WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will come before Congress Tuesday seeking to sell his domestic and foreign policy agenda to an American public that has given him persistently low approval ratings as he faces the intensifying conflict in Ukraine.
A key focus of the prime-time address before Congress will be the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Biden planning to highlight the united efforts by the U.S. allies and the impact sanctions have already had on Russia’s economy, administration officials said.
On domestic issues, Biden plans to talk extensively about efforts he has taken to improve the U.S. economy and control the coronavirus pandemic, while pressing Congress to revive his stalled domestic policy agenda.
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The speech comes at a pivotal moment for Biden both at home and abroad. Among recent presidents, only his immediate predecessor Donald Trump came before Congress with a lower approval rating, with voters giving Biden low marks on everything from 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 a tough fight in the midterms.
The president’s team has been reworking his remarks in recent days to more heavily emphasize the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Psaki this week compared the moment to the remarks before Congress by President Barack Obama during the financial crisis or the one President George W. Bush gave after the Sept. 11 attacks in an interview with MSNBC.
But even as much of the world’s attention remains on Ukraine, administration officials said they are still hoping to use the moment to make the case for the work Biden has done on the economy and reassure Americans that the president has a plan to do more to address their economic concerns.
“The American people will hear a lot about how he’s going to lower their costs, how he’s going to continue to build a strong economy over the long term,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
While the majority of Americans say they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, the president plans to argue that his administration has helped the economy achieve its fastest job growth in American history and the fastest economic growth in nearly 40 years, said a senior administration official.
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One of the top concerns cited by Americans in polls has been inflation, which is at its highest level in decades. Psaki said that Biden will talk about lowering overall inflation along with reducing costs in specific areas like child care and prescription drugs with legislation he is pushing to get through Congress.
One specific step Biden plans to announce to help address rising prices will be an agreement between the Justice Department and the Federal Maritime Commission designed to make sure that large ocean freight companies can’t overcharge U.S. customers, the White House said.
Other new programs Biden is scheduled to announce include an effort to improve nursing home staffing, make poorly performing nursing homes accountable for improper and unsafe care, and improve publicly available information about nursing home conditions.
Biden also intends to continue to press Congress to act on programs in his stalled Build Back Better legislation, specifically around lowering prescription drug costs and child care costs. He also plans to ask Congress to act on other ideas he has proposed, including better housing for seniors and the disabled, raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, and lowering the cost of higher education, including by way of an increase in the maximum Pell Grant award by more than $2,000.
When it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, Biden will be addressing the country as it enters what public health officials hope will be a more manageable phase where the virus can be controlled with vaccines, booster shots, and new treatments.
He is expected to highlight new guidance from the CDC last week that says much of the country no longer needs to use masks in their daily lives, as well as the administration’s broader strategy for the pandemic.
Masks will be optional for members of Congress and others attending the speech on Tuesday with the Capitol’s attending physician, Brian P. Monahan, pointing to decreasing Covid-19 case rates as well as new guidance announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last week.
Covid case numbers have continued to decline across most of the country after surging earlier in the year.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
