WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address on Tuesday to attack Russian President Vladimir Putin for unleashing “violence and chaos” with his invasion of Ukraine as the U.S. planned to close its airspace to Russian aircraft.
The announcement that U.S. airspace is to be closed to Russian planes follows a similar move by European and Canadian officials on Sunday. Biden said Putin would “pay a continuing high price over the long run” for his actions.
“Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated,” Biden said.
Following the sixth day of the Russian assault on Ukraine, Biden sought to highlight the unity between the U.S. and its NATO allies in their response to Russia, saying Putin had underestimated the strength of the NATO alliance.
Biden said Putin was “now isolated from the world more than ever,” pointing to moves over the past week to enforce tough economic sanctions and cut off Russia’s largest banks from the international financial system.
“Putin’s war was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected efforts at diplomacy. He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And he thought he could divide us here at home,” Biden said. “Putin was wrong. We were ready.”
The annual prime-time address, which typically provides a president with one of his biggest television audiences of the year, followed another bloody day of fighting, in which Russia hit major cities across Ukraine with increasingly heavy shelling. Meanwhile, a vast convoy of Russian forces threatened the capital, Kyiv.
Biden reiterated that he would not send U.S. troops into Ukraine, but said U.S. forces would be ready to defend NATO allies if Putin were to keep moving west past Ukraine.
“As I have made crystal clear, the United States and our allies will defend every inch of territory of NATO countries with the full force of our collective power,” Biden said.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, attended the address as a guest of first lady Jill Biden, seated in her viewing box and a number of members of Congress wore the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
The speech comes at a pivotal moment for Biden, both at home and abroad. Among recent presidents, only his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, went before Congress with a lower approval rating, with voters giving Biden low marks on his leadership style to his handling of the economy.
The address may mark Biden’s last opportunity to make the case for his domestic policy agenda before a Congress controlled by his own party, with many Democrats facing tough fights in the midterms.
Biden called on Congress to pass legislation he has been pushing for throughout his presidency on gun control, immigration and voting rights.
On the domestic front, Biden focused heavily on the economy and inflation, which is at its highest levels in decades and which voters have cited as a top concern. The president said his administration was looking to lower costs for Americans in part by encouraging manufacturers to make more products in the U.S. and become less reliant on foreign supply chains.
“With all the bright spots in our economy, record job growth and higher wages, too many families are struggling to keep up with the bills,” Biden said. “Inflation is robbing them of the gains they might otherwise feel. I get it. That’s why my top priority is getting prices under control.”
Biden said one way his administration planned to fight inflation was to push for more products to be made in America, creating higher paying jobs. He said he would also move to make pricing fairer in the meat and shipping industries.
Biden continued to press Congress to act on programs in his stalled Build Back Better legislation, specifically around lowering prescription drug and child care costs and creating a global minimum tax rate.
On the pandemic, Biden said the country is now at a point where Americans can move back to their normal routines and where Covid no longer needs to control people’s lives.
“We are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines,” Biden said. “We’ve reached a new moment in the fight against Covid-19.”
But he rejected the idea of “living” with Covid, saying the country will continue to combat the virus like with other diseases and stay on guard for new variants.
Going forward, Biden said the country would continue pushing to vaccinate more Americans, be ready to develop new vaccines if needed for a new variant, and be prepared to vaccinate the youngest children “if and when” the vaccine is cleared for them.
“I cannot promise a new variant won’t come. But I can promise you we’ll do everything within our power to be ready if it does,” Biden said.
Biden said the government was also developing effective ways to distribute new Covid treatments, make more free at-home tests available, and distribute more vaccines to lower-income countries.
Biden also urged Americans to return to their offices and “fill our great downtowns again,” and said federal workers would soon be returning to the workplace.
“People working from home can feel safe to begin to return to the office,” Biden said.
