President Joe Biden delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Tuesday, March 1, 2022, in Washington. (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Utah’s freshman Rep. Blake Moore (R-District 1) candidly responded to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday.
“President Biden spoke tonight of America’s strength on the global stage,” Moore observed. “But his policies have unnecessarily abdicated global leadership.
“As we have to deal with grave crises at home and abroad, the president’s words were hollow.”
Before a joint session of Congress, Biden spent the majority of his hour-long address condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “premeditated and unprovoked” attack on the Ukraine.
The president said that Putin had misjudged the West, assuming that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not respond to his aggression in Eastern Europe.
“Putin was wrong,” Biden insisted. “We were ready.”
Republican critics of Biden’s foreign policy call it “all show and no go.” U.S. military units already in Europe have been placed on heightened alert and some deployed to NATO countries on the borders of Ukraine.
Biden also deployed a brigade of the highly-mobile 82nd Airborne Division to Poland in mid-February, but that movement did not deter Russian forces from invading Ukraine later that month.
“The devastating situation in Ukraine has brought unity amid tragedy,” Moore said after watching Biden’s remarks. “I continue to be inspired by President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people’s resiliency and strength.”
But Moore insisted that Biden’s “destructive responses” to previous military crises have undermined U.S. credibility and national power.
“Last August marked one of America’s darkest chapters,” Moore recalled. “We lost 13 service members due to Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Both Utah and our nation continue to mourn the death of Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover.
“Today, the world is watching Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine. After the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, the world is reminded of what Vladimir Putin is capable of doing when the White House projects weakness and division instead of unity and power.”
Although Moore has developed a reputation for bipartisanship in Congress, he admitted in an early February interview that a year in Congress has “beaten some of the idealism out of me.”
“Biden could have tried to do less (in his first year in office) and accomplished more,” the young congressman suggested. “The Democrats are afraid that they will only get two years in the majority, so they’re trying to ram everything through as fast as they can.
“What they’re getting for their trouble is a whiplash affect from the American people who are saying ‘No, that’s not why we elected you.’ That’s why Biden has the approval ratings that he has.”
Moore also found fault with Biden’s half-hearted response to America’s growing economic issues.
In his address, Biden said he “hoped to do his best to keep prices low;” support American industry; lower the cost of child care; and, curb inflation.
“In 2020, President Biden ran on a message of unity and bipartisanship,” Moore recalled. “But his hyper-partisan agenda has been out of step with even mainstream Democrats.
“Utahns are experiencing some of the worst inflation and price hikes in our nation’s history due to the president’s harmful tax-and-spend agenda and costly energy policies. These directly hurt hardworking Utahns when they go to the gas pump, check out at the grocery store and heat their homes.”
But Moore concluded that, despite our many challenges, Americans will persevere if we can resurrect the spirit and resolve that have always made this country great.