President Joe Biden is set to deliver his second State of the Union address Tuesday night, in which he is expected to explain his strategy to “reassert America’s leadership around the world,” a White House official told Fox News, as his administration grapples with the fallout from the Chinese surveillance balloon that transited across the continental United States for nearly a week.
Since last year’s address, his administration has been faced with a growing migrant surge at the southern border, gasoline prices hit an all-time record, inflation reached a 40-year-high, continuing supply chain issues led to a nationwide shortage of baby formula , and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has escalated with no end in sight.
The president’s 2023 address also comes as he is under special counsel investigation for his improper retention of classified records from his time as vice president under the Obama administration, and it is just weeks after the FBI searched his homes for additional documents with classification markings.
Perhaps most notably, the president’s State of the Union address also comes just days after an Air Force F-22 fighter jet shot the Chinese spy balloon down off the coast of South Carolina.
US INTEL ASSESSES CHINESE SPY BALLOONS TRANSITED US SEVERAL TIMES, WENT ‘UNDETECTED’: SENIOR ADMIN OFFICIAL
Senior US defense officials said the spy balloon was launched from China on Jan. 21 and crossed into Alaska on Jan. 28. It entered the continental United States through northern Idaho on Jan. 31 and was spotted across several states, including near a handful of military bases, before it was finally shot down on Saturday.
The president’s address comes just days after an Air Force F-22 fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon. (Win McNamee/Getty Images/File)
And a senior administration official told Fox News that another Chinese spy balloon crashed near Hawaii just four months ago.
During his address Tuesday night at 9 pm ET, a White House official said the president plans to “outline the progress made on maintaining international alliances to defend Ukraine, compete with China and assert American leadership in the world.”
But when asked whether the president would focus specifically on the threat China poses to US national security and on the Chinese spy balloon, the official said Biden’s remarks “of course” will “always take into account what’s happening in the world and how we meet the moment we’re in.”
CHINESE SPY BALLOON CRASHED OFF HAWAII COAST 4 MONTHS AGO, US OFFICIALS SAY
A Chinese spy platform drifts above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina, with a fighter jet and its contrail seen below it on Feb. 4. (Chad Fish via AP)
“But you will hear the president speak to his continued and successful effort to reassert America’s leadership around the world,” the official said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said that the Biden administration’s approach to China “will continue to be calm but resolute and practical.” (The Image Direct for Fox News Digital / File)
A White House official said Biden plans in his speech to understand the “significant progress” made under his administration during “one of the most challenging periods in our history” as well as “the progress the American people want us to make by working together in the year ahead.”
CHINA POSES ‘BIGGEST LONG-TERM THREAT TO ECONOMIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY,’ FBI DIRECTOR WRAY WARNS
The access road to President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster/File)
Biden is expected to outline how he has “carried out his vision for an economy that grows from the bottom up and middle out instead of from the top down,” the official said, adding that he will focus on progress made through “historic job growth , falling inflation, higher wages and record investments coming back to America.”
“He will highlight the progress we have already made—and will keep fighting to make—on these and other commitments and priorities, illustrating in real terms how transformational his pieces of legislation are for Americans across the country,” the official said.
But inflation has remained a key concern of Americans since Biden’s last State of the Union speech. In June, months after the address, inflation surged 9.1% year-over-year, the fastest uptick of its kind since 1981.
Inflation has remained a key concern of Americans since Biden’s last State of the Union speech. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images/File)
Rising consumer prices have impacted nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives from energy and food to shelter, apparel and everyday goods. While inflation has fallen below 7%, it remains far higher than government targets, and the Federal Reserve has continued to tighten interest rates, which could have negative reverberations throughout the US economy.
Energy prices like heating and gasoline costs have particularly put more strain on American families. Pump prices increased past $5 per gallon in mid-June, hitting their highest level ever recorded before falling again, but they currently remain 46% higher than when Biden took office.
Part of the pressure on energy costs has come as a result of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, another crisis of which Biden has been faced. Biden has repeatedly stood alongside other Western nations in support of Ukraine, sending the war-torn country tens of billions of dollars in military aid over the past nearly 12 months.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin
White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said Biden will lay out “a very clear and detailed plan” to reduce the deficit and will “look for every opportunity when it comes to the economy and economic policy to reach out and work with Democrats and Republicans to find practical paths forward.”
MCCARTHY SAYS HE SEES AN ‘OPPORTUNITY TO COME TO AN AGREEMENT’ ON DEBT CEILING AFTER ‘VERY GOOD’ BIDEN MEETING
Biden last week met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for the first time since he took the gavel, and the Republican House speaker said he saw an “opportunity to come to an agreement” on the debt ceiling.
Biden’s speech also comes amid a worsening crisis at the US southern border.
President Joe Biden speaks with a member of Border Patrol as they walk along the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Image)
Sources told Fox News that nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants are known to have slipped past overwhelmed Border Patrol agents since the beginning of fiscal 2023, which began in October.
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While Biden’s approval ratings have increased from 40.6% to 43.9% since his last State of the Union, his approval dropped to 36.8%, its lowest level, in July 2022, according to an average of polling data compiled by Real Clear Politics.
Fox News’ Thomas Catenacci and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
