President Joe Biden’s (D) State of the Union address drew several reactions from politicians and voters alike. Texas Representative Pete Sessions (R) gave his thoughts to Texas Politics on the speech and, what he thought, were the president’s underlying intentions, going as far as to view the speech as a campaign bid.
“What we saw tonight was his answer on whether he’s running for president in [2024]. As you know everything can be solved on the campaign trail. Every issue can be solved completely just by explaining it like he did tonight,” stated Rep. Sessions.
Rep. Sessions would question Pres. Biden’s “objectivity and balance” regarding his alleged ulterior motives. He stated, “I mean, there were so many things left out of this. What you have to do is, you have to acknowledge the world’s problems, America as leader, where we’re going to lead, and I think that what he left out clearly was, you know, the deaths from the border, the terrible things that really face us and that’s called ‘inflation’.”
Though Biden touched on several topics in his lengthy speech, Sessions did find fault in his omission of references to socialism. “He didn’t mention socialism but government was the answer to everything.” stated the Texas Representative.
The State of the Union has been received well by Democrats, and Sessions took note of this. He stated, “Every, single theme that the Democratic party stands for, he landed on." “Good for him,” said Sessions, congratulating Biden. “I just thought that it was terribly, terribly without balance of saying ‘We’ve got problems we gotta solve, we gotta work together. He said he wanted to work together but then it was his way, and he knows it doesn’t work like that.’”
When asked about the potential for bipartisanship, Sessions had this to say, “He’s told us he’s not interested in negotiating.” The Texas Representative concluded by doubling down on his earlier suspicions, stating, “This was not made for anything but reelection. So, good for him.”
The president’s speech touched on the expected topics. However, that does not eliminate it from being viewed as being controversial, specifically by the GOP. If Biden was attempting to show himself as a strong leader in order to solidify his bid for reelection, time will tell if it’s successful, or not.
