(DailyVantage.com) – On Tuesday, President Joe Biden delivered, what may go down as, one of the most raucous and, at times, chaotic State of the Union addresses in contemporary American history.
Biden, who at 80 is our oldest president, had to fend off a barrage of heckles from disgruntled Congressional Republicans.
Perhaps the most heated exchange between Biden and the GOP was when he accused certain members of the party of wanting to “sunset” Medicare and Social Security. That line was met with a cacophony of boos from the Republican side of the aisle. Congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene can be seen (and audibly heard) yelling “liar!” at a dumbfounded Biden, who didn’t seem to expect such an animated response.
Biden was also met with grumblings from Republicans when he claimed that former President Donald Trump was fiscally reckless while in office. Biden noted that Trump increased America’s national debt by almost $8 trillion. While this is true, even CNN remarked that Biden left out important context here: “It’s important to note, though, that some of the increase in the debt during the Trump era was because of the trillions in emergency Covid-19 pandemic relief spending that passed with bipartisan support.”
While some saw the lively back and forth between the President and Congressional Republicans to be distasteful or lacking in decorum, others saw it as reminiscent of British parliamentary-style debate. Matthew Yglesias, for example, tweeted that “mixing it up with hecklers a la British question time is a good step forward for this program.”
Mickey Kaus echoed a similar sentiment, equating the back and forth to “UK question time.”
What waits to be seen, however, is whether or not Biden’s Tuesday address will serve as a boon to him in the polls. The President, in the wake of a slew of controversies surrounding classified documents and a spotting of a Chinese spy balloon, badly needs a pick-me-up in his mediocre job approval rating.
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