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Joe Biden unveiled a post-Trump populism Tuesday night, replacing the aggrieved sense of “American carnage” with a promise of American renewal that echoes the idea behind making America great again.
In a State of the Union address meant to make the case for his second term, Biden sounded more like a consumer advocate than a head of state.
RELATED: I annotated the speech along with CNN’s fact check team. See that full annotation.
Biden spent a surprising amount of time talking about an issue that unites everyone – annoyance at credit card, hotel and airline “junk fees.” He spent more time promising to stand up for workers “getting stiffed” by corporations than he did about standing up to China.
He barely mentioned the divisive issue of abortion, on which Democrats built their midterm strategy, and previewed a focus on protecting the federal benefit program that helps almost everyone in retirement.
“Those benefits belong to the American people,” Biden said of Social Security and Medicare. “They earned it.”
In an in-person, give-and-take with opponents, he got Republicans whooping about how they wouldn’t cut Social Security or Medicare, a rhetorical trick he ad-libbed.
“If anyone tries to cut Social Security – which apparently no one is going to do – and if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I’ll stop them. I’ll veto it. And look, I’m not going to allow them to take away – be taken away. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. But apparently it’s not going to be a problem.”
He talked about transforming the economy with the trillions in federal spending passed with the bipartisan infrastructure bill and promised the very not bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act…
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