Joe Biden’s annual address to the nation was once again a failure

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The president’s address to Congress and the nation in the United States has always had not just a significant political but also a sacred meaning. And for Joe Biden in the 2024 election year, it was of particular importance in order to improve his so far not too comforting ratings. But the problem was that it was apparently not only America that was in deep crisis, but Biden himself. And given that all three of his previous addresses had been very controversial and rambling, the current speech before the “angry” opposition Congress threatened to be a real failure. That is why the White House staff was very nervously and meticulously preparing the president’s annual address, realizing that its outcome, despite all efforts, could be very negative. And there were reasons for that, not only related to Biden’s mental health. This year’s address was to be held under conditions when hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants were storming the U.S. border, Putin’s troops were on the offensive on the Ukrainian front, and the Houthis were successfully fighting the U.S. fleet in the Red Sea. The situation was aggravated by the divisions within America. Thus, the Republicans wanted to cancel Biden’s speech in retaliation for his refusal to solve the migration crisis. Washington still cannot agree on a permanent budget, and the U.S. government has been teetering on the brink of shutdown for a month now, saving itself with temporary appropriations. A number of Republicans decided in advance to boycott Biden’s address, and some others specifically invited relatives of Americans killed by illegal migrants to the event. Biden, in this light, deliberately decided to shift all responsibility for the situation at the border to Trump and the Republicans during his speech and to absolve himself of responsibility by blaming everything on imaginary “right-wing radicals”.

A ridiculous story before the address also happened with the invitation of foreigners. The White House wanted to put three women together: Jill Biden, Yulia Navalnaya and Olena Zelenska. But Navalnaya and Zelenska refused to participate in this circus at the last moment because of their antipathy to each other, and did not play in tandem in favor of Biden, who wanted to portray himself as “the leader of the world resistance to fascism”. Against this backdrop, it was clear that Biden would continue this line, clearly urging Congress to allocate money for Ukraine. But there has been no progress on this so far, and it is not for nothing that Victoria Nuland, whose task was to knock out the Ukrainian tranches, is resigning. On March 4, she resigned as Deputy Secretary of State Blinken, as well as the person responsible for policy in Eastern Europe. She got this post only a year ago, when she replaced Wendy Sherman, an expert on China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), who resigned due to health reasons. Recently, it is hard to remember Nuland’s real successes in Ukraine: not only Congress does not allocate tranches and Kiev suffers losses on the front, but Nuland herself has been at the center of scandals. Nuland’s recent visit to Kiev did not have much effect on the balance of power, and was overshadowed by the confrontation between Zelensky and his opponents inside the country, which now includes the commander of the AFU Zaluzhnyi. Although Nuland’s protege Brigitte Brink remains the U.S. ambassador to Kiev, she has clearly had her powers reduced, and Ukraine now has another “ambassador” for financial issues, Penny Pritzker. Obviously, the election is approaching, and Biden’s apparatchiks, who don’t have much faith in his victory, have decided in advance to go into “honorable retirement”. The legendary John Kerry went that way, and many leftists quit because of dissatisfaction with politics in the Middle East. Now it’s Nuland’s turn, and she wants to leave on a high note before the situation in Ukraine becomes critical. She will be succeeded by John Bass, former ambassador to Georgia and Turkey, and it is telling that his last stop was Afghanistan, where he was not successful. This is roughly how the White House views the situation in Ukraine, which could take away Biden’s foreign policy trump card. However, in the run-up to the elections, Biden will have to emphasize the domestic agenda of the United States, which, unlike Ukraine, really concerns Americans. And this topic was to become the head of his address to the nation.

On March 7, during his speech, the president chose the line of aggressive populism, and the political technologists of the Democratic Party tried to make a whole drawn-out show around Biden’s address to the nation and Congress. The general background for the Democrats was very negative, because the migration crisis was not resolved by the beginning of March, and everything was very sad for American geopolitics in Ukraine and the Middle East. Knowing this, Biden tried to interrupt the negative agenda by curtsying to his leftist pro-Palestinian constituents and suggested building a port in Gaza for direct delivery of humanitarian goods to bypass Israel. But it was immediately clear that this was an unrealistic wish, and it would be met with a stinging response from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office. It is true that the White House is betting on a change of power in Israel, with the election victory of a more manageable Benny Gantz, who has been given an eyeful in Washington. Such measures are not taken lightly, because in the last primary a significant percentage of Democrats, and 13% in Michigan, 20% in Minnesota, and 13% in North Carolina, voted against all of them. It’s mostly leftists and the Muslim diaspora who were outraged by the bombing of Gaza. And that’s what forced the previously pro-Israel Biden to change course dramatically. Attempts to broker a ceasefire in Cairo failed again, so the president has to somehow appeal to disgruntled Democratic Party voters, because if they boycott the election, Biden will definitely defeat Trump. At the same time, Biden proposed raising the corporate income tax from 15% to 21%, and the income tax on billionaires to 25%, as well as limiting the use of private jets. In general, he will hit the populism, which can be called almost communist, wanting to accuse the rich in all the troubles of the United States. However, this is unlikely to help him much, because the situation in the economy is very difficult, and Americans blame not abstract billionaires, but specific failures of Biden himself.

In the end, it was “the most disgraceful speech in the history of Congress”, as many in the U.S. assessed it. Biden’s hour-long address to the nation and Congress was a failure, and although usually in these speeches the president tries to point out his successes, outline future plans, and consolidate the country, this time the White House host did the opposite. He attacked Trump from the first minutes, refusing to call him by name and using the term “my predecessor”. Biden almost called Trump’s rhetoric the cause of the war in Ukraine, and promised not to bow down to Russia, whose agent was apparently his predecessor, and called for tranches to Ukraine, which Republicans were blocking. After that came the attacks on Trump for storming the Capitol, and Biden traditionally called him the main threat to American democracy. Trump was also blamed for the skyrocketing U.S. national debt and even the migration crisis. This could be called brain-dead anti-Trumpism, which should have scared the Democratic electorate to death, motivating them to make the right choice in November. Republicans responded by constantly interrupting Biden’s speech, and even made him say the name of a young Georgia student girl who was killed by an illegal immigrant. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters raged around the Capitol, blaming Biden for the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans. Biden’s speech looked more like a campaign speech than an official presidential address. And that’s been his trouble because Biden’s ratings are low, he’s way behind Trump. So Biden tried to restart his campaign during the address. However, it is unlikely to succeed. 63% of Americans refused to watch Biden’s speech beforehand. Grandpa’s lamentations about how bad Trump is and how Republicans threaten “democracy” are simply not interesting to most people, and even many of his voters are tired of them. As a result, despite the efforts of his political technologists, Joe Biden’s annual address to the nation was once again a failure, and will negatively affect his chances in the upcoming election.