that would end after his 86th birthday, may be partly to blame for pessimism in the polls.An ABC News-Washington Post Poll found that 58 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the party should find someone else for 2024.
