President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union deal with on February 7. Learn the complete textual content of his speech as ready:
Mr. Speaker. Madam Vice President. Our First Girl and Second Gentleman.
Members of Congress and the Cupboard. Leaders of our army.
Mr. Chief Justice, Affiliate Justices, and retired Justices of the Supreme Court docket.
And also you, my fellow People.
I begin tonight by congratulating the members of the 118th Congress and the brand new Speaker of the Home, Kevin McCarthy.
Mr. Speaker, I look ahead to working collectively.
I additionally wish to congratulate the brand new chief of the Home Democrats and the primary Black Home Minority Chief in historical past, Hakeem Jeffries.
Congratulations to the longest serving Senate Chief in historical past, Mitch McConnell.
And congratulations to Chuck Schumer for an additional time period as Senate Majority Chief, this time with an excellent larger majority.
And I wish to give particular recognition to somebody who I feel will likely be thought of the best Speaker within the historical past of this nation, Nancy Pelosi.
The story of America is a narrative of progress and resilience. Of at all times shifting ahead. Of by no means giving up.
A narrative that’s distinctive amongst all nations.
We’re the one nation that has emerged from each disaster stronger than after we entered it.
That’s what we’re doing once more.
Two years in the past, our financial system was reeling.
As I stand right here tonight, now we have created a document 12 million new jobs, extra jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in 4 years.
Two years in the past, COVID had shut down our companies, closed our colleges, and robbed us of a lot.
Right now, COVID now not controls our lives.
And two years in the past, our democracy confronted its biggest menace because the Civil Conflict.
Right now, although bruised, our democracy stays unbowed and unbroken.
As we collect right here tonight, we’re writing the subsequent chapter within the nice American story, a narrative of progress and resilience. When world leaders ask me to outline America, I outline our nation in a single phrase: Prospects.
You already know, we’re typically advised that Democrats and Republicans can’t work collectively.
However over these previous two years, we proved the cynics and the naysayers unsuitable.
Sure, we disagreed lots. And sure, there have been occasions when Democrats needed to go it alone.
However repeatedly, Democrats and Republicans got here collectively.
Got here collectively to defend a stronger and safer Europe.
Got here collectively to cross a once-in-a-generation infrastructure legislation, constructing bridges to attach our nation and folks.
Got here collectively to cross one of the crucial important legal guidelines ever, serving to veterans uncovered to poisonous burn pits.
In actual fact, I signed over 300 bipartisan legal guidelines since changing into President. From reauthorizing the Violence In opposition to Ladies Act, to the Electoral Rely Reform Act, to the Respect for Marriage Act that protects the suitable to marry the individual you like.
To my Republican associates, if we may work collectively within the final Congress, there isn’t any motive we will’t work collectively on this new Congress.
The individuals despatched us a transparent message. Preventing for the sake of combating, energy for the sake of energy, battle for the sake of battle, will get us nowhere.
And that’s at all times been my imaginative and prescient for our nation.
To revive the soul of the nation.
To rebuild the spine of America, the center class.
To unite the nation.
We’ve been despatched right here to complete the job.
For many years, the center class was hollowed out.
Too many good-paying manufacturing jobs moved abroad. Factories at dwelling closed down.
As soon as-thriving cities and cities turned shadows of what they was once.
And alongside the best way, one thing else was misplaced.
Delight. That sense of self-worth.
I ran for President to essentially change issues, to ensure the financial system works for everybody so we will all really feel satisfaction in what we do.
To construct an financial system from the underside up and the center out, not from the highest down. As a result of when the center class does properly, the poor have a ladder up and the rich nonetheless do very properly. All of us do properly.
As my Dad used to say, a job is about much more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about having the ability to look your child within the eye and say, “Honey –it’s going to be OK,” and imply it.
So, let’s take a look at the outcomes. Unemployment charge at 3.4%, a 50-year low. Close to document low unemployment for Black and Hispanic employees.
We’ve already created 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the quickest progress in 40 years.
The place is it written that America can’t lead the world in manufacturing once more?
For too many many years, we imported merchandise and exported jobs.
Now, because of all we’ve achieved, we’re exporting American merchandise and creating American jobs.
Inflation has been a worldwide downside due to the pandemic that disrupted provide chains and Putin’s struggle that disrupted power and meals provides.
However we’re higher positioned than any nation on Earth.
We’ve got extra to do, however right here at dwelling, inflation is coming down.
Right here at dwelling, gasoline costs are down $1.50 a gallon since their peak.
Meals inflation is coming down.
Inflation has fallen each month for the final six months whereas take dwelling pay has gone up.
Moreover, over the past two years, a document 10 million People utilized to start out a brand new small enterprise.
Each time someone begins a small enterprise, it’s an act of hope.
And the Vice President will proceed her work to make sure extra small companies can entry capital and the historic legal guidelines we enacted.
Standing right here final yr, I shared with you a narrative of American genius and risk.
Semiconductors, the small pc chips the dimensions of your fingertip that energy all the things from cellphones to vehicles, and a lot extra. These chips have been invented proper right here in America.
America used to make almost 40% of the world’s chips.
However in the previous couple of many years, we misplaced our edge and we’re right down to producing solely 10%. All of us noticed what occurred through the pandemic when chip factories abroad shut down.
Right now’s vehicles want as much as 3,000 chips every, however American automakers couldn’t make sufficient automobiles as a result of there weren’t sufficient chips.
Automobile costs went up. So did all the things from fridges to cellphones.
We are able to by no means let that occur once more.
That’s why we got here collectively to cross the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act.
We’re ensuring the provision chain for America begins in America.
We’ve already created 800,000 manufacturing jobs even with out this legislation.
With this new legislation, we’ll create a whole bunch of 1000’s of recent jobs throughout the nation.
That’s going to come back from corporations which have introduced greater than $300 billion in investments in American manufacturing within the final two years.
Exterior of Columbus, Ohio, Intel is constructing semiconductor factories on a thousand acres – a literal subject of goals.
That’ll create 10,000 jobs. 7,000 development jobs. 3,000 jobs as soon as the factories are completed.
Jobs paying $130,000 a yr, and plenty of don’t require a school diploma.
Jobs the place individuals don’t have to depart dwelling in quest of alternative.
And it’s simply getting began.
Take into consideration the brand new houses, new small companies, and a lot extra that may come to life.
Speak to mayors and Governors, Democrats and Republicans, and so they’ll inform you what this implies to their communities.
We’re seeing these fields of goals remodel the heartland.
However to keep up the strongest financial system on the planet, we additionally want the perfect infrastructure on the planet.
We was once #1 on the planet in infrastructure, then we fell to #thirteenth.
Now we’re coming again as a result of we got here collectively to cross the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation, the biggest funding in infrastructure since President Eisenhower’s Interstate Freeway System.
Already, we’ve funded over 20,000 tasks, together with at main airports from Boston to Atlanta to Portland.
These tasks will put a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals to work rebuilding our highways, bridges, railroads, tunnels, ports and airports, clear water, and high-speed web throughout America.
City. Suburban. Rural. Tribal.
And we’re simply getting began. I sincerely thank my Republican associates who voted for the legislation.
And to my Republican associates who voted towards it however nonetheless ask to fund tasks of their districts, don’t fear.
I promised to be the president for all People.
We’ll fund your tasks. And I’ll see you on the ground-breaking.
This legislation will assist additional unite all of America.
Main tasks just like the Brent Spence bridge between Kentucky and Ohio over the Ohio River. Constructed 60 years in the past. Badly in want of repairs.
One of many nation’s most congested freight routes carrying $2 billion price of freight day-after-day. Of us have been speaking about fixing it for many years, however we’re lastly going to get it achieved.
I went there final month with Democrats and Republicans from each states to ship $1.6 billion for this mission.
Whereas I used to be there, I met an ironworker named Sara, who’s right here tonight.
For 30 years, she’s been a proud member of Ironworkers Native 44, often called the “cowboys of the sky” who constructed the Cincinnati skyline.
Sara stated she will be able to’t wait to be ten tales above the Ohio River constructing that new bridge. That’s satisfaction.
That’s what we’re additionally constructing – Delight.
We’re additionally changing toxic lead pipes that go into 10 million houses and 400,000 colleges and childcare facilities, so each little one in America can drink clear water.
We’re ensuring that each neighborhood has entry to inexpensive, high-speed web.
No father or mother ought to should drive to a McDonald’s parking zone so their child can do their homework on-line.
And after we do these tasks, we’re going to Purchase American.
Purchase American has been the legislation of the land since 1933. However for too lengthy, previous administrations have discovered methods to get round it.
Not anymore.
Tonight, I’m additionally asserting new requirements to require all development supplies utilized in federal infrastructure tasks to be made in America.
American-made lumber, glass, drywall, fiber optic cables.
And on my watch, American roads, American bridges, and American highways will likely be made with American merchandise.
My financial plan is about investing in locations and folks which have been forgotten. Amid the financial upheaval of the previous 4 many years, too many individuals have been left behind or handled like they’re invisible.
Possibly that’s you, watching at dwelling.
You bear in mind the roles that went away. And also you wonder if a path even exists anymore for you and your youngsters to get forward with out shifting away.
I get it.
That’s why we’re constructing an financial system the place nobody is left behind.
Jobs are coming again, satisfaction is coming again, due to the alternatives we made within the final two years. It is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make an actual distinction in your lives.
For instance, too a lot of you lay in mattress at evening staring on the ceiling, questioning what’s going to occur in case your partner will get most cancers, your little one will get sick, or if one thing occurs to you.
Will you have got the cash to pay your medical payments? Will you need to promote the home?
I get it. With the Inflation Discount Act that I signed into legislation, we’re taking up highly effective pursuits to deliver your well being care prices down so you possibly can sleep higher at evening.
You already know, we pay extra for pharmaceuticals than any main nation on Earth.
For instance, one in ten People has diabetes.
Each day, thousands and thousands want insulin to manage their diabetes to allow them to keep alive. Insulin has been round for 100 years. It prices drug corporations simply $10 a vial to make.
However, Massive Pharma has been unfairly charging individuals a whole bunch of {dollars} – and making document income.
Not anymore.
We capped the price of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare.
However there are thousands and thousands of different People who aren’t on Medicare, together with 200,000 younger individuals with Sort I diabetes who want insulin to save lots of their lives.
Let’s end the job this time.
Let’s cap the price of insulin at $35 a month for each American who wants it.
This legislation additionally caps out-of-pocket drug prices for seniors on Medicare at a most $2,000 per yr when there are in actual fact many medicine, like costly most cancers medicine, that may value as much as $10,000, $12,000, and $14,000 a yr.
If drug costs rise sooner than inflation, drug corporations must pay Medicare again the distinction.
And we’re lastly giving Medicare the facility to barter drug costs. Bringing down prescription drug prices doesn’t simply save seniors cash.
It would minimize the federal deficit, saving tax payers a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} on the prescribed drugs the federal government buys for Medicare.
Why wouldn’t we wish to try this?
Now, some members listed below are threatening to repeal the Inflation Discount Act.
Make no mistake, should you attempt to do something to lift the price of pharmaceuticals, I’ll veto it.
I’m happy to say that extra People have medical insurance now than ever in historical past.
A document 16 million persons are enrolled beneath the Reasonably priced Care Act.
Because of the legislation I signed final yr, thousands and thousands are saving $800 a yr on their premiums.
However the best way that legislation was written, that profit expires after 2025.
Let’s end the job, make these financial savings everlasting, and develop protection to these left off Medicaid.
Look, the Inflation Discount Act can be essentially the most important funding ever to sort out the local weather disaster.
Reducing utility payments, creating American jobs, and main the world to a clear power future.
I’ve visited the devastating aftermaths of document floods and droughts, storms and wildfires.
Along with emergency restoration from Puerto Rico to Florida to Idaho, we’re rebuilding for the long run.
New electrical grids in a position to climate the subsequent main storm.
Roads and water programs to face up to the subsequent massive flood.
Clear power to chop air pollution and create jobs in communities too typically left behind.
We’re constructing 500,000 electrical automobile charging stations put in throughout the nation by tens of 1000’s of IBEW employees.
And serving to households save greater than $1,000 a yr with tax credit for the acquisition of electrical automobiles and energy-efficient home equipment.
Historic conservation efforts to be accountable stewards of our lands.
Let’s face actuality.
The local weather disaster doesn’t care in case your state is pink or blue. It’s an existential menace.
We’ve got an obligation to our youngsters and grandchildren to confront it. I’m pleased with how America is eventually stepping as much as the problem.
However there’s a lot extra to do.
We’ll end the job.
And we pay for these investments in our future by lastly making the wealthiest and the largest companies start to pay their justifiable share.
I’m a capitalist. However simply pay your justifiable share.
And I feel a number of you at dwelling agree with me that our current tax system is just unfair.
The concept that in 2020, 55 of the largest corporations in America made $40 billion in income and paid zero in federal revenue taxes?
That’s merely not truthful.
However now, due to the legislation I signed, billion-dollar corporations should pay a minimal of 15%.
Simply 15%.
That’s lower than a nurse pays. Let me be clear.
Underneath my plan, no person incomes lower than $400,000 a yr pays a further penny in taxes.
No one. Not one penny.
However there’s extra to do.
Let’s end the job. Reward work, not simply wealth. Cross my proposal for a billionaire minimal tax.
As a result of no billionaire ought to pay a decrease tax charge than a faculty trainer or a firefighter.
You might have seen that Massive Oil simply reported document income.
Final yr, they made $200 billion within the midst of a worldwide power disaster.
It’s outrageous.
They invested too little of that revenue to extend home manufacturing and hold gasoline costs down.
As an alternative, they used these document income to purchase again their very own inventory, rewarding their CEOs and shareholders.
Firms must do the suitable factor.
That’s why I suggest that we quadruple the tax on company inventory buybacks to encourage long run investments as an alternative.
They’ll nonetheless make a substantial revenue.
Let’s end the job and shut the loopholes that enable the very rich to keep away from paying their taxes.
As an alternative of reducing the variety of audits of rich tax payers, I signed a legislation that may cut back the deficit by $114 billion by cracking down on rich tax cheats.
That’s being fiscally accountable.
Within the final two years, my administration minimize the deficit by greater than $1.7 trillion – the biggest deficit discount in American historical past.
Underneath the earlier administration, America’s deficit went up 4 years in a row.
Due to these document deficits, no president added extra to the nationwide debt in any 4 years than my predecessor.
Almost 25% of all the nationwide debt, a debt that took 200 years to build up, was added by that administration alone.
How did Congress reply to all that debt?
They lifted the debt ceiling thrice with out preconditions or disaster.
They paid America’s payments to stop financial catastrophe for our nation.
Tonight, I’m asking this Congress to comply with swimsuit.
Allow us to commit right here tonight that the complete religion and credit score of the USA of America won’t ever, ever be questioned.
A few of my Republican associates wish to take the financial system hostage except I comply with their financial plans. All of you at dwelling ought to know what their plans are.
As an alternative of creating the rich pay their justifiable share, some Republicans need Medicare and Social Safety to sundown each 5 years.
Which means if Congress doesn’t vote to maintain them, these packages will go away.
Different Republicans say if we don’t minimize Social Safety and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the primary time in our historical past.
I gained’t let that occur.
Social Safety and Medicare are a lifeline for thousands and thousands of seniors.
People have been paying into them with each single paycheck since they began working.
So tonight, let’s all agree to face up for seniors. Arise and present them we won’t minimize Social Safety. We won’t minimize Medicare.
These advantages belong to the American individuals. They earned them.
If anybody tries to chop Social Safety, I’ll cease them. And if anybody tries to chop Medicare, I’ll cease them.
I cannot enable them to be taken away.
Not as we speak. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
Subsequent month after I provide my fiscal plan, I ask my Republican associates to supply their plan.
We are able to sit down collectively and talk about each plans collectively.
My plan will decrease the deficit by $2 trillion.
I gained’t minimize a single Social Safety or Medicare profit.
In actual fact, I’ll prolong the Medicare Belief Fund by at the very least twenty years.
I cannot increase taxes on anybody making beneath $400,000 a yr. And I’ll pay for the concepts I’ve talked about tonight by making the rich and large companies start to pay their justifiable share.
Look, right here’s the deal. Massive companies aren’t simply profiting from the tax code. They’re profiting from you, the American client.
Right here’s my message to all of you on the market: I’ve your again. We’re already stopping insurance coverage corporations from sending shock medical payments, stopping 1 million shock payments a month.
We’re defending seniors’ lives and life financial savings by cracking down on nursing houses that commit fraud, endanger affected person security, or prescribe medicine they don’t want.
Tens of millions of People can now save 1000’s of {dollars} as a result of they will lastly get listening to aids over-the-counter with out a prescription.
Capitalism with out competitors isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation.
Final yr I cracked down on overseas transport corporations that have been making you pay greater costs for on a regular basis items coming into our nation.
I signed a bipartisan invoice that minimize transport prices by 90%, serving to American farmers, companies, and customers.
Let’s end the job.
Cross bipartisan laws to strengthen antitrust enforcement and forestall massive on-line platforms from giving their very own merchandise an unfair benefit.
My administration can be taking up “junk” charges, these hidden surcharges too many companies use to make you pay extra.
For instance, we’re making airways present you the complete ticket value upfront and refund your cash in case your flight is cancelled or delayed.
We’ve diminished exorbitant financial institution overdraft charges, saving customers greater than $1 billion a yr.
We’re reducing bank card late charges by 75%, from $30 to $8.
Junk charges might not matter to the very rich, however they matter to most people in houses just like the one I grew up in. They add as much as a whole bunch of {dollars} a month.
They make it more durable so that you can pay the payments or afford that household journey.
I understand how unfair it feels when an organization overcharges you and will get away with it.
Not anymore.
We’ve written a invoice to cease all that. It’s referred to as the Junk Price Prevention Act.
We’ll ban shock “resort charges” that lodges tack on to your invoice. These charges can value you as much as $90 an evening at lodges that aren’t even resorts.
We’ll make cable web and cellphone corporations cease charging you as much as $200 or extra while you determine to change to a different supplier.
We’ll cap service charges on tickets to concert events and sporting occasions and make corporations disclose all charges upfront.
And we’ll prohibit airways from charging as much as $50 roundtrip for households simply to take a seat collectively.
Baggage charges are unhealthy sufficient – they will’t simply deal with your little one like a chunk of bags.
People are bored with being performed for suckers.
Cross the Junk Price Prevention Act so corporations cease ripping us off.
For too lengthy, employees have been getting stiffed.
Not anymore.
We’re starting to revive the dignity of labor.
For instance, 30 million employees needed to signal non-compete agreements after they took a job. So a cashier at a burger place can’t cross the road to take the identical job at one other burger place to make a pair bucks extra.
Not anymore.
We’re banning these agreements so corporations should compete for employees and pay them what they’re price.
I’m so sick and uninterested in corporations breaking the legislation by stopping employees from organizing.
Cross the PRO Act as a result of employees have a proper to type a union. And let’s assure all employees a residing wage.
Let’s additionally be certain working dad and mom can afford to lift a household with sick days, paid household and medical depart, and inexpensive little one care that may allow thousands and thousands extra individuals to go to work.
Let’s additionally restore the complete Youngster Tax Credit score, which gave tens of thousands and thousands of oldsters some respiration room and minimize little one poverty in half, to the bottom degree in historical past.
And by the best way, after we do all of this stuff, we improve productiveness. We improve financial progress.
Let’s additionally end the job and get extra households entry to inexpensive and high quality housing.
Let’s get seniors who wish to keep of their houses the care they want to take action. And provides somewhat extra respiration room to thousands and thousands of household caregivers taking care of their family members.
Cross my plan so we get seniors and folks with disabilities the house care providers they want and assist the employees who’re doing God’s work.
These plans are absolutely paid for and we will afford to do them.
Restoring the dignity of labor additionally means making schooling an inexpensive ticket to the center class.
After we made 12 years of public schooling common within the final century, it made us the best-educated, best-prepared nation on the planet.
However the world has caught up.
Jill, who teaches full-time, has an expression: “Any nation that out-educates us will out-compete us.”
Of us, you all know 12 years isn’t sufficient to win the financial competitors for the twenty first Century.
In order for you America to have the best-educated workforce, let’s end the job by offering entry to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds.
Research present that youngsters who go to pre-school are almost 50% extra more likely to end highschool and go on to earn a 2- or 4-year diploma, irrespective of their background.
Let’s give public college academics a increase.
And we’re making progress by lowering pupil debt and rising Pell Grants for working- and middle-class households.
Let’s end the job, join college students to profession alternatives beginning in highschool and supply two years of neighborhood school, among the finest profession coaching in America, along with being a pathway to a four-year diploma.
Let’s provide each American the trail to a great profession whether or not they go to school or not.
And people, within the midst of the COVID disaster when colleges have been closed, let’s additionally acknowledge how far we’ve come within the battle towards the pandemic itself.
Whereas the virus isn’t gone, because of the resilience of the American individuals, now we have damaged COVID’s grip on us.
COVID deaths are down almost 90%.
We’ve saved thousands and thousands of lives and opened our nation again up.
And shortly we’ll finish the general public well being emergency.
However we’ll bear in mind the toll and ache that may by no means go away for therefore many. Greater than 1 million People have misplaced their lives to COVID.
Households grieving. Kids orphaned. Empty chairs on the eating room desk.
We bear in mind them, and we stay vigilant.
We nonetheless want to watch dozens of variants and assist new vaccines and coverings.
So Congress must fund these efforts and hold America secure.
And as we emerge from this disaster stronger, I’m additionally doubling down on prosecuting criminals who stole reduction cash meant to maintain employees and small companies afloat through the pandemic.
Earlier than I got here to workplace many inspector generals who defend taxpayer {dollars} have been sidelined. Fraud was rampant.
Final yr, I advised you the watchdogs are again. Since then, we’ve recovered billions of taxpayer {dollars}.
Now, let’s triple our anti-fraud strike forces going after these criminals, double the statute of limitations on these crimes, and crack down on identification fraud by prison syndicates stealing billions of {dollars} from the American individuals.
For each greenback we put into combating fraud, taxpayers get again at the very least ten occasions as a lot.
COVID left different scars, just like the spike in violent crime in 2020, the primary yr of the pandemic.
We’ve got an obligation to ensure all our persons are secure.
Public security depends upon public belief. However too typically that belief is violated.
Becoming a member of us tonight are the dad and mom of Tyre Nichols, who needed to bury him simply final week. There are not any phrases to explain the heartbreak and grief of shedding a toddler.
However think about what it’s wish to lose a toddler by the hands of the legislation.
Think about having to fret whether or not your son or daughter will come dwelling from strolling down the road or enjoying within the park or simply driving their automotive.
I’ve by no means needed to have the discuss with my youngsters – Beau, Hunter, and Ashley – that so many Black and Brown households have had with their youngsters.
If a police officer pulls you over, flip in your inside lights. Don’t attain in your license. Maintain your fingers on the steering wheel.
Think about having to fret like that day-after-day in America.
Right here’s what Tyre’s mother shared with me after I requested her how she finds the braveness to hold on and communicate out.
With religion in God, she stated her son “was a fantastic soul and one thing good will come from this.”
Think about how a lot braveness and character that takes.
It’s as much as us. It’s as much as all of us.
All of us need the identical factor.
Neighborhoods freed from violence.
Regulation enforcement who earn the neighborhood’s belief.
Our kids to come back dwelling safely.
Equal safety beneath the legislation; that’s the covenant now we have with one another in America.
And we all know law enforcement officials put their lives on the road day-after-day, and we ask them to do an excessive amount of.
To be counselors, social employees, psychologists; responding to drug overdoses, psychological well being crises, and extra.
We ask an excessive amount of of them.
I do know most cops are good. respectable individuals. They threat their lives each time they placed on that protect.
However what occurred to Tyre in Memphis occurs too typically.
We’ve got to do higher.
Give legislation enforcement the coaching they want, maintain them to greater requirements, and assist them achieve conserving everybody secure.
We additionally want extra first responders and different professionals to deal with rising psychological well being and substance abuse challenges.
Extra sources to scale back violent crime and gun crime; extra neighborhood intervention packages; extra investments in housing, schooling, and job coaching.
All this may help forestall violence within the first place.
And when law enforcement officials or departments violate the general public’s belief, we should maintain them accountable.
With the assist of households of victims, civil rights teams, and legislation enforcement, I signed an government order for all federal officers banning chokeholds, proscribing no-knock warrants, and different key components of the George Floyd Act.
Let’s commit ourselves to make the phrases of Tyre’s mom come true, one thing good should come from this.
All of us on this chamber, we have to rise to this second.
We are able to’t flip away.
Let’s do what we all know in our hearts we have to do.
Let’s come collectively and end the job on police reform.
Do one thing.
That was the identical plea of oldsters who misplaced their youngsters in Uvalde: Do one thing on gun violence.
Thank God we did, passing essentially the most sweeping gun security legislation in three many years.
That features issues that almost all of accountable gun house owners assist, like enhanced background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds and pink flag legal guidelines conserving weapons out of the fingers of people who find themselves a hazard to themselves and others.
However we all know our work isn’t achieved.
Becoming a member of us tonight is Brandon Tsay, a 26-year-old hero.
Brandon delay his school goals to remain by his mother’s aspect as she was dying from most cancers. He now works at a dance studio began by his grandparents.
Two weeks in the past, throughout Lunar New Yr celebrations, he heard the studio’s entrance door shut and noticed a person pointing a gun at him.
He thought he was going to die, however then he thought concerning the individuals inside.
In that prompt, he discovered the braveness to behave and wrestled the semi-automatic pistol away from a gunman who had already killed 11 individuals at one other dance studio.
He saved lives. It’s time we do the identical as properly.
Ban assault weapons as soon as and for all.
We did it earlier than. I led the battle to ban them in 1994.
Within the 10 years the ban was legislation, mass shootings went down. After Republicans let it expire, mass shootings tripled.
Let’s end the job and ban assault weapons once more.
And let’s additionally come collectively on immigration and make it a bipartisan difficulty prefer it was earlier than.
We now have a document variety of personnel working to safe the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers and seizing over 23,000 kilos of fentanyl in simply the final a number of months.
Since we launched our new border plan final month, illegal migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97%.
However America’s border issues gained’t be fastened till Congress acts.
In case you gained’t cross my complete immigration reform, at the very least cross my plan to supply the gear and officers to safe the border. And a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, these on non permanent standing, farm employees, and important employees.
Right here within the individuals’s Home, it’s our obligation to guard all of the individuals’s rights and freedoms.
Congress should restore the suitable the Supreme Court docket took away final yr and codify Roe v. Wade to guard each girl’s constitutional proper to decide on.
The Vice President and I are doing all the things we will to guard entry to reproductive well being care and safeguard affected person privateness. However already, greater than a dozen states are imposing excessive abortion bans.
Make no mistake; if Congress passes a nationwide abortion ban, I’ll veto it.
Let’s additionally cross the bipartisan Equality Act to make sure LGBTQ People, particularly transgender younger individuals, can stay with security and dignity.
Our energy isn’t just the instance of our energy, however the energy of our instance. Let’s bear in mind the world is watching.
I spoke from this chamber one yr in the past, simply days after Vladimir Putin unleashed his brutal struggle towards Ukraine.
A murderous assault, evoking pictures of the dying and destruction Europe suffered in World Conflict II.
Putin’s invasion has been a take a look at for the ages. A take a look at for America. A take a look at for the world.
Would we stand for essentially the most primary of ideas?
Would we stand for sovereignty?
Would we stand for the suitable of individuals to stay free from tyranny?
Would we stand for the protection of democracy?
For such a protection issues to us as a result of it retains the peace and prevents open season for would-be aggressors to threaten our safety and prosperity. One yr later, we all know the reply.
Sure, we might.
And sure, we did.
Collectively, we did what America at all times does at our greatest.
We led.
We united NATO and constructed a worldwide coalition.
We stood towards Putin’s aggression.
We stood with the Ukrainian individuals.
Tonight, we’re as soon as once more joined by Ukraine’s Ambassador to the USA. She represents not simply her nation, however the braveness of her individuals.
Ambassador, America is united in our assist in your nation. We’ll stand with you so long as it takes.
Our nation is working for extra freedom, extra dignity, and extra peace,not simply in Europe, however in all places.
Earlier than I got here to workplace, the story was about how the Individuals’s Republic of China was rising its energy and America was falling on the planet.
Not anymore.
I’ve made clear with President Xi that we search competitors, not battle.
I’ll make no apologies that we’re investing to make America sturdy. Investing in American innovation, in industries that may outline the longer term, and that China’s authorities is intent on dominating.
Investing in our alliances and dealing with our allies to guard our superior applied sciences so that they’re not used towards us.
Modernizing our army to safeguard stability and deter aggression.
Right now, we’re within the strongest place in many years to compete with China or anybody else on the planet.
I’m dedicated to work with China the place it might probably advance American pursuits and profit the world.
However make no mistake: as we made clear final week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we’ll act to guard our nation. And we did.
And let’s be clear: profitable the competitors with China ought to unite all of us. We face severe challenges the world over.
However prior to now two years, democracies have change into stronger, not weaker.
Autocracies have grown weaker, not stronger.
America is rallying the world once more to fulfill these challenges, from local weather and international well being, to meals insecurity, to terrorism and territorial aggression.
Allies are stepping up, spending extra and doing extra.
And bridges are forming between companions within the Pacific and people within the Atlantic. And those that wager towards America are studying simply how unsuitable they’re.
It’s by no means a great wager to wager towards America.
Once I got here to workplace, most everybody assumed bipartisanship was not possible. However I by no means believed it.
That’s why a yr in the past, I supplied a Unity Agenda for the nation.
We’ve made actual progress.
Collectively, we handed a legislation making it simpler for medical doctors to prescribe efficient therapies for opioid dependancy.
Handed a gun security legislation making historic investments in psychological well being.
Launched ARPA-H to drive breakthroughs within the battle towards most cancers,Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and a lot extra.
We handed the Heath Robinson PACT Act, named for the late Iraq struggle veteran whose story about publicity to poisonous burn pits I shared right here final yr.
However there may be a lot extra to do. And we will do it collectively.
Becoming a member of us tonight is a father named Doug from Newton, New Hampshire.
He wrote Jill and me a letter about his daughter Courtney. Contagious snigger. Her sister’s finest buddy.
He shared a narrative all too acquainted to thousands and thousands of People.
Courtney found tablets in highschool. It spiraled into dependancy and ultimately her dying from a fentanyl overdose.
She was 20 years outdated.
Describing the final eight years with out her, Doug stated, “There is no such thing as a worse ache.”
But their household has turned ache into objective, working to finish stigma and alter legal guidelines.
He advised us he needs to “begin the journey in the direction of America’s restoration.”
Doug, we’re with you.
Fentanyl is killing greater than 70,000 People a yr.
Let’s launch a serious surge to cease fentanyl manufacturing, sale, and trafficking, with extra drug detection machines to examine cargo and cease tablets and powder on the border.
Working with couriers like Fed Ex to examine extra packages for medicine. Robust penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.
Second, let’s do extra on psychological well being, particularly for our youngsters. When thousands and thousands of younger persons are scuffling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them better entry to psychological well being care at college.
We should lastly maintain social media corporations accountable for the experiment they’re working on our youngsters for revenue.
And it’s time to cross bipartisan laws to cease Massive Tech from amassing private information on youngsters and youngsters on-line, ban focused promoting to youngsters, and impose stricter limits on the non-public information these corporations accumulate on all of us.
Third, let’s do extra to maintain our nation’s one really sacred obligation: to equip these we ship into hurt’s method and take care of them and their households after they come dwelling.
Job coaching and job placement for veterans and their spouses as they return to civilian life.
Serving to veterans afford their lease as a result of nobody needs to be homeless on this nation, particularly not those that served it.
And we can not go on shedding 17 veterans a day to the silent scourge of suicide.
The VA is doing all the things it might probably, together with increasing psychological well being screenings and a confirmed program that recruits veterans to assist different veterans perceive what they’re going by way of and get the assistance they want.
And fourth, final yr Jill and I re-ignited the Most cancers Moonshot that President Obama requested me to steer in our Administration.
Our aim is to chop the most cancers dying charge by at the very least 50% over the subsequent 25 years. Flip extra cancers from dying sentences into treatable ailments. And supply extra assist for sufferers and households.
It’s private for therefore many people.
Becoming a member of us are Maurice and Kandice, an Irishman and a daughter of immigrants from Panama.
They met and fell in love in New York Metropolis and bought married in the identical chapel as Jill and I did.
Kindred spirits.
He wrote us a letter about their little daughter Ava.
She was only a yr outdated when she was recognized with a uncommon kidney most cancers.
26 blood transfusions. 11 rounds of radiation. 8 rounds of chemo. 1 kidney eliminated.
A 5% survival charge.
He wrote how within the darkest moments he thought, “if she goes, I can’t keep.”
Jill and I perceive, like so a lot of you.
They learn how Jill described our household’s most cancers journey and the way we tried to steal moments of pleasure the place you possibly can.
For them, that glimmer of pleasure was a half-smile from their child woman. It meant all the things.
They by no means gave up hope.
Ava by no means gave up hope. She turns 4 subsequent month.
They only discovered that Ava beat the percentages and is on her strategy to being most cancers free, and he or she’s watching from the White Home tonight.
For the lives we will save and for the lives now we have misplaced, let this be a really American second that rallies the nation and the world collectively and proves that we will do massive issues.
Twenty years in the past, beneath the management of President Bush and numerous advocates and champions, we undertook a bipartisan effort by way of PEPFAR to rework the worldwide battle towards HIV/AIDS. It’s been an enormous success.
I consider we will do the identical with most cancers.
Let’s finish most cancers as we all know it and remedy some cancers as soon as and for all.
There’s one motive why we’re in a position to do all of this stuff: our democracy itself.
It’s essentially the most basic factor of all.
With democracy, all the things is feasible. With out it, nothing is.
For the previous couple of years our democracy has been threatened, attacked, and put in danger.
Put to the take a look at right here, on this very room, on January sixth.
After which, only a few months in the past, unhinged by the Massive Lie, an assailant unleashed political violence within the dwelling of the then-Speaker of this Home of Representatives. Utilizing the exact same language that insurrectionists who stalked these halls chanted on January sixth.
Right here tonight on this chamber is the person who bears the scars of that brutal assault, however is as robust and powerful and as resilient as they get.
My buddy, Paul Pelosi.
However such a heinous act by no means ought to have occurred.
We should all communicate out. There is no such thing as a place for political violence in America. In America, we should defend the suitable to vote, not suppress that basic proper. We honor the outcomes of our elections, not subvert the desire of the individuals. We should uphold the rule of the legislation and restore belief in our establishments of democracy.
And we should give hate and extremism in any type no secure harbor.
Democracy should not be a partisan difficulty. It should be an American difficulty.
Each technology of People has confronted a second the place they’ve been referred to as on to guard our democracy, to defend it, to face up for it.
And that is our second.
My fellow People, we meet tonight at an inflection level. A kind of moments that just a few generations ever face, the place the choices we make now will determine the course of this nation and of the world for many years to come back.
We aren’t bystanders to historical past. We aren’t powerless earlier than the forces that confront us. It’s inside our energy, of We the Individuals. We face the take a look at of our time and the time for selecting is at hand.
We should be the nation now we have at all times been at our greatest. Optimistic. Hopeful. Ahead-looking.
A nation that embraces, mild over darkness, hope over worry, unity over division. Stability over chaos.
We should see one another not as enemies, however as fellow People. We’re a great individuals, the one nation on the planet constructed on an concept.
That every one of us, each one in every of us, is created equal within the picture of God. A nation that stands as a beacon to the world. A nation in a brand new age of prospects.
So I’ve come right here to fulfil my constitutional obligation to report on the state of the union. And right here is my report.
As a result of the soul of this nation is robust, as a result of the spine of this nation is robust, as a result of the individuals of this nation are sturdy, the State of the Union is robust.
As I stand right here tonight, I’ve by no means been extra optimistic about the way forward for America. We simply have to recollect who we’re.
We’re the USA of America and there may be nothing, nothing past our capability if we do it collectively.
Could God bless you all. Could God defend our troops.”