WASHINGON (Dispatches) – U.S. President Joe Biden has delivered his first State of the Union address that turned strikingly rowdy and featured tense exchanges with Republicans.
The rancorous atmosphere in the House chamber during the traditionally decorous event telegraphed fights ahead, including over-budget priorities and avoiding a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt.
At several points, Biden’s speech on Tuesday night was interrupted by Republicans, who criticized his handling of the country and heckled him.
The encounter featured stark moments of unscripted drama the likes of which were rarely seen during State of the Union addresses of the past. When he mentioned the fentanyl crisis, some Republicans heckled him. “The border! The border!” some shouted. “It’s your fault!”
“Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year,” said Biden during his speech.
As U.S. officials struggle to stem the tide of fentanyl, a new wave of deadly synthetic opioids is flooding into street drug scenes on the East Coast and Midwest.
Biden challenged the new House Republican majority to work together with him to “finish the job” of police reform, repairing America’s unsettled economy and fragile “democracy” even as the emboldened opposition asked him to change course.
“Liar!” screamed Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia.
Biden used his speech to call again for Congress to pass a so-called “billionaire’s tax,” saying some of the biggest corporations in the country are raking in billions of dollars in profits but paying no federal income taxes.
He also called on U.S. lawmakers to restrict how social media companies lure children and collect their data, as he accused Big Tech

of conducting a “for profit” experiment on the nation’s youth.
Last month, he urged Republicans and his Democrats to break through years of political gridlock and pass laws that would rein in the power of U.S.-based tech giants Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook-owner Meta.
Touching on the continuing police brutality, he mentioned Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers. Biden called for more police training and more resources to reduce violent crime.
Biden also urged Congress to take stronger steps to address gun violence, including banning high-powered assault weapons used in many of the mass shootings across the country.
He said that mass shootings had tripled after a 10-year ban which he had sponsored when he was in Congress expired in 2004.
The speech and the GOP response will frame the terms of debate heading into the coming year as Biden prepares to announce his re-election campaign.
Despite his efforts, Biden remains unpopular. His public approval rating edged one percentage point higher to 41% in a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll that closed on Sunday.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who once served as press secretary for Trump, roasted Biden in her Republican response to his address.
“In the radical left’s America, Washington taxes you and lights your hard-earned money on fire. But you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves, and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race,” Sanders said in her televised remarks.
Biden turned 80 in November and, if re-elected, would be 82 at the start of a second term, a fact that concerns many Democratic voters, recent polls show.
Biden tried to cement bipartisan support for his efforts to send tens of billions of dollars in arms and other aid to Ukraine to help it counter Russian forces, nearly a year after the war began.
Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy said last fall that if Republicans won there would be no more “blank check” for Ukraine, and polls show rising skepticism among Republican voters.
Biden introduced Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, who was in the first lady’s box. “We are going to stand with you as long as it takes,” he said.