2024 State of the Union Address


The 2024 State of the Union Address was given by the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, on March7, 2024, at 9:00 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the House of Representatives to the 118th Congress.
It was Biden's third and final State of the Union Address and his fourth and final speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session was the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, accompanied by Kamala Harris, the vice president, in her capacity as the president of the Senate.
This marked the first time in history that a U.S. president gave three consecutive official State of the Union addresses in front of three different speakers, namely 2022 with Nancy Pelosi, 2023 with Kevin McCarthy, and 2024 with Mike Johnson.

Address

On January6, House Speaker Mike Johnson formally invited Biden to address the joint session of Congress. It took place two days after Super Tuesday. The speech was expected to provide Biden a chance to address issues such as the economy, democracy, abortion rights, the United States–Mexico border crisis, the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the Gaza war.
President Biden formally began his speech at 9:26 p.m. EST on March 7, 2024; his speech was scheduled for 9 p.m. EST. Like President Trump's 2019 State of the Union Address, Biden began the address without an introduction from the Speaker of the House, breaking with a SOTU custom. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona was named the designated survivor and was at an undisclosed location during the address so that, in case of a catastrophe, the continuity of government would be upheld.

Topics

Some of the topics mentioned by Biden included the Russo-Ukrainian war, the border crisis, the Gaza war, gun crime, rescheduling cannabis, student loan debt, medication prices, and abortion. He also mentioned the murder of Laken Riley the previous month before the speech in the context of border policy, and advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and also indirectly joked about his age.
While Biden did not mention former President and 2024 Republican candidate Donald Trump by name, he referred to him as "my predecessor" 13 times during the speech, including moments where he referenced Trump's praise of January 6 Capitol attack participants, and accused Trump of influencing Republican members of Congress to reject a bill intended to reduce incentives for migrants to attempt border crossings.
In an apparent unscripted moment while referencing the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Biden looked and spoke directly to the Supreme Court Justices seated in the audience, saying, "With all due respect, justices, women are not without... electoral or political power... you're about to realize just how much..." before he was interrupted by audience applause.

Protests

In the hours leading up to the speech, multiple pro-Palestinian groups led by Jewish Voice for Peace conducted demonstrations in the streets leading to the Capitol and blocked his motorcade. The motorcade took an alternate route which did not approach protestors.
Late in the speech, Steven Nikoui, who was attending the speech in the upper chamber, shouted repeatedly about the Abbey Gate bombing in the 2021 Kabul airport attack during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Nikoui was removed from the upper chamber and arrested. Republican Representative Brian Mast reported that the heckling Nikoui was a Gold Star father who lost a child at the Abbey Gate bombing and attended the event as Mast's guest.
During the speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly interrupted Biden, particularly during his mentions of the Mexican border crisis. Biden responded by picking up a pin handed out by Greene which read "Say her name Laken Riley", and stated "Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That's right." Biden mispronounced Laken's name, instead saying "Lincoln". Greene would continue to interrupt Biden during the speech.

Responses

gave the Republican response. Republican Representative Monica De La Cruz gave a rebuttal in Spanish. Former president Donald Trump scheduled a live "play by play" rebuttal of Biden's address on his Truth Social platform at the same time as the speech; the platform experienced widespread outages and glitches upon the start of the livestream.

The first independent response was delivered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who also did a Spanish version of his response.
Britt's speech, which primarily touched on the issue of immigration, received largely negative reviews, including from Republicans, and was criticized for its inaccuracy. Stylistically, critics mostly focused on Britt's delivery, describing it as "dramatic", "creepy", "insincere" and "over-the-top", and questioned Britt's decision to stage the response in her kitchen. Journalist Jonathan M. Katz accused her of misrepresenting the story of sex trafficking victim Karla Jacinto Romero. According to research by Katz, the crimes described by Britt occurred in Mexico during the presidency of George W. Bush. Britt's response was the subject of that weekend's Saturday Night Live cold open with actress Scarlett Johansson portraying Britt.

Reactions

Rex Huppke described the president's speech as "fiery" and Phillip Elliot said it acted as a "sharp rebuke" against concerns about Biden's age and stamina.
Some Democrats criticized Biden for referring to the killer of Laken Riley as "an illegal" instead of "undocumented" in his speech, and for mispronouncing her name as "Lincoln Riley". Biden regretted using the word "illegal" and said that he should have instead used the word "undocumented".
A fact-check by CNN found that while most of Biden's statements were accurate, some of his claims were false, misleading or needed context.

Viewership

The State of the Union drew 32.2 million viewers, an 18% increase over the 2023 address. MSNBC was the only network to deliver higher viewership for the 2024 speech than for the 2022 speech.
NetworkViewers
FNC5,640,000
ABC5,024,000
NBC4,328,000
MSNBC4,200,000
CBS3,935,000
CNN2,511,000
Fox1,744,000
Fox Business240,000
CNBC112,000

Broadcast networks
Cable news networks

Independent response coverage

The Independent response was delivered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It received 25.4 million views in 48 hours.
NetworkViewers
TikTok10,800,000
Twitter10,300,000
Instagram3,000,000
YouTube1,000,000
Facebook346,000
Rumble29,000

4-year average viewership

Here are the viewership averages for the networks, covering the four years' worth of Biden addresses to congress. CNN is the only network in 2024 to finish below its address-to-congress average.
NetworkViewers
FNC5,115,000
ABC4,939,000
NBC4,088,000
CBS3,949,000
MSNBC3,941,000
CNN3,233,000
Fox1,722,000

Guests

Activists