Op-ed by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy
On Tuesday, Joe Biden delivered a tepid State of the Union address to record-low viewership, reflecting the nation’s disenchantment with their executive leadership and illustrating the weakness of the current administration.
Biden’s address was largely dishonest, hitting on highly partisan talking points like the shooting of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, and calling for a radical ban on assault weapons in the U.S.
In response to Biden’s remarks, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday, sharing his honest analysis of Biden’s remarks in real-time, pointing out the factual discrepancies with Biden’s claims.
“Look, he worked hard tonight, it’s not a natural thing for him, it never was, and never will be, but you’ve got to give him credit for trying,” Trump quipped.
Here are the top political misrepresentations proffered by Biden during his State of the Union address.
Biden took credit for Trump’s hard work
Biden’s speech hit on topics like the war in Ukraine, inflation, and clean energy, but he repeatedly took credit for successful policies that were implemented during the Trump administration.
“Joe’s taking credit for many of the things that the Trump Administration started and did,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They just happened to kick in during this period—but who can blame him!”
For example, Biden claimed that with the Inflation Reduction Act, which he signed into law in 2022, “we’re taking on powerful interests to bring your health care costs down so you can sleep better at night.”
He even took credit for lowering the price of insulin for seniors on Medicare to $35.
Trump responded, “I’m the one that did the great job on Insulin pricing, the Dems just got the benefit of that success. It was passed on to them, and now they brag about it.”
In September 2020, Trump signed an executive order to lower drug prices to ensure that “Big Pharma” would offer fair prices on prescriptions, according to Fox News. That order was preceded by four other executive orders that dismantled the monopolist might of the corporate medical regime.
Biden is way behind the curve when it comes to fighting Big Pharma’s reckless corruption.
Fixing the tax burden
Biden also railed on corporations and wealthy taxpayers, demanding they start paying “your fair share.” Biden called on Congress to pass his proposal for a “billionaire minimum tax,” claiming that in 2020, “55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion in profit and paid zero in federal income taxes.”
“Reward work, not just wealth,” he insisted.
However, Trump did exactly that while he was in the White House, passing the historic Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) IN 2017. Via RSBN, a report from the Heartland Institute revealed that “after accounting for all tax deductions and credits, filers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) OF $40,000-50,000 saw an average tax cut of 18.2 percent from 2017-2018. Furthermore, filers between $30,000-40,000 in AGI received a tax cut of 18.41 percent. However, the most significant tax cut occurred to filers between $5-10,000 in AGI saw an 87.65 percent tax cut.”
According to a recent campaign statement from Trump, rural employment grew at an annualized rate of 5.1 percent in the first quarter of 2018, while he created another 656,000 blue-collar jobs. The reformed tax code also doubled the standard deduction to $24,000.
Trump eased the tax burden on middle class families considerably, and he did it without raising taxes on wealthy Americans who worked hard for their money.
Social Security
Biden made another erroneous claim on Tuesday night, accusing Republicans of pushing for the termination of Social Security and Medicare. “If anyone tries to cut Social Security, I will stop them,” Biden said. “And if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., rose to her feet in response to Biden’s comments, shouting, “LIAR!”
She explained her response to Sean Hannity during an interview on Fox News: “Well, I thought it was pretty impressive that the president would enter the People’s House and try to lie…but when he continued the lie, accusing Republicans of preparing to cut Social Security and Medicare, we couldn’t take it…we have not had ONE SINGLE meeting in the GOP conference talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare. Joe Biden is a liar. I represent the American people and I was honored to be able to call him the liar that he is in the People’s House and not allow him to get away with it.”
Trump wrote on Truth Social, “He’s lying so much about Social Security, Medicare, and so many other things.”
In fact, Trump even released a policy video in January urging the House GOP not to cut Medicare or Social Security. “Biden has blown out the Federal budget, wasted trillions on left wing lunacy – and the ridiculous Green New Deal, which is a tremendous problem and embarrassment to us,” he stated. “…Save social security – don’t destroy it. The Democrats are looking to destroy Social Security. We’re NOT going to let them do it.”
Ukraine and NATO
Biden purported to stand for the “defense of democracy” during his speech on Tuesday, offering a poorly painted picture of American unification on the issue of sending billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine in their efforts to stave off Russian aggression. “We united NATO and built a global coalition,” Biden said.
This is yet another untruth. President Trump wrote in response to Biden’s comments, “…NATO would have no money right now if I didn’t get them to put up $450 Billion Dollars of unpaid and delinquent money that no other President was able to get. They’re fighting with the money that I got, not any other President that preceded me, and certainly not this President. Remember the expression, I gave them javelins, Obama gave them sheets, and that’s the way it is, like it or not…”
Biden’s constant move to take credit for anything positive that was implemented during the Trump administration clearly highlights his own administration’s feckless leadership abilities.
Economic success turned on its head
When Trump handed over the reins of leadership to Joe Biden in 2021, the economy was making an incredibly quick comeback on the heels of the devastation of the Covid pandemic. “On President Trump’s last day in office, GDP was growing at 6.3 percent, inflation was 1.4 percent, the price of gasoline was $2.39 a gallon,” his campaign stated in a recent press release.
Biden deigned to assert that the “economy was reeling” two years ago, taking credit for “a record 12 million new jobs.”
Under Biden, America has been crippled by inflation, soaring gas prices, plummeting real wages, and reckless government spending. Trump rebuilt the greatest economy in the history of the country on the heels of the pandemic. Biden has done nothing but take that success, light it on fire, and watch it burn.
A sad conclusion
As expected, Biden’s State of the Union did little to bring Americans together, despite his insistence on a universal embrace of his four-pronged Unity Agenda. His address drew the second-smallest audience in several decades, garnering just 27.3 million views, via Fox News.
Americans are not at all confident in Biden’s leadership or his agenda – and he knows it. Biden has not yet firmly committed to a 2024 run, while President Trump threw his hat into the presidential race in November 2022.
“I am running for president to end the destruction of our country, and to complete the unfinished business of Making America Great Again,” Trump said on Tuesday evening. “We will make our country better than ever before, and we will always put America first.”