Biden's State Of The Union To Focus On Foreign Policy And Democracy

21:00 ET 02:00 GMT President Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address tomorrow.

• The address comes as Joe Biden’s approval rating falls to record low of 37% (Washington Post-ABC News).
• The State of the Union is typically a pulpit to sell a domestic agenda and Biden had hoped to announce a post-Covid America and reboot his administration, but events in Ukraine have forced a re-write.
• According to the Washington Post legislative pushes for veteran support and restricting Congressional stock trading have been scrapped. Instead, the address will focus on the existential threat to democracy and designed to appeal to wavering democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans.
• Expect Biden to highlight the importance of NATO and a robust coalition of democratic nations. Biden is likely to position himself as a global leader and highlight his foreign policy experience. Biden will call for a bipartisan effort to aid Ukraine - White House officials have already called for USD$6.4 billion in Ukraine funds for fiscal year 22 due March 11.
• The challenge for Biden will be convincing Americans to tolerate domestic hardship brought by support of Ukraine when inflation is at its highest point in decades.
• Biden is likely to suggest at a return of Build Back Better and urge the importance of the China tech bill to combat an increasingly dangerous global political risk environment.
• Biden may point to the receding threat of Covid, strong jobs data, and claim that Americans are better off than they were last year.
• Biden will talk up his nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court to energise a lethargic progressive base.
• Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said: ‘the overall theme should be: We’re beating this pandemic, we’re moving on, and the economy is in good shape, we’ve added a record number of jobs over the last year, real GDP has grown a lot.’
• Capitol Police are preparing for protests to disrupt the address. Capitol Police have erected a perimeter fence around the Capitol and 700 unarmed National Guardsmen will be deployed to deal with traffic.