it's because of you America is coming back it's because of you our future is brighter it's because of you that tonight we can proudly say the state of our Union is strong and getting stronger with eight months to go before the election President Biden used his State of the Union Address to present a clear contrast between his positions on issues like immigration and the economy and rival Donald Trump's Biden also aimed to demonstrate that he's not too old for a second term you could tell by the way he walked in the room that he was ready to to disprove the doubters it was someone who was feisty someone who missed quite frankly the Congressional fisticuffs and so my impression you know coming away from the speech was that this is someone who's going to be ready for the campaign here's a reality check on how Biden is framing his administration's top priorities fresh off a visit to the US Mexico border Biden scolded Republicans for backing away from from a bipartisan border Bill introduced in February now Republicans would argue President Biden has had several years to address the southern border and has not done very much but President Biden saw an opportunity for him to play offense on the southern Border in November my team began serious negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators the result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we've ever seen oh you don't think so oh you don't like that bill huh that conservatives got together and said it was a good bill I'll be darn that's amazing but you could tell in the speech that he felt like he had the upper hand politically and he was really trying to take it to Republicans at one point prompted by shouting Republicans Biden went offs script to address the death of lak and Riley who authorities say was killed by an illegal immigrant an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal that's right this was not something that was in his prepared remarks I think it was his attempt to try to get Republicans to to see that he was going to try to meet them maybe somewhere in the middle President Biden acknowledged that there is a real crisis on the southern border and he said that he needs congress's help and that he would have supported a bipartisan Bill Folks at home does anybody really think the tax code is fair Biden also emphasized the economy and changes he wants to make to taxation thanks to the law I wrote when we signed big companies have to pay a minimum 15% but that's still less than working people paying federal taxes it's time to raise corporate minimum tax to at least [Music] 21% so every big corporations finally begin to pay their fair share so I think what he was doing was trying to create kind of a populist tax plan that he believes would kind of appeal to a lot of middle class uh voters who feel like they're paying a lot of taxes and I think it's going to take a long time for Americans to realize that the economy in some ways is doing much better than they feel whether or not Americans believe his characterization of the economy in November that will be a deciding factor in the election one theme in Biden's speech was challenges to democracy both at home and abroad if anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine I assure you he will not Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons that needs to defend itself a funding bill that includes about $60 billion in Aid related to Ukraine passed in the Senate but has yet to be brought to the house floor the issue is it's a tremendous amount of money I mean the US has already given Ukraine tens of millions of dollars and so the question is are they going to have to keep doing that every 6 months it's a kind of a debate that Republicans want to have they want to have some accountability over this money and they believe that there's a lot of other crises including crises in the United States that deserve attention and money too I say this to Congress we have to stand up to Putin send me a bipartisan National Security Bill history is literally watching with a Dem rled Senate and a GOP Le house bipartisan movement on these items has proven difficult President Biden usually spends a lot of time talking about unity and bringing the country together however a lot of the speech was aimed at Republicans and the policies that they will not support whether it's Ukraine immigration gun control abortion rights and so I think the speech did feel quite partisan many of my friends on the other side of I to put Social Security on The Chopping Block if anyone here tries to cut Social Security Medicare or raise your retirement age I will stop you now that fits with the theme of it being almost a campaign speech and it being an election year and his supporters shouting four more [Music] years