Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union: 4 winners, 4 losers and an honorable mention

President Joe Biden gave a speech to a raucous House chamber on Tuesday night, weaving between his signature calls for bipartisanship while warning Republicans he’s ready for a fight, if necessary.

Biden’s goal in his State of the Union address was to make the case to the American public that his administration has significant accomplishments under its belt and that the country is moving in the right direction.

The president pointed to bipartisan wins, like the major infrastructure and climate change legislation he signed last year. And he warned Republicans that he wouldn’t accept unpopular cuts to entitlement programs as part of debt ceiling negotiations, setting off one of the loudest rounds of boos of the night.

State of the Union addresses are always wide ranging, by their nature. Biden’s speech was no different. But some issues got more attention than others and were framed as bigger priorities. Here’s a rundown of which won, which lost and which got a bonus honorable mention.

Winner: A new politics of climate change

The presence — or, for the most part, absence — of the words “climate change” in State of the Union speeches has been a point of contention for at least a decade and a half now. Biden mentioned the climate at least three times and hammered home the absurdity of it remaining a partisan issue:

“The climate crisis doesn’t care if you’re in a red or blue state,” he said. “It is an existential threat.”

Biden also touted the single biggest legislative swing at the issue that the U.S. has ever taken in the Inflation Reduction Act, the law that offered up to $370 billion in clean energy and efficiency incentives.

“The Inflation Reduction Act is also the most significant investment ever to tackle the climate crisis,” Biden said. “Lowering utility bills, creating American jobs and leading the world to a clean energy future.”

Implementation of the bill is now ongoing, and its long-term effects remain to be seen, but executive leadership willing to call climate change the crisis that it is changes the game.

— Dave Levitan, climate reporter

Winner: Manufacturing

Biden, like all American politicians, loves to talk about manufacturing and infrastructure, and much of the early portion of his State of the Union address was devoted to detailing his administration’s often bipartisan record on infrastructure spending and economic development.

“Now we’re coming back because we came together to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the largest investment in infrastructure since President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System,” Biden said. He also referenced another bipartisan legislative achievement, the Chips and Science Act.

“Semiconductors, the small computer chips the size of your fingertip that power everything from cellphones to automobiles, and so much more. These chips were invented right here in America,” Biden said, lamenting that America’s market share of the semiconductor industry had fallen to 10 percent. To address this, “that’s why we came together to pass the bipartisan Chips and Science Act. We’re making sure the supply chain for America begins in America,” Biden said.

He also called out specific infrastructure projects, including a bridge over the Ohio river connecting Ohio and Kentucky as well as a massive Intel facility being built outside Columbus, which will create, Biden said, “jobs where people don’t have to leave home in search of opportunity.”

He couldn’t help but needle Republicans in the chamber, the vast majority of whom voted against both the infrastructure and semiconductor bills, noting that even if they opposed them, they still wanted projects to come to their districts.

“We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the groundbreaking,” Biden said.

— Matthew Zeitlin, domestic economics reporter

Winner: Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Imagine the Ukrainian president, watching and listening to his American counterpart on Tuesday night. Imagine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, listening to the roars in the U.S. Capitol when his country was mentioned and noting that those roars were coming from both sides of the aisle — even House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) applauded. Zelenskyy knows what it sounds like, firsthand; the roars were deafening in that same room when Zelenskyy parachuted into Washington for a quick visit six weeks ago.

While Zelenskyy’s forces fight brutal battles in eastern Ukraine and prepare for an expected new Russian offensive, Ukraine’s leader had to feel at least a moment of satisfaction, given what Biden said and the way it played in the House chamber. (Though one hopes Zelenskyy was sleeping as the president spoke, given that Biden began his speech after 4 a.m. Wednesday, Kyiv time).

Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion “a murderous assault, evoking images of the death and destruction Europe suffered in World War II” — a comparison that must have resonated in the Russian capital as well, given how often Putin invokes World War II as a way to rally his people.

“Putin’s invasion has been a test for the ages,” Biden said. “A test for America. A test for the world. Would we stand for the most basic of principles? Would we stand for sovereignty? Would we stand for the right of people to live free from tyranny?”

The president could stand in the House chamber Tuesday and say credibly that the answers to all those questions was yes. Since Biden delivered his last State of the Union address — as it happened, just one week after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — more than $100 billion in military and humanitarian aid has been sent to Ukraine.

On Tuesday night, there were cheers for all of this. Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova was among the president’s guests of honor.

“We’re going to stand with you as long as it takes,” Biden told her — but he was making that pledge to Zelenskyy and all Ukrainians.

So as one counts winners and losers from the 2023 State of the Union, it’s hard to imagine a bigger winner than the president of Ukraine.

Oh — and by the way, imagine the man in the Kremlin, listening to the same speech.

— Tom Nagorski, global editor

Winner: China hawks

Not long ago, although China-bashing was a staple of the American presidential campaign trail, it was usually tempered once the winner came into office. Republicans in particular have traditionally wanted to maintain trade and commercial ties with China, but it was a Democrat — Bill Clinton — who pushed for China’s accession to the World Trade Organization just a little more than two decades ago. And Republican and Democratic presidents alike have tried to engage the Chinese and cooperate wherever possible, if nothing else to keep channels for dialogue clear and open, and to avoid confrontation.

For all these reasons, hard-line China hawks used to be a fringe in U.S. politics. Not anymore.

Just as support for Ukraine won both-sides-of-the-aisle cheers in the House chamber Tuesday, so too did Biden’s venting about Chinese aggression, Chinese unfair competition and of course that now-infamous Chinese balloon.

“Make no mistake,” the president said. “As we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”

If it seemed an over-the-top characterization of defense against a large, unmanned balloon, it was in keeping with an atmosphere in which China-bashing is the norm. And it has become a winning message.

“Before I came to office, the story was about how the People’s Republic of China was increasing its power and America was falling in the world,” Biden said Tuesday. “Not anymore.” He followed with a litany of examples: The various “made-in-America” measures and policies to boost innovation in industries “that China’s government is intent on dominating,” a “modernizing” of the U.S. military to “safeguard stability and deter aggression.” There was a line about a commitment “to work with China where it can advance American interests and benefit the world” — but otherwise it was about competition and deterrence.

“Winning the competition with China should unite all of us,” Biden said — and then — in perhaps his starkest language against Beijing, Biden took aim at his Chinese counterpart. “Name me a leader who’d change positions with Xi Jinping,” Biden said. It was an oddly personal attack, and for what it’s worth, one that was not in the prepared remarks.

Analysts and historians of the U.S.-China relationship will stress the need for common ground, restraint and the importance of avenues for dialogue. But China continues to behave in ways that invite condemnation; whatever the back story of that ill-fated balloon — and it may be a while before we know — in terms of domestic U.S. politics, it was a simple calculation: red meat for Biden’s opponents (“Trump would have shot that thing down,” they railed — never mind that three Chinese balloons are known to have wandered over the U.S. during Trump’s tenure, without a peep, much less an F-22 shoot-down) and an almost unavoidable dose of China-bashing in the State of the Union.

It’s perhaps the easiest way to get an applause line in Washington these days, whether you’re campaigning for office or giving a State of the Union address: take a shot at Beijing. Score one for the China hawks.

— Tom Nagorski, global editor

Loser: Billionaires

Biden pitched his “minimum tax” for billionaires, whereby those with $1 billion in net worth would have to pay a 20 percent income tax that would apply not just to income that most taxpayers would report to the Internal Revenue Service, but also the appreciation of assets that hasn’t yet been realized in the form of a capital gain.

It’s not a new idea: Biden raised it in his proposed 2022 budget, and Congress has tried — and failed — to pass something similar too. The idea behind such a tax is that many of the wealthiest end up paying low or very deferred taxes. That’s because their annual income reported to the IRS can be quite low, but their lifestyle is supported by a large stock of wealth that they can use to support their lifestyles by borrowing against those assets. This new approach to taxation has been boosted by leaked Internal Revenue Service documents showing that many of the wealthiest Americans pay little to no income taxes on a year-to-year basis.

That Biden is still pitching this idea after two years of unified Democratic control of Congress shows how unlikely it is to go into effect, however. During the negotiations over what would eventually become the Inflation Reduction Act, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) declared the tax to be “divisive” and opposed it. With Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives, any fiscal policy that comes out of this Congress is more likely to contain curbs on spending than new taxes for America’s richest.

— Matthew Zeitlin, domestic economics reporter

Loser: Abortion rights advocates

This was the first State of the Union address after the Supreme Court ended the national right to abortion. It was arguably the issue that made the 2022 midterms defy historical trends in favor of the party in the White House, with minimal losses in the House and an expanded Democratic majority. But it got a whopping three (short) paragraphs in Biden’s speech.

Biden made clear that he would veto a national abortion ban — but that’s not the avenue that House Republicans are taking to limit abortion rights, anyway. The path to expanding rights is through medication abortion, which didn’t get a mention at all.

Biden could have made this the State of the Union defined by the most disruptive Supreme Court decision in abortion rights in decades. Instead, it was a side note.

— Leah Askarinam, politics editor

Loser: The oil and gas industry

Over the past couple of weeks, oil giants including ExxonMobil, Chevron and others have announced record 2022 earnings, pulling in tens of billions in profit during a year marred by war, inflation, and high energy prices at the pump and at home — not to mention another top-10 warmest year and climate catastrophes across the globe. The oil industry’s boon warranted a mention from the president:

“You may have noticed that Big Oil just reported record profits. Last year, they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis. I think it’s outrageous.”

This may seem like a significant broadside at one of the most powerful industries in the world, but Biden’s response to that issue was still somewhat measured. He went on to say that the industry invested “too little” of its windfall in increased production and instead enriched its own shareholders. In response, the president is proposing a quadrupling of a tax on corporate stock buybacks, which would hit some of the huge hauls the industry announced in recent months.

But outside of the White House, the oil industry’s banner year — years, plural, in truth — has spawned some more directed and aggressive approaches. Democratic senators renewed calls for a windfall profits tax to rein in what they see as an industry engaged in “war profiteering.”

There is little chance of such a tax passing in the present legislative climate, but Biden’s callout of the oil industry does suggest an increase in attention on the obscene amounts of money flowing into their coffers. The president has previously threatened he would support a windfall tax — but that was in the run-up to the 2022 midterms in October, and it wasn’t about an industry profiting off a warming planet but instead about a push to increase oil and gas production and help lower gas prices. In his speech, Biden did, of course, tout the decline in prices at the pump compared with peaks seen last summer.

Climate and environmental activists have celebrated some of the administration’s moves but remain disappointed on some oil and gas developments, like last week’s move that may allow an enormous new drilling project to proceed in an otherwise undisturbed area in the Alaskan Arctic.

— Dave Levitan, climate reporter

Loser: House Republicans

Biden’s biggest political liability, according to polling among even members of his own party, is his age. For Republicans hoping to take back the White House in 2024, they’d ideally like a performance from Biden looking weak. But Biden looked his strongest when he went into direct combat with Republicans on one of their least popular policy ideas.

Biden energized his supporters in the crowd by criticizing Republican proposals on Medicare and Social Security. And it got him the fight he seemed to want with the right.

“If anyone tries to cut Social Security, I will stop them. And if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them. I will not allow them to be taken away,” Biden said, to jeers and head-shaking from Republicans, including McCarthy, who disputed his characterization of their plans.

Biden smiled, he laughed, he encouraged viewers at home to call up the White House and get more information on Republican plans. He reveled in it.

Biden knows that most voters don’t want to see benefits like Medicare or Social Security dry up, including many Republican voters. So while hard-line conservatives in Congress may want to upend the programs, in practice, many of their colleagues on the right do not.

As Biden heads into two years of attacks by the Republican-controlled House, he signaled Tuesday night he’s spoiling for a fight.

— Maggie Severns, policy reporter

Honorable Mention: Saturated color

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) set Twitter on fire by wearing an avant-garde, lemon yellow dress. But she wasn’t alone in wearing a bold tone. Pops of jelly bean pink, orange, blue, purple and green jackets, suits and dresses punctuated what is usually a sea of navy blue. In the post-pandemic era, bright color is on trend. And the women in Congress appear to be embracing it, highlighting, literally, their historic numbers inside an institution long dominated by men and their navy blue.

— Laura McGann, executive editor

Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.

Home

Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union: 4 winners, 4 losers and an honorable mention