President Joe Biden touches on taxes, crime, abortion, inflation and more during SOTU address

Former New York Rep. George Santos announced a surprise comeback campaign while in attendance at the State of the Union address.

"I just witnessed a weak, frail president deliver spin and lies to the American people from inside the chambers. I have made several personal sacrifices in the name of serving the American people. My promise is that I will never back down because of my love for this country," Santos wrote in a post on X.

"New York hasn’t had a real conservative represent them since I left office arbitrarily, thanks to RINO, empty suits like Nick Lalota," the former congressman continued. "He is a willing to risk the future of our majority and the future of this country for his own political gain. After a lot of prayer and conversation with my friends and family, I have made a very important decision that will shake things up."

Santos wrote, "Tonight, I want to announce that I will be returning to the arena of politics and challenging Nick for the battle over [New York 1st Congressional District]. I look forward to debating him on the issues and on his weak record as a Republican. The fight for our majority is imperative for the survival of the country."

Fox News contributor Joe Concha told ‘Fox & Friends First’ on Friday that “the president was going to be thrown bouquets of flowers” from the media following his State of the Union speech “regardless of how this address went.” 

“Just go back and read the headlines from a year ago, 2023. Same deal, Biden showed passion, vigor, stamina, commanded the facts,” Concha said. “Look, if Joe Biden did a 70-minute press conference with actual journalists asking the questions, then I think you could apply all those terms around vigor and stamina and passion.” 

“But last night was simply a matter of him reading a speech that he practiced for nearly a week off of a teleprompter. He beat expectations because that is easy to do when the expectations are a speed bump,” Concha continued. 

“For all the praise Biden is receiving this morning, I can safely bet that if you went out on the street... asked anyone who watched that speech if they could remember one major policy announcement or change from Biden’s first three years... what would make the American people believe that anything will be any different?” Concha also said. 

Democratic lawmakers and leaders rebuked President Biden for not calling the Venezuelan illegal immigrant who allegedly murdered Laken Riley in Georgia an "undocumented" immigrant.

Biden referred to the suspected murderer as an "illegal" at his State of the Union address. When asked about Biden's reference to Riley, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi corrected Biden's language choice. 

"Now he should have said undocumented, but that’s not a big thing, ok? What’s the big thing?" she said during an interview on CNN Thursday night, immediately following the address. 

Other Democrats vented on social media about Biden using the term, which some liberals view as dehumanizing.

"As a proud immigrant," Illinois Democratic Rep. Chuy García wrote Thursday, "I'm extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the word ‘illegal.’" 

"Let me be clear: No human being is illegal," Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wrote. 

A Maryland mother whose daughter was raped and killed by an alleged MS-13 gang member who is an illegal immigrant told 'Fox & Friends First' on Friday that President Biden “did not say anything about the border crisis” during his State of the Union speech last night. 

Tammy Nobles, whose 20-year-old daughter Kayla Hamilton was killed in her mobile home in Maryland in 2022, said Biden’s speech “just seemed like it was a pep rally.” 

Nobles added that she shouted her daughter’s name from the audience while Biden held up a button with Laken Riley’s name on it. Nobles was a guest of House Speaker Mike Johnson.

“I did what I was meant to do, and he did not even acknowledge anything,” Nobles said. 

Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

President Biden gave a brief acknowledgment during his State of the Union address of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been considered wrongfully detained in Russia for nearly a year. 

The shoutout for Gershkovich came as he addressed the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, making his vow to do everything he can to bring American hostages home from Gaza.

"We'll also work around the clock to bring home Evan and Paul [Whelan], Americans being unjustly detained by the Russians and others around the world," Biden said Thursday night before continuing on about the Middle East conflict.

Seen in the gallery were Gershkovich's parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, wearing "Free Evan" buttons. They were invited guests of House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Gershkovich was arrested last March as Russian authorities leveled dubious espionage charges against him. He has been kept in Moscow for nearly a year. 

U.S. Capitol Police have arrested a Gold Star father who interrupted President Biden during the State of the Union address by shouting about Afghanistan and the deadly 2021 suicide bomb attack outside the Abbey Gate at Kabul's airport during the military's evacuation from the country, according to Fox News Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram. 

“America is safer today than when I took office,” Biden said at one point during the speech before the father began yelling in the audience. 

Authorities then arrested Steven Nakoui, 51, whose son Kareem, a Marine, was one of the victims of the Abbey Gate attack. 

Nakoui was attending the State of the Union as a guest of Florida Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican. 

Nakoui was shouting “Abbey Gate” and “2nd Battalion, 1st Marines.” He was asked to stop, but did not and later was charged with disrupting Congress, Pergram reports. 

President Biden went for the jugular last night as he delivered the State of the Union address with eight months to go until the November general election rematch with former President Trump.

Biden early and often took aim at Trump, whom he only referred to as "his predecessor," and also fired numerous salvos at Republican lawmakers sitting directly in front of him as the president delivered his address to a joint session of Congress.

While Democrats applauded the tone and tenor of the president's address, Republicans savaged the speech for crossing the line.

"This was the most partisan State of the Union I’ve heard in my lifetime," said Bill McGurn, who served as chief speechwriter for then-President George W. Bush.

"Attacking his opponent directly in the first minutes of his speech is unprecedented and perhaps the most partisan start to a State of the Union address in modern memory," Marc Theissen, who also served as a speechwriter for Bush, emphasized in a social media posting.

It was a very different take from Dan Cluchey, who served as a speechwriter for the president in the Biden White House.

"With energy and vigor, the President laid out the clear choice facing America — a choice between two starkly different visions for our future.  Will we expand freedom, or restrict it?  Will we defend democracy, or attack it?  Will we continue to grow the economy for all, or rig it on behalf of billionaires and the wealthiest corporations?  President Biden made it crystal clear where he stands — and he did it while commanding the room with equal parts sharp oratory, disarming banter, and matter-of-fact moral authority," Cluchey told Fox News.

Fox News' Andrew Murray contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden gave the speech of his life on Thursday night, belting out what was in effect a Democratic convention speech under the guise of the State of the Union, carefully timed after Super Tuesday to frame the presidential race as a progressive future against "a predecessor" of hate and revenge.

Here are some things that went right and wrong in the speech.

...

When I worked on State of the Union speeches with President Clinton, the goal was to bring the country together and entice swing voters because it was a rare bipartisan audience.

One rule was to use no words or slogans that we would use in a political speech, as this was history, not politics. 

The idea here going into the election season was the opposite, and so the White House achieved its goal and showed that Joe Biden is ready to run an aggressive campaign that will take on both Trump and the Republicans based on the values of  "Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality." 

Polls in the next week or so will tell us whether he failed to connect with everyday Americans on their problems or instead successfully rallied the base enough to begin a comeback. 

This is an excerpt of an opinion column from Fox News contributor Mark Penn.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers walked away from President Biden’s State of the Union address with very different impressions on Thursday night — as expected.

"It sounded more like a campaign speech than it did a State of the Union," one Republican lawmaker told Fox News Digital following the speech.

GOP legislators in the House and Senate called the 81-year-old president an "old man" while blasting his speech for frequent references to his 2024 Republican opponent, former President Trump.

But for many Republican lawmakers, their takeaway was Biden's heavily-scrutinized mental faculties. 

"A lot of the time it was hard to understand what he was saying," said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va. "He was kind of mumbling and slurring." 

"We couldn't understand him. He was so mad," agreed Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. "The volume was up and down."

Democrats, meanwhile, praised Biden’s energy and "strong" address.

"I’ve been here for 12 years, that was probably the best State of the Union I've ever heard," Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told Fox News Digital.

Fox News' Liz Elkind and Julia Johnson contributed reporting.

Walking into the House chamber, the first thing that strikes you is how small it is. 

The room where the president delivers the State of the Union looks cavernous on television, but when you’re standing there, you realize it’s not much bigger than a high school gymnasium with a balcony. 

As I watched President Joe Biden, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that fact on Thursday night. 

He raced through the speech like he was reading a bedtime story. Talking over the applause lines and stopping only to catch his breath between snappy lines designed to rev up his base. 

"My predecessor," this.

"My predecessor," that.

During his State of the Union address Thursday, President Biden referred to the alleged killer of Georgia student Laken Riley as "an illegal" — but the term is in contrast to guidance from his Department of Homeland Security, which had told staff to stop using terms like "illegal alien.

"Biden was heckled by Republican lawmakers to say the name of Laken Riley, who was allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant last month in Georgia. Republicans have cited the death as a consequence of the border crisis, which they blame on Biden policies. Biden in turn used the address to restate his calls for Congress to pass a bipartisan border bill.

But Biden picked up a button with Riley’s name on it that lawmakers had been given out and made reference to her — although he misstated her first name.

"Lincoln Riley [sic]," he said. "An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal, that’s right."

The use of the term "illegal," even in reference to an alleged illegal immigrant murderer, rankled some Democrats.

"Let me be clear: No human being is illegal," said Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Thursday said that President Biden's State of the Union performance reminded him of an "angry old man" yelling at children to get off his lawn.

"Joe Biden was angry, he was bitter, he was screaming," he told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "He was radical, and extreme and he was completely out of touch with the American people."

"Frankly, tonight Joe Biden reminded me like an angry old man standing on his porch screaming to the kids 'get off my lawn!'"

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said President Joe Biden side-stepped on several key issues during his “bizarre” 2024 State of the Union address.

"I thought it was the most divisive State of the Union from the most out of touch president in American history. I thought it was bizarre," Schmitt told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview after the speech.

The Senator added that the president “didn’t seriously address” illegal immigration, a top issue to voters going into 2024.

"It felt like he was yelling at the time. So the delivery was weird, and then it fell short on substance. He really didn't seriously address the number one issue in the minds of the American people, which is illegal immigration. An hour in, he just blamed other people,” Schmitt said, referring to the president pointing to Congress for the crisis at the southern border. “And so I think the American people see that for what it is: totally phony."

Schmitt also called out the president for beginning his speech talking about conflict overseas, specifically the Russia-Ukraine war, rather than the crisis at the U.S. border.

"I'm also tired of lectures that lead with Ukraine. I'm tired of him spending the first ten minutes of that speech on the importance of the Ukrainian border and doesn't do anything to address the invasion at our southern border."

President Biden delivered his State of the Union speech for over an hour on Thursday night, delivering a number of highlights and key moments that elicited reactions from the crowd and on social media.

Biden used the first few minutes of the speech to talk about Putin’s aggression in Russia, the war in Ukraine, and Sweden’s entrance into NATO.

"What makes our moment rare is freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time," Biden said. "Overseas, Putin's Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you he will not."

Biden went on to criticize those who are blocking funding for Ukraine and tout Sweden’s recent entry into NATO as proof Biden has made the alliance stronger.

Biden mentioned Trump several times during the speech — which drew criticism from conservative pundits who said the address sounded like a campaign speech — and often referred to him simply as "my predecessor."

President Biden appeared to be in a joking mood after delivering his State of the Union address to Congress Thursday night.

Democratic New York Representative Jerry Nadler approached the president following his speech, stating that "nobody's going to talk about cognitively impaired now," in reference to Biden.

Another individual cut in complimenting the president, stating that he was, "on fire tonight."

Exchanging some laughs with his fellow Democrats, Biden responded to Nadler's comment saying, "I kind of wish sometimes I was cognitively impaired."

Republicans accused Biden of threatening the Supreme Court during his speech Thursday, where he warned justices that they don't know the electoral power of women.

Biden directly addressed the justices attending his speech, telling them that they are "about to realize" just how much political power women have.

Biden also promised in his speech to establish a right to abortion, which had been longstanding precedent under Roe v. Wade.

His remarks to the justices were condemned by numerous Republicans following the speech.

"It's disgusting that Joe Biden threatened the Supreme Court for upholding the constitution at the State of the Union," House GOP conference chair Rep. Elise Stefanik posted on X.

Republican Alabama Sen. Katie Britt pulled no punches as she delivered her party's rebuttal to President Biden's State of the Union address Thursday night, ripping him for his "despicable" job handling the border crisis, as well as his promotion of "Bidenomics" amid the rising consumer costs plaguing American families.

A rising star within the GOP, the 42-year-old Britt's selection to deliver the rebuttal last week was met with widespread praise — even from some Democrats — as she continues to build a national profile despite never holding elected office prior to her election in the 2022 midterms.

Britt began her remarks with a reference to Biden's age and his decades as a career politician, blasting his speech as "the performance of a permanent politician who has actually been in office for longer than I've been alive."

"The country we know and love seems to be slipping away, and it feels like the next generation will have fewer opportunities – and less freedoms – than we did. I worry my own children may not even get a shot at living their American Dreams," Britt said.

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Donald Trump blasted President Biden and his State of the Union address Thursday night, telling Fox News Digital that Biden clearly "suffers from a terminal case of Trump derangement syndrome." 

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, reacted to Biden’s address.

"He was angry, mentally disturbed, and misrepresenting a lot of the facts concerning almost every subject he discussed," Trump said.

"But he got through it. He is still breathing, and they didn’t have to carry him out in a straight jacket," Trump said. "Other than that, I think he did a terrible job."

House Speaker Mike Johnson said President Biden "missed his cue" when he began his State of the Union address before being introduced by the former, as is custom.

"Listen, I was prepared to do it, but he jumped the gun. He missed his cue," Johnson told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an interview following Biden's speech.

Biden began speaking immediately after the applause subsided before giving Johnson a chance to welcome him.

"He was about 15 or 20 minutes late upon arrival. I haven't yet heard why that was, but, yeah, he jumped in their and began his speech," he said.

"I was going to do it formally but I never got the opportunity, and I didn't want to interrupt the president and be disrespectful. But it wasn't the Speaker of the House who missed his cue, it was the president," he added.