The State of the Union address promised to be a raucous campaign-style speech befitting an incumbent president on the comeback trail — and it was. But it fell short of last year’s display of booing and jeering, according to Northeastern experts. President Joe Biden took a fierce tone during Thursday’s speech, urging continued support for Ukraine amid an “international” threat in Vladimir Putin, singling out Donald Trump and his role in the Jan. 6 attacks — even taking shots at Republicans over the failed border bill. “It was a good speech, forcefully delivered,” says Costas Panagopoulos, head of Northeastern’s political science department.
All in all, Panagopoulos said the occasion was “a win for decency and decorum in the chamber. There were a few exceptions. As Biden was blaming Republicans for killing the border bill, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled, “It’s about Laken Riley!” An undocumented migrant is accused of killing Riley last month. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California democrat, responded by yelling at her to “shut up.” That back and forth, however, was the lowlight of the night.
“To their credit, Republicans largely kept their composure — at least in the chamber,” he says. “But you could see many of them tapping away on their cellphones, so what they were posting on social media in real time may have been completely different.”
