Biden to give first State of the Union address against a backdrop of high inflation and Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Joe Biden delivering a speech — President Joe Biden delivers an opening statement during a news conference in the East Room of the White House on January 19, 2022.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Tuesday will give his first State of the Union address to the nation.
The president will address a country that remains politically polarized amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite record job growth in 2021, Americans remain concerned about the state of the economy.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday will give his first State of the Union address to a country eager to turn the page from the coronavirus pandemic, with the commander-in-chief seeking to offer a reset after seeing much of his domestic agenda stall in Congress while also handling the fallout from Russia's attacks on Ukraine.

The address will start at 9 p.m. EST and will be held in the House chamber at the Capitol. The major broadcast networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox) and select cable channels (C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News) will air the speech, with streaming options available on the websites of most major news outlets.

This year, COVID-related precautions are slowly easing on Capitol Hill, with State of the Union attendees having the option of whether or not to wear a mask in the House chamber, a significant departure from the mask mandate that's thus far been strictly enforced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

However, tougher security precautions will remain in place, with the installation of fencing around the US Capitol building for the address, according to The Associated Press, a reminder of the lingering effects of the January 6, 2021, riot at the historic building.

Biden will speak to the nation as his job approval ratings have slid precipitously from last year, with his approval now sitting at 41% in the most recent February Gallup poll.

The president — who represented Delaware in the Senate from 1973 to 2009 and served as vice president from 2009 to 2017 before winning the 2020 presidential election — came into office during one of the most contentious periods in American history.

After the Capitol riot, which resulted in the House impeaching then-President Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection," Biden reaffirmed his pledge to "lower the temperature" on Capitol Hill, where Democrats now maintain a slim advantage in the lower chamber and a razor-thin majority in the Senate by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris' tiebreaking vote.

Biden notched major victories with the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that passed in March 2021, along with the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that was signed into law last November, but hit major turbulence with the collapse of the Build Back Better Act, a social-spending bill that included critical funding for climate initiatives, an expansion of the Affordable Care Act, and universal pre-K.

While most congressional Democrats have been on board with Biden's agenda, he has faced pushback from Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who both stymied his attempt to set aside the legislative filibuster to pass the "Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act." Despite their support of the bill, Manchin and Sinema have remained insistent on maintaining the 60-vote threshold for passing legislation, pointing to future Republican majorities that could easily reverse sweeping laws with only 51 votes.

The president also faces steely opposition from Republicans, who, seeking to regain control of Congress in the November midterm elections, fault him for rising inflation, a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the surge in migrants at the US-Mexico border.

Biden on Friday nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, which could provide him with a much-needed lift among Democratic base voters. If successfully confirmed, the judge — who currently sits on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — would become the first Black woman in US history to join the nation's highest court.

On the economic front, the president's commitment to tackling inflation could help Democrats in November if consumer prices begin to ease in the coming months. At the moment, though, Americans remain anxious about the economy, despite record job growth in 2021 and solid wage gains, a lingering problem for the administration.

Meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has become Biden's biggest challenge on the international front, which will undoubtedly impact his foreign policy agenda for the rest of his term. The president has even retooled his speech to reaffirm his worldview of protecting democracies, according to The Washington Post.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has resulted in heavy economic sanctions from the West and increasing isolation from world leaders, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defiant in defending his country against Moscow.

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