MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow said Tuesday on her network’s coverage of the State of the Union Address that President Joe Biden was combative and ticked Republicans into agreeing not to cut Social Security.
Maddow said, “We have heard rumors ahead of the State of the Union Address from President Joe Biden that this was a lengthy speech. We were settling in. This speech was long in word count, but it was delivered with a lot of energy and a lot of pace and a combativeness and liveliness that I am not sure that we have ever seen in this particular type of presidential address. ”
She added, “We had a number of instances in which it appeared to be our sense was that there were members of Congress on the Republican side who were shouting at him, heckling, at least responding to him, rather than him shutting that down or ignoring that or have it be sort of a crisis moment, instead took those opportunities to have the argument, to challenge them back, to bring the pace even further, to the forefront. I think probably one of the most remarkable moments was halfway through in discussing first the debt and the deficit, and they need to raise the debt ceiling, and then ultimately whether or not Social Security and Medicare will be threatened by the Republican Congress. He appeared to turn the heckling back on the Republicans and sort of trick them into agreeing with him publicly that they would not do that.
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