FEBRUARY 07, 2023

Remarks of President Joe Biden – State of the Union Address as Prepared for Delivery

SPEECHES AND REMARKS

The United States Capitol

Mr. Speaker. Madam Vice President. Our First Lady and Second Gentleman.

Members of Congress and the Cabinet. Leaders of our military.

Mr. Chief Justice, Associate Justices, and retired Justices of the Supreme Court.

And you, my fellow Americans.

I start tonight by congratulating the members of the 118th Congress and the new Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working together.

I also want to congratulate the new leader of the House Democrats and the first Black House Minority Leader in history, Hakeem Jeffries.

Congratulations to the longest serving Senate Leader in history, Mitch McConnell.

And congratulations to Chuck Schumer for another term as Senate Majority Leader, this time with an even bigger majority.

And I want to give special recognition to someone who I think will be considered the greatest Speaker in the history of this country, Nancy Pelosi.

The story of America is a story of progress and resilience. Of always moving forward. Of never giving up.

A story that is unique among all nations.

We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it.

That is what we are doing again.

Two years ago, our economy was reeling.

As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs, more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.

Two years ago, COVID had shut down our businesses, closed our schools, and robbed us of so much.

Today, COVID no longer controls our lives.

And two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War.

Today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken.

As we gather here tonight, we are writing the next chapter in the great American story, a story of progress and resilience. When world leaders ask me to define America, I define our country in one word: Possibilities.

You know, we’re often told that Democrats and Republicans can’t work together.

But over these past two years, we proved the cynics and the naysayers wrong.

Yes, we disagreed plenty. And yes, there were times when Democrats had to go it alone.

But time and again, Democrats and Republicans came together.

Came together to defend a stronger and safer Europe.

Came together to pass a once-in-a-generation infrastructure law, building bridges to connect our nation and people.

Came together to pass one of the most significant laws ever, helping veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.

In fact, I signed over 300 bipartisan laws since becoming President. From reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, to the Electoral Count Reform Act, to the Respect for Marriage Act that protects the right to marry the person you love.

To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress.

The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere.

And that’s always been my vision for our country.

To restore the soul of the nation.

To rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class.

To unite the country.

We’ve been sent here to finish the job.

For decades, the middle class was hollowed out.

Too many good-paying manufacturing jobs moved overseas. Factories at home closed down.

Once-thriving cities and towns became shadows of what they used to be.

And along the way, something else was lost.

Pride. That sense of self-worth.

I ran for President to fundamentally change things, to make sure the economy works for everyone so we can all feel pride in what we do.

To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.

As my Dad used to say, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, “Honey –it’s going to be OK,” and mean it.

So, let’s look at the results. Unemployment rate at 3.4%, a 50-year low. Near record low unemployment for Black and Hispanic workers.

We’ve already created 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years.

Where is it written that America can’t lead the world in manufacturing again?

For too many decades, we imported products and exported jobs.

Now, thanks to all we’ve done, we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs.

Inflation has been a global problem because of the pandemic that disrupted supply chains and Putin’s war that disrupted energy and food supplies.

But we’re better positioned than any country on Earth.

We have more to do, but here at home, inflation is coming down.

Here at home, gas prices are down $1.50 a gallon since their peak.

Food inflation is coming down.

Inflation has fallen every month for the last six months while take home pay has gone up.

Additionally, over the last two years, a record 10 million Americans applied to start a new small business.

Every time somebody starts a small business, it’s an act of hope.

And the Vice President will continue her work to ensure more small businesses can access capital and the historic laws we enacted.

Standing here last year, I shared with you a story of American genius and possibility.

Semiconductors, the small computer chips the size of your fingertip that power everything from cellphones to automobiles, and so much more. These chips were invented right here in America.

America used to make nearly 40% of the world’s chips.

But in the last few decades, we lost our edge and we’re down to producing only 10%. We all saw what happened during the pandemic when chip factories overseas shut down.

Today’s automobiles need up to 3,000 chips each, but American automakers couldn’t make enough cars because there weren’t enough chips.

Car prices went up. So did everything from refrigerators to cellphones.

We can never let that happen again.

That’s why we came together to pass the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act.

We’re making sure the supply chain for America begins in America.

We’ve already created 800,000 manufacturing jobs even without this law.

With this new law, we will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs across the country.

That’s going to come from companies that have announced more than $300 billion in investments in American manufacturing in the last two years.

Outside of Columbus, Ohio, Intel is building semiconductor factories on a thousand acres – a literal field of dreams.

That’ll create 10,000 jobs. 7,000 construction jobs. 3,000 jobs once the factories are finished.

Jobs paying $130,000 a year, and many don’t require a college degree.

Jobs where people don’t have to leave home in search of opportunity.

And it’s just getting started.

Think about the new homes, new small businesses, and so much more that will come to life.

Talk to mayors and Governors, Democrats and Republicans, and they’ll tell you what this means to their communities.

We’re seeing these fields of dreams transform the heartland.

But to maintain the strongest economy in the world, we also need the best infrastructure in the world.

We used to be #1 in the world in infrastructure, then we fell to #13th.

Now we’re coming back because we came together to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the largest investment in infrastructure since President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System.

Already, we’ve funded over 20,000 projects, including at major airports from Boston to Atlanta to Portland.

These projects will put hundreds of thousands of people to work rebuilding our highways, bridges, railroads, tunnels, ports and airports, clean water, and high-speed internet across America.

Urban. Suburban. Rural. Tribal.

And we’re just getting started. I sincerely thank my Republican friends who voted for the law.

And to my Republican friends who voted against it but still ask to fund projects in their districts, don’t worry.

I promised to be the president for all Americans.

We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.

This law will help further unite all of America.

Major projects like the Brent Spence bridge between Kentucky and Ohio over the Ohio River. Built 60 years ago. Badly in need of repairs.

One of the nation’s most congested freight routes carrying $2 billion worth of freight every day. Folks have been talking about fixing it for decades, but we’re finally going to get it done.

I went there last month with Democrats and Republicans from both states to deliver $1.6 billion for this project.

While I was there, I met an ironworker named Sara, who is here tonight.

For 30 years, she’s been a proud member of Ironworkers Local 44, known as the “cowboys of the sky” who built the Cincinnati skyline.

Sara said she can’t wait to be ten stories above the Ohio River building that new bridge. That’s pride.

That’s what we’re also building – Pride.

We’re also replacing poisonous lead pipes that go into 10 million homes and 400,000 schools and childcare centers, so every child in America can drink clean water.

We’re making sure that every community has access to affordable, high-speed internet.

No parent should have to drive to a McDonald’s parking lot so their kid can do their homework online.

And when we do these projects, we’re going to Buy American.

Buy American has been the law of the land since 1933. But for too long, past administrations have found ways to get around it.

Not anymore.

Tonight, I’m also announcing new standards to require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America.

American-made lumber, glass, drywall, fiber optic cables.

And on my watch, American roads, American bridges, and American highways will be made with American products.

My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible.

Maybe that’s you, watching at home.

You remember the jobs that went away. And you wonder whether a path even exists anymore for you and your children to get ahead without moving away.

I get it.

That’s why we’re building an economy where no one is left behind.

Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back, because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives.

For example, too many of you lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what will happen if your spouse gets cancer, your child gets sick, or if something happens to you.

Will you have the money to pay your medical bills? Will you have to sell the house?

I get it. With the Inflation Reduction Act that I signed into law, we’re taking on powerful interests to bring your health care costs down so you can sleep better at night.

You know, we pay more for prescription drugs than any major country on Earth.

For example, one in ten Americans has diabetes.

Every day, millions need insulin to control their diabetes so they can stay alive. Insulin has been around for 100 years. It costs drug companies just $10 a vial to make.

But, Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars – and making record profits.

Not anymore.

We capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare.

But there are millions of other Americans who are not on Medicare, including 200,000 young people with Type I diabetes who need insulin to save their lives.

Let’s finish the job this time.

Let’s cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it.

This law also caps out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors on Medicare at a maximum $2,000 per year when there are in fact many drugs, like expensive cancer drugs, that can cost up to $10,000, $12,000, and $14,000 a year.

If drug prices rise faster than inflation, drug companies will have to pay Medicare back the difference.

And we’re finally giving Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices. Bringing down prescription drug costs doesn’t just save seniors money.

It will cut the federal deficit, saving tax payers hundreds of billions of dollars on the prescription drugs the government buys for Medicare.

Why wouldn’t we want to do that?

Now, some members here are threatening to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act.

Make no mistake, if you try to do anything to raise the cost of prescription drugs, I will veto it.

I’m pleased to say that more Americans have health insurance now than ever in history.

A record 16 million people are enrolled under the Affordable Care Act.

Thanks to the law I signed last year, millions are saving $800 a year on their premiums.

But the way that law was written, that benefit expires after 2025.

Let’s finish the job, make those savings permanent, and expand coverage to those left off Medicaid.

Look, the Inflation Reduction Act is also the most significant investment ever to tackle the climate crisis.

Lowering utility bills, creating American jobs, and leading the world to a clean energy future.

I’ve visited the devastating aftermaths of record floods and droughts, storms and wildfires.

In addition to emergency recovery from Puerto Rico to Florida to Idaho, we are rebuilding for the long term.

New electric grids able to weather the next major storm.

Roads and water systems to withstand the next big flood.

Clean energy to cut pollution and create jobs in communities too often left behind.

We’re building 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations installed across the country by tens of thousands of IBEW workers.

And helping families save more than $1,000 a year with tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances.

Historic conservation efforts to be responsible stewards of our lands.

Let’s face reality.

The climate crisis doesn’t care if your state is red or blue. It is an existential threat.

We have an obligation to our children and grandchildren to confront it. I’m proud of how America is at last stepping up to the challenge.

But there’s so much more to do.

We will finish the job.

And we pay for these investments in our future by finally making the wealthiest and the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share.

I’m a capitalist. But just pay your fair share.

And I think a lot of you at home agree with me that our present tax system is simply unfair.

The idea that in 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal income taxes?

That’s simply not fair.

But now, because of the law I signed, billion-dollar companies have to pay a minimum of 15%.

Just 15%.

That’s less than a nurse pays. Let me be clear.

Under my plan, nobody earning less than $400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in taxes.

Nobody. Not one penny.

But there’s more to do.

Let’s finish the job. Reward work, not just wealth. Pass my proposal for a billionaire minimum tax.

Because no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or a firefighter.

You may have noticed that Big Oil just reported record profits.

Last year, they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis.

It’s outrageous.

They invested too little of that profit to increase domestic production and keep gas prices down.

Instead, they used those record profits to buy back their own stock, rewarding their CEOs and shareholders.

Corporations ought to do the right thing.

That’s why I propose that we quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks to encourage long term investments instead.

They will still make a considerable profit.

Let’s finish the job and close the loopholes that allow the very wealthy to avoid paying their taxes.

Instead of cutting the number of audits of wealthy tax payers, I signed a law that will reduce the deficit by $114 billion by cracking down on wealthy tax cheats.

That’s being fiscally responsible.

In the last two years, my administration cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion – the largest deficit reduction in American history.

Under the previous administration, America’s deficit went up four years in a row.

Because of those record deficits, no president added more to the national debt in any four years than my predecessor.

Nearly 25% of the entire national debt, a debt that took 200 years to accumulate, was added by that administration alone.

How did Congress respond to all that debt?

They lifted the debt ceiling three times without preconditions or crisis.

They paid America’s bills to prevent economic disaster for our country.

Tonight, I’m asking this Congress to follow suit.

Let us commit here tonight that the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never, ever be questioned.

Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage unless I agree to their economic plans. All of you at home should know what their plans are.

Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years.

That means if Congress doesn’t vote to keep them, those programs will go away.

Other Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history.

I won’t let that happen.

Social Security and Medicare are a lifeline for millions of seniors.

Americans have been paying into them with every single paycheck since they started working.

So tonight, let’s all agree to stand up for seniors. Stand up and show them we will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare.

Those benefits belong to the American people. They earned them.

If anyone tries to cut Social Security, I will stop them. And if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them.

I will not allow them to be taken away.

Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Next month when I offer my fiscal plan, I ask my Republican friends to offer their plan.

We can sit down together and discuss both plans together.

My plan will lower the deficit by $2 trillion.

I won’t cut a single Social Security or Medicare benefit.

In fact, I will extend the Medicare Trust Fund by at least two decades.

I will not raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year. And I will pay for the ideas I’ve talked about tonight by making the wealthy and big corporations begin to pay their fair share.

Look, here’s the deal. Big corporations aren’t just taking advantage of the tax code. They’re taking advantage of you, the American consumer.

Here’s my message to all of you out there: I have your back. We’re already preventing insurance companies from sending surprise medical bills, stopping 1 million surprise bills a month.

We’re protecting seniors’ lives and life savings by cracking down on nursing homes that commit fraud, endanger patient safety, or prescribe drugs they don’t need.

Millions of Americans can now save thousands of dollars because they can finally get hearing aids over-the-counter without a prescription.

Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It is exploitation.

Last year I cracked down on foreign shipping companies that were making you pay higher prices for everyday goods coming into our country.

I signed a bipartisan bill that cut shipping costs by 90%, helping American farmers, businesses, and consumers.

Let’s finish the job.

Pass bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.

My administration is also taking on “junk” fees, those hidden surcharges too many businesses use to make you pay more.

For example, we’re making airlines show you the full ticket price upfront and refund your money if your flight is cancelled or delayed.

We’ve reduced exorbitant bank overdraft fees, saving consumers more than $1 billion a year.

We’re cutting credit card late fees by 75%, from $30 to $8.

Junk fees may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter to most folks in homes like the one I grew up in. They add up to hundreds of dollars a month.

They make it harder for you to pay the bills or afford that family trip.

I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and gets away with it.

Not anymore.

We’ve written a bill to stop all that. It’s called the Junk Fee Prevention Act.

We’ll ban surprise “resort fees” that hotels tack on to your bill. These fees can cost you up to $90 a night at hotels that aren’t even resorts.

We’ll make cable internet and cellphone companies stop charging you up to $200 or more when you decide to switch to another provider.

We’ll cap service fees on tickets to concerts and sporting events and make companies disclose all fees upfront.

And we’ll prohibit airlines from charging up to $50 roundtrip for families just to sit together.

Baggage fees are bad enough – they can’t just treat your child like a piece of luggage.

Americans are tired of being played for suckers.

Pass the Junk Fee Prevention Act so companies stop ripping us off.

For too long, workers have been getting stiffed.

Not anymore.

We’re beginning to restore the dignity of work.

For example, 30 million workers had to sign non-compete agreements when they took a job. So a cashier at a burger place can’t cross the street to take the same job at another burger place to make a couple bucks more.

Not anymore.

We’re banning those agreements so companies have to compete for workers and pay them what they’re worth.

I’m so sick and tired of companies breaking the law by preventing workers from organizing.

Pass the PRO Act because workers have a right to form a union. And let’s guarantee all workers a living wage.

Let’s also make sure working parents can afford to raise a family with sick days, paid family and medical leave, and affordable child care that will enable millions more people to go to work.

Let’s also restore the full Child Tax Credit, which gave tens of millions of parents some breathing room and cut child poverty in half, to the lowest level in history.

And by the way, when we do all of these things, we increase productivity. We increase economic growth.

Let’s also finish the job and get more families access to affordable and quality housing.

Let’s get seniors who want to stay in their homes the care they need to do so. And give a little more breathing room to millions of family caregivers looking after their loved ones.

Pass my plan so we get seniors and people with disabilities the home care services they need and support the workers who are doing God’s work.

These plans are fully paid for and we can afford to do them.

Restoring the dignity of work also means making education an affordable ticket to the middle class.

When we made 12 years of public education universal in the last century, it made us the best-educated, best-prepared nation in the world.

But the world has caught up.

Jill, who teaches full-time, has an expression: “Any nation that out-educates us will out-compete us.”

Folks, you all know 12 years is not enough to win the economic competition for the 21st Century.

If you want America to have the best-educated workforce, let’s finish the job by providing access to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds.

Studies show that children who go to pre-school are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a 2- or 4-year degree, no matter their background.

Let’s give public school teachers a raise.

And we’re making progress by reducing student debt and increasing Pell Grants for working- and middle-class families.

Let’s finish the job, connect students to career opportunities starting in high school and provide two years of community college, some of the best career training in America, in addition to being a pathway to a four-year degree.

Let’s offer every American the path to a good career whether they go to college or not.

And folks, in the midst of the COVID crisis when schools were closed, let’s also recognize how far we’ve come in the fight against the pandemic itself.

While the virus is not gone, thanks to the resilience of the American people, we have broken COVID’s grip on us.

COVID deaths are down nearly 90%.

We’ve saved millions of lives and opened our country back up.

And soon we’ll end the public health emergency.

But we will remember the toll and pain that will never go away for so many. More than 1 million Americans have lost their lives to COVID.

Families grieving. Children orphaned. Empty chairs at the dining room table.

We remember them, and we remain vigilant.

We still need to monitor dozens of variants and support new vaccines and treatments.

So Congress needs to fund these efforts and keep America safe.

And as we emerge from this crisis stronger, I’m also doubling down on prosecuting criminals who stole relief money meant to keep workers and small businesses afloat during the pandemic.

Before I came to office many inspector generals who protect taxpayer dollars were sidelined. Fraud was rampant.

Last year, I told you the watchdogs are back. Since then, we’ve recovered billions of taxpayer dollars.

Now, let’s triple our anti-fraud strike forces going after these criminals, double the statute of limitations on these crimes, and crack down on identity fraud by criminal syndicates stealing billions of dollars from the American people.

For every dollar we put into fighting fraud, taxpayers get back at least ten times as much.

COVID left other scars, like the spike in violent crime in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

We have an obligation to make sure all our people are safe.

Public safety depends on public trust. But too often that trust is violated.

Joining us tonight are the parents of Tyre Nichols, who had to bury him just last week. There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a child.

But imagine what it’s like to lose a child at the hands of the law.

Imagine having to worry whether your son or daughter will come home from walking down the street or playing in the park or just driving their car.

I’ve never had to have the talk with my children – Beau, Hunter, and Ashley – that so many Black and Brown families have had with their children.

If a police officer pulls you over, turn on your interior lights. Don’t reach for your license. Keep your hands on the steering wheel.

Imagine having to worry like that every day in America.

Here’s what Tyre’s mom shared with me when I asked her how she finds the courage to carry on and speak out.

With faith in God, she said her son “was a beautiful soul and something good will come from this.”

Imagine how much courage and character that takes.

It’s up to us. It’s up to all of us.

We all want the same thing.

Neighborhoods free of violence.

Law enforcement who earn the community’s trust.

Our children to come home safely.

Equal protection under the law; that’s the covenant we have with each other in America.

And we know police officers put their lives on the line every day, and we ask them to do too much.

To be counselors, social workers, psychologists; responding to drug overdoses, mental health crises, and more.

We ask too much of them.

I know most cops are good, decent people. They risk their lives every time they put on that shield.

But what happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often.

We have to do better.

Give law enforcement the training they need, hold them to higher standards, and help them succeed in keeping everyone safe.

We also need more first responders and other professionals to address growing mental health and substance abuse challenges.

More resources to reduce violent crime and gun crime; more community intervention programs; more investments in housing, education, and job training.

All this can help prevent violence in the first place.

And when police officers or departments violate the public’s trust, we must hold them accountable.

With the support of families of victims, civil rights groups, and law enforcement, I signed an executive order for all federal officers banning chokeholds, restricting no-knock warrants, and other key elements of the George Floyd Act.

Let’s commit ourselves to make the words of Tyre’s mother come true, something good must come from this.

All of us in this chamber, we need to rise to this moment.

We can’t turn away.

Let’s do what we know in our hearts we need to do.

Let’s come together and finish the job on police reform.

Do something.

That was the same plea of parents who lost their children in Uvalde: Do something on gun violence.

Thank God we did, passing the most sweeping gun safety law in three decades.

That includes things that the majority of responsible gun owners support, like enhanced background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds and red flag laws keeping guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others.

But we know our work is not done.

Joining us tonight is Brandon Tsay, a 26-year-old hero.

Brandon put off his college dreams to stay by his mom’s side as she was dying from cancer. He now works at a dance studio started by his grandparents.

Two weeks ago, during Lunar New Year celebrations, he heard the studio’s front door close and saw a man pointing a gun at him.

He thought he was going to die, but then he thought about the people inside.

In that instant, he found the courage to act and wrestled the semi-automatic pistol away from a gunman who had already killed 11 people at another dance studio.

He saved lives. It’s time we do the same as well.

Ban assault weapons once and for all.

We did it before. I led the fight to ban them in 1994.

In the 10 years the ban was law, mass shootings went down. After Republicans let it expire, mass shootings tripled.

Let’s finish the job and ban assault weapons again.

And let’s also come together on immigration and make it a bipartisan issue like it was before.

We now have a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers and seizing over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in just the last several months.

Since we launched our new border plan last month, unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97%.

But America’s border problems won’t be fixed until Congress acts.

If you won’t pass my comprehensive immigration reform, at least pass my plan to provide the equipment and officers to secure the border. And a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers, and essential workers.

Here in the people’s House, it’s our duty to protect all the people’s rights and freedoms.

Congress must restore the right the Supreme Court took away last year and codify Roe v. Wade to protect every woman’s constitutional right to choose.

The Vice President and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient privacy. But already, more than a dozen states are enforcing extreme abortion bans.

Make no mistake; if Congress passes a national abortion ban, I will veto it.

Let’s also pass the bipartisan Equality Act to ensure LGBTQ Americans, especially transgender young people, can live with safety and dignity.

Our strength is not just the example of our power, but the power of our example. Let’s remember the world is watching.

I spoke from this chamber one year ago, just days after Vladimir Putin unleashed his brutal war against Ukraine.

A murderous assault, evoking images of the death and destruction Europe suffered in World War II.

Putin’s invasion has been a test for the ages. A test for America. A test for the world.

Would we stand for the most basic of principles?

Would we stand for sovereignty?

Would we stand for the right of people to live free from tyranny?

Would we stand for the defense of democracy?

For such a defense matters to us because it keeps the peace and prevents open season for would-be aggressors to threaten our security and prosperity. One year later, we know the answer.

Yes, we would.

And yes, we did.

Together, we did what America always does at our best.

We led.

We united NATO and built a global coalition.

We stood against Putin’s aggression.

We stood with the Ukrainian people.

Tonight, we are once again joined by Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States. She represents not just her nation, but the courage of her people.

Ambassador, America is united in our support for your country. We will stand with you as long as it takes.

Our nation is working for more freedom, more dignity, and more peace,

not just in Europe, but everywhere.

Before I came to office, the story was about how the People’s Republic of China was increasing its power and America was falling in the world.

Not anymore.

I’ve made clear with President Xi that we seek competition, not conflict.

I will make no apologies that we are investing to make America strong. Investing in American innovation, in industries that will define the future, and that China’s government is intent on dominating.

Investing in our alliances and working with our allies to protect our advanced technologies so they’re not used against us.

Modernizing our military to safeguard stability and deter aggression.

Today, we’re in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world.

I am committed to work with China where it can advance American interests and benefit the world.

But make no mistake: as we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.

And let’s be clear: winning the competition with China should unite all of us. We face serious challenges across the world.

But in the past two years, democracies have become stronger, not weaker.

Autocracies have grown weaker, not stronger.

America is rallying the world again to meet those challenges, from climate and global health, to food insecurity, to terrorism and territorial aggression.

Allies are stepping up, spending more and doing more.

And bridges are forming between partners in the Pacific and those in the Atlantic. And those who bet against America are learning just how wrong they are.

It’s never a good bet to bet against America.

When I came to office, most everyone assumed bipartisanship was impossible. But I never believed it.

That’s why a year ago, I offered a Unity Agenda for the nation.

We’ve made real progress.

Together, we passed a law making it easier for doctors to prescribe effective treatments for opioid addiction.

Passed a gun safety law making historic investments in mental health.

Launched ARPA-H to drive breakthroughs in the fight against cancer,

Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and so much more.

We passed the Heath Robinson PACT Act, named for the late Iraq war veteran whose story about exposure to toxic burn pits I shared here last year.

But there is so much more to do. And we can do it together.

Joining us tonight is a father named Doug from Newton, New Hampshire.

He wrote Jill and me a letter about his daughter Courtney. Contagious laugh. Her sister’s best friend.

He shared a story all too familiar to millions of Americans.

Courtney discovered pills in high school. It spiraled into addiction and eventually her death from a fentanyl overdose.

She was 20 years old.

Describing the last eight years without her, Doug said, “There is no worse pain.”

Yet their family has turned pain into purpose, working to end stigma and change laws.

He told us he wants to “start the journey towards America’s recovery.”

Doug, we’re with you.

Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year.

Let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale, and trafficking, with more drug detection machines to inspect cargo and stop pills and powder at the border.

Working with couriers like Fed Ex to inspect more packages for drugs. Strong penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.

Second, let’s do more on mental health, especially for our children. When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at school.

We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit.

And it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.

Third, let’s do more to keep our nation’s one truly sacred obligation: to equip those we send into harm’s way and care for them and their families when they come home.

Job training and job placement for veterans and their spouses as they return to civilian life.

Helping veterans afford their rent because no one should be homeless in this country, especially not those who served it.

And we cannot go on losing 17 veterans a day to the silent scourge of suicide.

The VA is doing everything it can, including expanding mental health screenings and a proven program that recruits veterans to help other veterans understand what they’re going through and get the help they need.

And fourth, last year Jill and I re-ignited the Cancer Moonshot that President Obama asked me to lead in our Administration.

Our goal is to cut the cancer death rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years. Turn more cancers from death sentences into treatable diseases. And provide more support for patients and families.

It’s personal for so many of us.

Joining us are Maurice and Kandice, an Irishman and a daughter of immigrants from Panama.

They met and fell in love in New York City and got married in the same chapel as Jill and I did.

Kindred spirits.

He wrote us a letter about their little daughter Ava.

She was just a year old when she was diagnosed with a rare kidney cancer.

26 blood transfusions. 11 rounds of radiation. 8 rounds of chemo. 1 kidney removed.

A 5% survival rate.

He wrote how in the darkest moments he thought, “if she goes, I can’t stay.”

Jill and I understand, like so many of you.

They read how Jill described our family’s cancer journey and how we tried to steal moments of joy where you can.

For them, that glimmer of joy was a half-smile from their baby girl. It meant everything.

They never gave up hope.

Ava never gave up hope. She turns four next month.

They just found out that Ava beat the odds and is on her way to being cancer free, and she’s watching from the White House tonight.

For the lives we can save and for the lives we have lost, let this be a truly American moment that rallies the country and the world together and proves that we can do big things.

Twenty years ago, under the leadership of President Bush and countless advocates and champions, we undertook a bipartisan effort through PEPFAR to transform the global fight against HIV/AIDS. It’s been a huge success.

I believe we can do the same with cancer.

Let’s end cancer as we know it and cure some cancers once and for all.

There’s one reason why we’re able to do all of these things: our democracy itself.

It’s the most fundamental thing of all.

With democracy, everything is possible. Without it, nothing is.

For the last few years our democracy has been threatened, attacked, and put at risk.

Put to the test here, in this very room, on January 6th.

And then, just a few months ago, unhinged by the Big Lie, an assailant unleashed political violence in the home of the then-Speaker of this House of Representatives. Using the very same language that insurrectionists who stalked these halls chanted on January 6th.

Here tonight in this chamber is the man who bears the scars of that brutal attack, but is as tough and strong and as resilient as they get.

My friend, Paul Pelosi.

But such a heinous act never should have happened.

We must all speak out. There is no place for political violence in America. In America, we must protect the right to vote, not suppress that fundamental right. We honor the results of our elections, not subvert the will of the people. We must uphold the rule of the law and restore trust in our institutions of democracy.

And we must give hate and extremism in any form no safe harbor.

Democracy must not be a partisan issue. It must be an American issue.

Every generation of Americans has faced a moment where they have been called on to protect our democracy, to defend it, to stand up for it.

And this is our moment.

My fellow Americans, we meet tonight at an inflection point. One of those moments that only a few generations ever face, where the decisions we make now will decide the course of this nation and of the world for decades to come.

We are not bystanders to history. We are not powerless before the forces that confront us. It is within our power, of We the People. We are facing the test of our time and the time for choosing is at hand.

We must be the nation we have always been at our best. Optimistic. Hopeful. Forward-looking.

A nation that embraces, light over darkness, hope over fear, unity over division. Stability over chaos.

We must see each other not as enemies, but as fellow Americans. We are a good people, the only nation in the world built on an idea.

That all of us, every one of us, is created equal in the image of God. A nation that stands as a beacon to the world. A nation in a new age of possibilities.

So I have come here to fulfil my constitutional duty to report on the state of the union. And here is my report.

Because the soul of this nation is strong, because the backbone of this nation is strong, because the people of this nation are strong, the State of the Union is strong.

As I stand here tonight, I have never been more optimistic about the future of America. We just have to remember who we are.

We are the United States of America and there is nothing, nothing

beyond our capacity if we do it together.

May God bless you all. May God protect our troops.

###

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FEBRUARY 07, 2023

Excerpts from President Biden’s State of the Union Address as Prepared for Delivery

SPEECHES AND REMARKS

The story of America is a story of progress and resilience…We are the only country that has emerged from every crisis stronger than when we entered it. That is what we are doing again. Two years ago our economy was reeling. As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs – more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years. Two years ago, COVID had shut down our businesses, closed our schools, and robbed us of so much. Today, COVID no longer controls our lives. And two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War. Today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken.

—

My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible. Maybe that’s you watching at home. You remember the jobs that went away. And you wonder whether a path even exists anymore for you and your children to get ahead without moving away. I get it. That’s why we’re building an economy where no one is left behind. Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives.

—

To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress. The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere. And that’s always been my vision for the country: to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America: the middle class, to unite the country. We’ve been sent here to finish the job!

###

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February 07, 2023    

On-the-Record Press Call on President Biden’s
Unity Agenda Ahead of the State of the Union  

Statements and Releases  

Via Teleconference

9:04 A.M. EST

MR. MUNOZ:  Hey, everybody.  Good morning.  Thank you for joining us on this morning’s press call to outline the progress the President has made on his Unity Agenda since the 2022 State of the Union and his ongoing commitment to this agenda ahead of his 2023 State of the Union speech.

As a reminder, this call will be on the record and embargoed until 10:30.  You all should have received a factsheet that is also embargoed until 10:30.

I sent an email a few minutes ago, but on this call we have the following speakers: Kate Bedingfield, White House Communications Director; Dr. Gupta, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; Christen Linke Young, Deputy Assistant to the President for Health and Veterans Affairs; Danielle Carnival, Cancer Moonshot Coordinator; and Terri Tanielian, Special Assistant to the President for Veterans Affairs.

So with all of that, I will kick it to Kate, and then we’ll do some questions after.  Kate?

MS. BEDINGFIELD:  Great.  Thanks, Kevin.  And thank you all very much for taking the time to join us on a very busy and exciting day in the run-up to the State of the Union tonight.

So, during his first State of the Union address last year, President Biden announced a four-part Unity Agenda focused on areas where members of both parties can come together and deliver for the American people: ending cancer as we know it; delivering on the sacred obligation to veterans; tackling the mental health crisis; and beating the opioid and overdose epidemic.

As the President said last year when he announced the Unity Agenda, these are issues that affect all Americans, in red states and blue states, and ones where the American people are counting on their elected officials, no matter their party, to come together and do big things.

Over the last year, the President has made good on that promise.  He was proud to work with Democrats and Republicans to enact major legislation that delivers on his Unity Agenda.

The Honoring our PACT Act and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act both passed with bipartisan support, validating the President’s belief that these are areas where politicians in Washington can and should find common ground on behalf of the American people.

This legislation is already making a real difference in communities across the country, from allowing veterans to better access the care they need, to expanding access to mental health supports to make our communities safer.

But this work is far from over, and you’ll hear from my colleagues on that in just a few minutes.

In his State of the Union today, the President will announce a new set of policies to continue to make progress advancing his Unity Agenda and deliver results for families across the country.

And so, with that, I’m going to hand it over to Dr. Gupta, the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

DR. GUPTA:  Thank you, Kate.  And good morning, everyone.

In the past year, we’ve lost more than 100,000 Americans to drug overdose or poisonings.  That’s an American dying every five minutes of every hour of every day.  That is unacceptable, period.

The opioid crisis is affecting just about every community in every state, and it’s being driven by synthetic opioids like illicit fentanyl.

Under President Biden’s leadership, we’ve begun to make progress.  In last year’s State of the Union, the President called for removing barriers to treatment, and we have done just that — working with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to remove the X-waiver.  That’s what it looks like when we work together to beat this.

In the last year, under President Biden’s leadership, our nation has seized nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl at the border.  Domestically, we’ve seized 26,000 pounds of fentanyl and denied nearly $9 billion of profits to drug traffickers.

And because of these efforts combined with our historic public health advances, we have now seen five straight months — five straight months where overdose numbers have decreased.

That’s almost 3,000 people who have not died and instead are at the dinner table each night.

So it is a hopeful sign, but we can’t slow down our efforts to beat this.

So, tonight, during the State of the Union, you’re going to hear the President talk about it.  This is not a red-state problem or a blue-state problem.  This is America’s problem.  And he believes it’s going to take all of us — all of us working together.

Tonight, President Biden will lay out a forceful approach for going after fentanyl trafficking and expanding public health efforts to reduce overdose deaths.

We are going to build on the historic progress we’re making by using advanced technology to stop more fentanyl at the border, and working with commercial package delivery companies to catch more packages containing fentanyl.

And we’re going to work with Congress to permanently control fentanyl-related substances so we can make sure that traffickers are held accountable.

We’re also going to launch a national campaign with the Ad Council to educate young people on saving lives from the dangers of fentanyl.

And we’re going to work to ensure that everyone who needs treatment for substance use disorder gets it, including people who are incarcerated and at higher risk for overdose death when they’re released.

And we’re going to continue to expand access to lifesaving medications for opioid use disorder.

Now, by taking these actions and under President Biden’s leadership, we’re going to also hold traffickers accountable.  We will reduce — by doing all this, we’ll reduce overdose deaths, and we will save more American lives.

Thank you.

MR. MUNOZ:  Danielle?

MS. CARNIVAL:  Yes.  Thank you, Dr. Gupta.

Let me touch on cancer.  This is an important issue that impacts virtually every single American family and is the second-leading cause of death in this country.

Last year, ahead of his first State of the Union address, the President and First Lady reignited the Cancer Moonshot with the goal of cutting cancer death rates in at lea- — by at least half over 25 years, and improving the patient, caregiver, and family experience.

Tonight’s speech will highlight the progress we’ve made over the last year.  This includes nearly 30 new federal programs, policies, and resources from a first-ever Cancer Cabinet — from steps to increase screenings, to innovative approaches to improve care for patients and those that support them, to standing up and funding ARPA-H, a new agency to drive breakthroughs in the fight against cancer and other diseases.

Tonight’s speech will also highlight what we need to do to further accelerate progress.  This includes bringing America’s cancer research and care systems into the 21st century.

To that end, the administration is urging Congress to reauthorize the National Cancer Act, which more than five decades ago set up the National Cancer Institute as we know it today.  This would enable us to update our systems for today’s fight against cancer and lock in the strong investment in cancer research that passed in 2016 as part of the broadly bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which otherwise expires this year.

With these steps, we could put modern and American innovation fully to work in the fight against cancer.

Two, accelerating progress also means increasing access to support for cancer patients and their loved ones.  We know patient navigation services improve the experience for patients and their families as they go through their cancer journey, and they improve health outcomes.

So, the administration is going to take steps to ensure that patient navigation services are covered benefits going forward for as many people facing cancer as possible.  Because the value and importance of having someone who can walk you and your loved one through the many decisions that come with a cancer diagnosis can’t be overstated.

In addition to pushing forward on research and patient experience, we’re going to continue to focus on prevention.  That means taking steps to tackle the single-biggest driver of cancer deaths in this country — smoking — and to continue to address environmental exposures, including through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to accelerate clean-up at toxic Superfund sites and help states and communities replace lead pipes and service lines.

Together, these steps will draw us closer to our goal of saving American lives; improving the experience for patients, caregivers, and families; and ultimately ending cancer as we know it today.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thanks, Danielle.  Now we’ll turn it to Christen Linke Young.

MS. LINKE YOUNG:  Great.  Thanks so much, Kevin.

First, when it comes to meeting our sacred obligation to veterans and their families, this administration has made significant progress.

We worked with Democrats and Republicans to pass the PACT Act, expanding access to healthcare and benefits related to toxic exposures for veterans and their survivors, which is the most significant new policy for toxic-exposed veterans in 30 years.

Already, VA has expedited the process to bring benefits to veterans and their families sooner, and has conducted more than 1.5 million screenings for toxic exposures.

But the PACT Act is just one part of our work.  In 2022, VA processed an all-time record 1.7 million veteran claims and delivered $128 billion in benefits to 6.1 million veterans and survivors.

The number of veterans experiencing homelessness declined by 11 percent between 2020 and 2022, and the United States permanently housed more than 40,000 veterans last year alone.

Over the last year, the administration also expanded access for reproductive health services for women veterans, expanded eligibility for caregiver programs to veterans of all service areas, supported more than 2.3 million children through the First Lady’s Joining Forces Initiative, and implemented key measures to protect veterans from predatory for-profit colleges.

The President will build on this work and announce additional actions in the months to come.

First, to address veteran suicide: While both DOD and VA reported declines in suicide deaths, we know that much more remains to be done.

We will provide new resources to states and territories to invest in community-based programs tackling veteran suicide.

We’ll continue to focus on lethal means safety by training healthcare providers and expanding educational resources.

And we will support veterans at challenging moments that can increase suicide risk by expanding medical-legal partnerships and expanding outreach to justice-involved veterans.

To better address veterans’ mental health needs, VA will expand proven peer support programs where veterans help fellow veterans to access mental health and substance use treatment and other support services, will hire more mental health clinicians, and will make it easier to expand mental healthcare through telehealth.

And we’ll continue to expand job training for veterans and their spouses through partnerships across the federal government.

The President is also calling on Congress to ensure that every veteran has a roof over their head.  His budget will propose that we pave the path to an entitlement to housing assistance for those who have served our country.  So, a robust agenda to protect American veterans.

Turning now to mental health:  The President worked with Congress to pass critical bipartisan legislation to help address our mental health crisis.  President Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which makes unprecedented investments in expanding trauma-informed youth mental health programs and supports school-based health services by creating new grant opportunities and technical assistance for schools.

We expanded Medicare coverage to include additional mental health and substance use disorder services and providers.

We worked with Congress to make major investments in training the next generation of mental health professionals.

And all of this builds on historically significant resources for community mental health services, which we saw continued in the most recent bipartisan spending legislation.

We’ve also worked across the federal government to coordinate resources and support Americans with mental health needs.

Last summer, we successfully transitioned to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Hotline.  Thanks to new investments, those in crisis now have more timely access to trained counselors.  Since the transition, calls to the Suicide and Crisis Hotline have grown by at least 50 percent, texts have increased more than 1,200 percent, all that’s all while response rates have increased and wait times have been reduced.

We’ve also worked to make it easier for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to access mental health services through their coverage, and we’ve worked across the federal government to provide new resources and assistance to states, territories, Tribes, Tribal organizations, and local communities.

But we know that too many Americans continue to struggle, especially young people, where mounting evidence indicates that social media and other tech platforms can be harmful to mental health, wellbeing, and development.

The President is calling for bipartisan support to ban targeted advertising online for children and young people; enact strong protections for their privacy, health, and safety online; and improve online privacy and transparency for all Americans.

And we will continue to implement a whole-of-government strategy to expand the mental health workforce, reduce barriers to care, and promote resilient environments.

We will issue new rules to enforce mental health parity requirements so that insurance companies meet their obligations to provide mental health and substance-use disorder care on the same terms as physical health services.

We’ll continue to expand the crisis care workforce — trained peers, first responders, licensed counselors and psychologists — and we’ll also expand mobile crisis intervention services.

And we will prioritize research so that we build an evidence base to deliver proven therapies at scale.

With that, I will turn it back to you, Kevin.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thank you, Christen.  And thank you, everybody, for joining.

With that, we can take a few questions.

All right, let’s go to Andrea Shalal with Reuters first.

Q    Thank you so much.  This agenda that you’ve outlined here is — can you say what you think the chances are of passage?  Is this the — are these the agenda items that you think Congress will pass in a — you know, in a split Congress?  And is that why you’re foregrounding it?

And if you could just say a few more words on the mental health aspect.  What’s driving that is, obviously, the statistics, but is there any piece of this that you want to link to gun safety too?

MS. LINKE YOUNG:  Sure.  I can start there.  So, in last year’s State of the Union, the President laid out a Unity Agenda focused on these same four pillars, and we saw Congress make enormous progress on a bipartisan basis over the last year.

We passed the PACT Act for veterans with 86 votes in the Senate.  We passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which makes significant progress on mental health resources for kids, with 65 votes in the Senate.  Congress provided funding for ARPA-H, a major investment in reducing cancer deaths and innovating across the healthcare system.

And, of course, when it comes to the overdose crisis and substance use disorder, Congress repealed the X-waiver to make it easier for people to access medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorder and enacted a variety of resources across this agenda to take on the overdose crisis.

So we have seen that we can deliver on these priorities and make life better for Americans by working together with members of Congress of both parties across this full agenda.

And what you’ll hear him talk about in tonight’s State of the Union is a desire to keep moving forward on that work, to build on these historic bipartisan achievements over the last year, and continue working with members of Congress of both parties to deliver results for the American people.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thanks.

Next question, let’s go to Maureen Groppe at USA Today.

Q    Hi, thanks.  I had a broader question and then a specific question.  On the broader question: Is this bipartisan emphasis — is this going to be the largest part of the speech?  And could we also expect the President to lay out areas where he has differences with Republicans?

And then, on the specific question: Is there anything more you can say about the action you’re going to take to help people avoid smoking and stop smoking?

MS. LINKE YOUNG:  So, on your first question — you know, we are talking on this call about the Unity Agenda and these four pillars.  We have also previewed broader pieces of the speech.  And I will sort of leave you to tonight for the general themes.

I will turn it over to Danielle on the tobacco pieces.

MS. CARNIVAL:  Yeah, thank you.  So I think what the President is really focused on is the progress we’ve seen over the last 30 years in reducing adult and youth smoking rates.  And that has contributed significantly to the gains we have seen in cutting the cancer death rate over the last three decades.  And a lot of that is through tobacco cessation.

But it’s still an issue.  And so we’re committed to continuing to use authorities and programs to keep making progress and especially with a focus on helping individuals avoid smoking in the first place and supporting Americans who want to quit.  So, getting support services out for as many people, reaching as many people as possible so that we can prevent the cancer impact and we know the broader health impact that smoking has.

Thank you.

MR. MUNOZ:  All right, next let’s go to Darlene Superville at the Associated Press.

Q    Hi.  Thanks for your time this morning.  Apart from calling on Congress to reauthorize the National Cancer Act, can you say what other elements of the — what other end — agenda items laid out here today will require legislative action?  It sounds like some of this — some of these things the President or the administration can do on their own, but what else would require Congress?  Thank you.

And could the person who is answering please identify?  It’s hard to know your voices.

MS. LINKE YOUNG:  Sorry, this is — this is Christen, and I can start here.  So, across all four pillars of the Unity Agenda, the President is laying out both commitments to take additional administrative action, using authority that we have today, building on the work that we’ve done over the last two years.  And he’s also calling on Congress to take additional steps.  And so in all four pillars of the Unity Agenda, there are components of action that require Congress and components that we will continue to work on ourselves.

Specifically, when it comes to mental health and veterans, we’re calling for bipartisan support in Congress to ban targeted advertising online for children and young people and enact strong protections for youth privacy, health, and safety online, and improve privacy and transparency online for all Americans.

We also look forward to working with Congress on set policies that the President will announce in his budget to pave a path to entitlement — to an entitlement for housing assistance to all those who have served their countries.

And I will turn it over to Danielle and Dr. Gupta on the other two pieces.

MS. CARNIVAL:  Dr. Gupta, go ahead.

DR. GUPTA:  Thank you.  So, you know, one of the things that’s very important and we were happy to see Congress, in a bipartisan way, schedule fentanyl-related substances as part of Schedule I for two years.  But it is still a schedule that will expire on December 31st, 2024.  So the President is going to be calling on Congress to look at that to make this permanent.  And it’s going to be important in order to protect Americans from the threat of lethal drugs, such as fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances.

MS. CARNIVAL:  And this is Danielle.  You mentioned the calling on the reauthorization of the National Cancer Act.  And just to say one more sentence or two on that: The President has often said we need to update our cancer research and care systems for today’s fight.  What we — what has delivered progress over the last 50 years was set up in the original National Cancer Act, and so we think it’s time for another bipartisan effort to come together and realize a 21st century cancer system with clinical trial networks that reach every community, modern data system so we can share knowledge and make progress faster.

And in 2016, as I said earlier, Congress came together to pass the 21st Century Cures Act, which provided additional funding for the fight against cancer.  We can lock in that strong bipartisan support going forward.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thanks.  Let’s go to Josh Wingrove at Bloomberg.

Q    Hey there.  Thank you so much.  The factsheet talks about a diplomatic push on fentanyl.  I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about that.  Is that aimed at countries like China, for instance, where some of the substances that ultimately contribute to this come from?  Or is it aimed at, like Mexico, where sometimes those are manufactured into the final drug product and then cross the border?  Can you speak a little bit more about this push and whether the President will, for instance, call out particular countries?  Thanks.

MR. MUNOZ:  Dr. Gupta.

DR. GUPTA:  Thank you, Kevin.  Josh, one of the things that we know is important is to make sure that we’re addressing the entire global supply chain of fentanyl and precursor compounds.  This is why the President has been so forward leaning when it’s talking with President López Obrador in Mexico or President Xi in China.

And this is important — this is important to not only address the precursor chemicals that are being shipped predominantly from China.  We have very specific asks of the PRC to take action that we know would — will significantly reduce, if not eliminate, that shipping of precursor chemicals, but also at the same time to ensure that where the production happens of fentanyl, which is mostly in Mexico, that we’re working with the Mexican authorities and the leadership there.

So that’s part of the diplomatic push that the President is going to be calling on to ensure that we’re working with these countries to hold illicit actors accountable in their countries.  And we want to work with the leaders of these countries to make sure that they do just that.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thanks, Josh.

Next, we’ll go to Rebecca Kheel at Military.com.

Q    Hi, yes.  Thanks for doing this.  I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on the housing entitlement for veterans.  What do you mean by “pave a path”?  How are you going to do that?  And how does that differ from existing assistance programs like HUD-VASH?

MS. TANIELIAN:  This is Terri.  So we are going to be releasing additional details of the President’s budget in just a few weeks.  But here we are looking at what ways we can firm up an entitlement to help support particularly low-income veterans who we know have a difficulty finding permanent housing.  And so we’re looking to make it easier for them to afford rent and stay housed.  And so we’ll be providing additional details in the President’s budget in just a few weeks.  Thank you.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thanks, Rebecca.  We’ll take a few more questions.

Next, let’s go to Shirish Dáte at Huff Post.

Q    Hey, can you all hear me?

MR. MUNOZ:  Yep.

Q    Okay.  This is a kind of a big-picture question for — I guess for Kate.  Unemployment is really, really low right now — most in, like, 50 years or 55 years or something.  And yet, polls show that people are continuing to worry about the economy.  What is the disconnect?  I mean, how did we get to a point where you have this economy and people think it’s terrible?

MS. LINKE YOUNG:  So — so, I think, you know, fundamentally, this President is focused on delivering results for the American people, and we’ve seen him do that over and over and over again.  You’ve seen him do it on the Unity Agenda, which we we’ve — we’ve talked about today, and you see him do it across the economy.  And that’s going to continue to be our focus for the next two years.

We are going to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis to make progress on the issues that we’re talking about today.  We’re going to keep doing our work with the tools and resources that we have at our disposal to make improvements on mental health, on veterans’ issues, and ending cancer as we know it, and on combatting the opioid and overdose crisis, and on so many issues that matter to the American people.

That’s what we’re focused on accomplishing, and we look forward to continuing to talk to the American people about the work that we are doing and the results that we’re delivering every time.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thanks.  We’ll take a couple more.  Let’s go to Tommy Christopher.

Q    Hi.  Can you hear me?

MR. MUNOZ:  Yep.

Q    Oh, good.  Yeah, my question is for you, Kate.  Sorry, my question is for you, Kate.  I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about the post-speech strategy.  Are you guys going to have — who are you going to send out to the networks?  Are you going to have a presence on Fox News?  And what — what’s the mission going to be?

And then, secondarily, I know — I know, you’re probably not going to announce this now, but is there any more thought being given to the Fox News interview at the Super Bowl?

MR. MUNOZ:  Hey, Tom, we can follow up on some of the specifics here, but as we’ve announced last week, there’s going to be a blitz of Cabinet officials, the President, the Vice President, across the country — to red states, blue states, states in between — to talk about all of the ways the President and Vice President are delivering.

We have time for one more question.  Let’s go to Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post.

Q    Hi, thank you very much.  Can you talk a little bit about the changes you intend to make in the Mental Health Parity rules?

MS. LINKE YOUNG:  Sure.  This is — this is Christen.  As you know, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act requires that health insurance plans of all types offer coverage for mental health services on the same terms as physical health services, and that they don’t put barriers to care for people trying to access mental health benefits that don’t apply in the physical health space.

This is a critical protection, but we know that too many insurance companies don’t comply with the rules, and they place barriers in front of patient access that shouldn’t be there, and contribute to the fact that, on average, it takes more than a decade for people to access mental health care after they first begin experiencing symptoms.  And we need to change that.

So the reforms that we are focused on for rulemaking will make it easier to enforce the standards and ensure that insurance companies are meeting their obligations to the American people, and provide a structure that ensures that insurance companies are measuring their performance and meeting their obligations to offer mental health services on the same terms as physical health services.

MR. MUNOZ:  Thanks, Christen.  And thank you, everybody, for joining.

As a reminder, this call is on the record and embargoed for one more hour, until 10:30 a.m.  If you don’t have the factsheet, let me know.  With that, have a good day.

9:31 A.M. EST

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February 07, 2023   

FACT SHEET: In State of the Union, President Biden to Outline Vision to Advance Progress on Unity Agenda in Year Ahead

Statements and Releases  

During his first State of the Union address, President Biden announced a four-part Unity Agenda focused on areas where members of both parties can come together and make additional progress for the American people: ending cancer as we know it; delivering on the sacred obligation to veterans; tackling the mental health crisis; and beating the opioid and overdose epidemic.

Over the last year, the President was proud to work with Democrats and Republicans to enact major legislation that delivers on all aspects of this four-part agenda. In his State of the Union today, the President will announce a new set of policies to continue to make progress advancing his Unity Agenda and deliver results for families across the country.

Accelerating Progress to End Cancer as We Know It Today

Cancer has touched nearly every American family, and it remains the second leading cause of death in America. To accelerate progress in the fight against cancer, last year, the President and First Lady reignited the Cancer Moonshot with the goal of cutting U.S. cancer death rates by at least half in 25 years and improving the experience of individuals, caregivers, and families living with and surviving cancer. Over the past year, the Cancer Moonshot has announced nearly 30 new federal programs, policies and resources to close the screening gap, tackle environmental exposure, decrease preventable cancers, advance cutting-edge research, support patients and caregivers, and more. More than 60 private companies, non-profits, academic institutions, and patient groups have also answered the President’s call and stepped up with new actions and collaborations. The President will call on Congress to act to end cancer as we know it, and the Cancer Moonshot will drive additional progress this year by:

Bringing America’s cancer research system into the 21st century. As we work to continue the progress we’ve made over the last year, the Administration is urging Congress to reauthorize the National Cancer Act, which 52 years ago set up the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in its current form. The reauthorization will update the nation’s cancer research and care systems to put modern American innovation fully to work to end cancer as we know it. This includes standing up clinical trial networks, creating new data systems that break down silos, and ensuring that knowledge gained through research is available to as many experts as possible, so we can find answers faster and make a difference for patients. Working with Congress, we can also lock in the strong investment in cancer research that passed in 2016 as part of the broadly bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which otherwise expires this year.

Providing patient navigation support to every American facing cancer. The Biden-Harris Administration will take steps to ensure that patient navigation services – services that help guide individuals, caregivers, and families through cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship – are covered benefits going forward for as many people facing cancer as possible. These patient navigation services not only improve the experience for those patients and their families, they improve patient outcomes and provide value back to the health care system.

Tackling the biggest single driver of cancer deaths in this country – smoking. The Administration is preparing further action to help people avoid smoking in the first place and support Americans who want to quit. These steps could prevent as much as 30 percent of cancer deaths in this country, saving up to 130,000 American lives, annually. While we have made progress, tobacco products still hook too many young people at an early age and take control away from individual Americans to make the decision not to smoke. The Administration is working to put that control back in the hands of Americans.

During his first State of the Union address, President Biden cited the recent announcement of his plan to supercharge the Cancer Moonshot and called on Congress to fund ARPA-H, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, to drive breakthroughs in cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and other diseases. Since that time, the President and Congress have stepped up together to provide ARPA-H $2.5 billion in initial investment. The President also signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lower prescription drug costs for tens of thousands of cancer patients with Medicare coverage. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will also help cut cancer deaths by accelerating clean-up at Superfund sites and helping states and communities replace lead pipes and service lines.

Supporting America’s Veterans and Their Families, Caregivers, and Survivors

The President believes there is no more sacred obligation than taking care of our nation’s military service members, veterans, and their families, caregivers, and survivors. On health care, education, and housing, the Administration and Congress have worked together to make progress to connect veterans and their families to needed resources. Over the past year, the Administration expanded benefits for veterans as well as their caregivers and survivors, and delivered more benefits and health care more quickly to more veterans than ever before. In 2022, VA processed an all-time record 1.7 million veteran claims, and delivered $128 billion in earned benefits to 6.1 million veterans and survivors. In the State of the Union, the President will announce his Administration plans to continue that work by:

Reducing veteran suicide. Suicide among veterans is a public health and national security crisis. Since 2010, more than 71,000 veterans have died by suicide – more than the total number of deaths from combat during the Vietnam War and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Since releasing a comprehensive strategy for reducing military and veteran suicide, both DOD and VA reported declines in suicide deaths, but much more remains to be done. This will include actions to:  

•Support states and territories. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is working with the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense (DOD) to partner with 49 states and 5 territories through the Governor’s Challenge. To help facilitate this work, VA will launch a new $10 million program to provide federal resources to states, territories, Tribes and Tribal organizations to develop and implement proposals under the program.

•Increase lethal means safety: In the coming year, VA will deploy new resources to improve suicide risk identification and increase lethal means safety counseling and safe storage. VA will offer additional training for the 1.3 million community providers and expand KeepItSecure, the landmark lethal means safety campaign, with new resources and materials for providers, caregivers, family members of veterans, and gun shop owners to encourage safe storage of firearms and lethal medications.

•Expand outreach to justice involved veterans. Veterans who become involved in the criminal justice system may be at high risk of suicide. Through Veteran Treatment Courts and other justice outreach engagements, VA is able to provide veterans access to benefits and services that can be life-changing, and VA will accelerate hiring of veteran justice outreach professionals to expand these programs.

•Expand Access to Legal Support Services. VA will build upon and expand its current 28 Medical-Legal Partnerships. Family caregivers participating in VA’s Program of Comprehensive Assistance will also be able to receive Financial and Legal Assistance later this year. VA will also award up to 75 grants under its new Legal Services for Homeless Veterans and Veterans at Risk for Homeless (LSV-H) program to provide legal services to veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Expanding access to peer support, including mental health services. Military service increases the risk of mental health problems and other adjustment challenges for veterans. Veteran Peer Specialists are a critical asset within VA’s workforce, working across various programs to connect their fellow veterans to services, participate as members of health care teams, and provide individual and group-based peer support. Last year, VA pledged to hire an additional 280 peer specialists and is on track to meet this goal by the end of 2023. VA will increase the number of peer specialists working across VA medical centers by 350 over the next 7 years.

Ensuring access to affordable, stable housing for low-income veterans. Every veteran should have a roof over their head. The President’s upcoming budget will triple the number of extremely low-income veterans who can access the assistance they need to afford rent over the years ahead, paving the path to an entitlement for those who have served our country. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness declined by 11% between 2020 and 2022 and the United States permanently housed more than 40,000 veterans in 2022 alone.

Delivering high-quality job training for veterans and their spouses. Roughly 200,000 service members transition from the military to civilian life each year. In the coming year, DOL’s Veteran Employment and Training Service (DOL-VETS) will implement its Employment Navigator Partnership Pilot, which has already provided one-on-one career assistance to 6,500 transitioning service members and military spouses. And, the Department of Defense will use the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot program, a 12-week paid fellowship program, to expand employment opportunities for eligible military spouses.

In last year’s State of the Union, the President called for Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to address military toxic exposures. In August 2022, President Biden signed the bipartisan PACT Act into law, the most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic exposed veterans in more than 30 years. Over the last year, the Administration also took critical action to help reduce veteran suicide, including transitioning the Veterans Crisis Line to “988, press 1.” The Administration also expanded access to reproductive health services for women veterans, supported more than 2.3 million children living with wounded, ill, or injured service members through the First Lady’s Joining Forces Initiative, and implemented key measures to protect veterans from predatory for-profit colleges.

Tackling the Mental Health Crisis

Forty percent of American adults report symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the percent of children and adolescents with anxiety and depression has risen nearly thirty percent. Last year, President Biden called for additional actions to advance his Mental Health Strategy across its three objectives: support Americans by creating healthy environments; strengthening system capacity, and connecting more Americans to care.  Over the last year, the Administration invested critical resources to provide mental health and substance use supports to Americans, including by expanding Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, investing unprecedented resources in the 988 suicide prevention hotline, and taking steps to help address the harms of social media on youth. In the State of the Union, the President will say that we will continue that work by:

Creating healthy environments. Decades of research show that coordinating prevention and recovery support across settings can pay long-term dividends. The Biden-Harris Administration will:

•Protect kids online. There is compelling and growing evidence that social media and other tech platforms can be harmful to mental health, wellbeing and development. Children, adolescents, and teens are especially vulnerable to such harm. More than one-third of American teens say they use a major social media platform “almost constantly” and that they spend “too much time on social media.” Far too often, the platforms do not enforce their own terms of service with respect to minors who use their products and services. Children are also subject to the platforms’ excessive data collection vacuum, which they use to deliver sensational and harmful content and troves of paid advertising. Children also suffer from bullying, harassment, abuse, and even sexual exploitation by other users online. And platforms use manipulative design techniques embedded in their products to promote addictive and compulsive use by young people in the name of “user engagement” – all to generate more revenue. The Administration will build on the Surgeon-General’s Youth Mental Health Advisory, the Department of Health and Human Services’ new Center of Excellence on Social Media and Mental Wellness, and the recent passage of the Children and Media Research Advancement Act. Platforms and other interactive digital service providers should be required to prioritize the privacy and wellbeing of young people above profit and revenue in their product design, including safety by design standards and practices for online platforms, products, and services. The President is calling for bipartisan support to ban targeted advertising online for children and young people and enact strong protections for their privacy, health and safety online.

•Strengthen data privacy and platform transparency for all Americans: Big Tech companies collect huge amounts of data on the things we buy, the websites we visit, and the places we go.  There should be clear and strict limits on the ability to collect, use, transfer, and maintain our personal data, especially for sensitive data such as geolocation and health information, and the burden must fall on companies – not consumers – to minimize how much information they collect. We must also demand transparency about the algorithms companies use that far too often discriminate against Americans and sow division. The President has called for imposing much stronger transparency requirements on Big Tech platforms and is calling for bipartisan support to impose strong limits on targeted advertising and the personal data that companies collect on all Americans.

•Support the mental health of the health workforce. Even before the pandemic, health workers were experiencing high levels of burnout, anxiety, and depression. Studies have shown that burnout have reached crisis levels, affecting up to 54 percent of nurses and physicians. This year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will launch a new campaign to provide a hub of mental health and resiliency resources to health care organizations in better supporting their workforce

•Promote youth resilience. While rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm among youth have been on the rise over the past several years, there are also remarkable stories of hope and resilience. To help foster innovation in promoting resilience, HHS will launch a new Children and Youth Resilience Prize Challenge, awarding a total of $750,000 in a new pilot program.  

Connecting more Americans to care.  On average, it takes 11 years after the onset of mental health symptoms for someone to seek treatment. We can do better. To mitigate these challenges, the Administration is working to make care more affordable and accessible across all types of health insurance, integrating mental health services into settings that are more familiar, such as schools, and expanding access to telehealth. To continue this progress, the Biden Administration will:

•Improve school-based mental health. The Department of Education (ED) will announce more than $280 million in grants to increase the number of mental health care professionals in high-need districts and strengthen the school-based mental health profession pipeline. HHS and ED intend to issue guidance and propose a rule, respectively, to remove red tape for schools, making it easier for them to provide health care to students and more easily bill Medicaid funding for these critical services.

•Strengthen parity. This spring, the Administration will propose new rules to ensure that insurance plans are not imposing inequitable barriers to care and mental health providers are being paid by health plans on par with other health care professionals.

•Enhance crisis services. The Administration launched 988, the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, in 2022, making it easier for individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis to receive timely care. In the coming year, HHS will improve the capacity of the 988 Lifeline by investing in an expansion of the crisis care workforce; scaling mobile crisis intervention services; and developing additional guidance on best practices in crisis response.

•Expand access to telehealth. HHS will triple resources dedicated to promoting interstate license reciprocity for delivery of mental health services across state lines. VA will launch a new nationwide network of behavioral health clinicians to ensure timely access to evidence-based mental health services to veterans enrolled in VA health care. And, DoD will continue to expand the BRAVE program, a virtual behavioral health center providing services 24/7 to service members and their families located on federal installations across the globe.

Strengthening system capacity. Severe shortages in the behavioral health workforce are at the center of the mental health crisis. In addition to implementing legislation passed by Congress that creates 350 new slots to help train the next generation of mental health professionals, the Administration will:

•Recruit diverse candidates to the mental health profession: HHS will increase funding to recruit future mental health professionals from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and to expand the Minority Fellowship Program.

•Prioritize research: The Office of Science and Technology Policy and Domestic Policy Council released the White House Report on Mental Health Research Priorities, which identifies key areas where additional scientific research is needed to address our national mental health crisis. These priorities will ensure coordination across the federal agencies and private sector partners that support or perform mental health research.

Last year, after the President called for addressing the nation’s mental health crisis in the State of the Union, the Administration made important progress on expanding access to mental health services and treatment for substance use. President Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which makes unprecedented investment in youth mental health and supports school-based health services. The Administration also oversaw the successful transition to 988, the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, investing over $500 million to strengthen 988 infrastructure and grow local crisis-center capacity – a twenty-fold increase over the prior administration. The Biden Administration also developed new resources to support the mental health and resilience of frontline workers, expanded Medicare coverage to include additional mental health and substance use disorder services, and encouraged states to better address youth mental health for those with Medicaid coverage.

Beating the Opioid and Overdose Epidemic by Accelerating the Crackdown on Fentanyl Trafficking and Public Health Efforts to Save Lives

Last year, President Biden announced his plan to beat the opioid epidemic as part of his Unity Agenda, because opioid use and trafficking affect families in red communities and blue communities and every community in between. Under President Biden’s leadership, overdose deaths and poisonings have decreased for five months in a row – but these deaths remain unacceptably high and are primarily caused by fentanyl. In the State of the Union, the President will announce key actions the Administration to tackle this issue head on, including by:  

Disrupting the trafficking, distribution, and sale of fentanyl. In just the last year Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seized a historic 260,000 pounds of illicit drugs primarily at ports of entry on our border, including nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program were involved in the seizure of more than 26,000 pounds of fentanyl in FY22—including 50.6 million fentanyl-laced counterfeit prescription pills—along with over 6,500 pounds of heroin, 335,000 pounds of methamphetamine, and 370,000 pounds of cocaine. The HIDTA seizures denied $9 billion to drug traffickers, cutting into their profits. Further, through President Biden’s Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions on Foreign Persons Involved in the Global Illicit Drug Trade, the Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions against dozens of individuals and entities involved in the illicit drug trade. To aggressively expand on this historic effort, the President will announce in the State of Union that his administration will:

•Stop more fentanyl from getting into the U.S. at the Southwest Border Ports of Entry. By providing 123 new large-scale scanners at Land Points of Entry along the Southwest Border by Fiscal Year 2026, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will increase its inspection capacity from what has historically been around two percent of passenger vehicles and about 17 percent of cargo vehicles to 40 percent of passenger vehicles and 70 percent of cargo vehicles. These investments will crack down on a major avenue of fentanyl trafficking, securing our border and keeping dangerous drugs from reaching our country.

•Stop more packages from being shipped into the United States with fentanyl and the materials used to make it. Drug traffickers use small, hard-to-track packages to ship opioids and other illicit materials into and within the United States, hidden among the millions of packages sent daily via commercial package delivery companies. That’s why CBP is working with these companies to have them voluntarily provide data that help law enforcement identify, inspect and intercept suspicious packages. Through these combined public-private efforts, CBP has increased seizures in commercial package delivery services’ warehouses from 42,000 pounds of illicit substances to more than 63,000 pounds in just the past two years. This year, CBP will expand these voluntary data sharing partnerships to capture more information – and, in turn, seize more packages.

•Lead a sustained diplomatic push that will address fentanyl and its supply chain abroad.  The Administration will work with international partners to disrupt the global fentanyl production and supply chain, and call on others to join our efforts. We will focus on seizing chemical ingredients and fentanyl before it can reach our communities, and hold accountable the producers, traffickers, and facilitators of these deadly drugs. Many of these ingredients and materials originate outside our borders, and we will call on global partners to work with us and do more to disrupt the criminal elements within their countries who sell chemicals and tools for the production of counterfeit pills around the world.

•Work with Congress to make permanent tough penalties on suppliers of fentanyl. The federal government regulates illicitly produced fentanyl analogues and related substances as Schedule I drugs, meaning they are subject to strict regulations and criminal penalties. But traffickers have found a loophole: they can easily alter the chemical structure of fentanyl—creating “fentanyl related substances” (FRS)—to evade regulation and enhance the drug’s impact. The DEA and Congress temporarily closed this loophole by making all FRS Schedule I. The Administration looks forward to working with Congress on its comprehensive proposal to permanently schedule all illicitly produced FRS into Schedule I. Traffickers of these deadly substances must face the penalties they deserve, no matter how they adjust their drugs.

Expanding access to evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery. Over the last year, the Biden-Harris Administration took unprecedented steps to expand access to naloxone and other harm reduction interventions, such as permitting the use of $50 million for local public health departments to purchase naloxone, releasing guidance to make it easier for programs to obtain and distribute naloxone to at-risk populations, and prioritizing the review of over-the-counter naloxone applications. The Administration has also fundamentally changed addiction treatment across the country by working with Congress to remove barriers that prevented medical professionals from prescribing treatment for opioid use disorder and pursuing rulemaking to make permanent the COVID-19 era flexibilities that allowed for telehealth prescribing of buprenorphine and take-home methadone doses. To further connect people to life-saving help, the Biden-Harris Administration will:

•Deliver more life-saving naloxone to communities hit hard by fentanyl. In late spring, HHS will take new steps to encourage and aid states in their efforts to use existing funding to purchase naloxone and distribute it in their communities. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will provide enhanced technical assistance to states who have existing State Opioid Response funds, and will host peer learning forums, national policy academies, and convenings with organizations distributing naloxone beginning this spring.

•Ensure every jail and prison across the nation can provide treatment for substance use disorder. Providing treatment while individuals are in jails and prisons, and continuing their treatment in their communities, has been proven to decrease overdose deaths, reduce crime, and increase employment during reentry. By this summer, the Federal Bureau of Prisons will ensure that each of their 122 facilities are equipped and trained to provide in-house medication-assisted treatment (MAT). Further, since more than 90 percent of individuals who are incarcerated are in state and local jails and prisons, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will provide guidance this spring allowing states to use Medicaid funds to provide health care services—including treatment for people with substance use disorder—to individuals in those facilities prior to their release.

•Build on historic progress to drastically expand access to medications for opioid use disorder. The Biden-Harris Administration will further expand access to treatment by working with medical professionals to make prescribing proven treatments, including buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, part of routine health care delivery and ensure that manufacturers, wholesalers, and pharmacies are making medications available to everyone with a prescription.

•Launch a national campaign to educate young people on the dangers of fentanyl, and how naloxone saves lives. The Ad Council’s Real Deal on Fentanyl campaign has raised awareness about the dangers of fentanyl among youth. ONDCP and the Ad Council will build on this work by launching a naloxone education component of the campaign, which will reach the young people who are the fastest-growing age group to experience opioid overdose and poisoning by engaging popular social media platforms, college athletes and campus-based organizations. The campaign will also develop media to be shared on college campuses, in bars, public transportation stations, and retail locations to educate young people about the dangers of fentanyl and highlight naloxone resources.

During his first State of the Union address, President Biden called on Congress to get rid of outdated rules that stop doctors from prescribing treatments and provide law enforcement with the tools necessary to stop the flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl. In his State of the Union today, President Biden will highlight a bipartisan effort that delivered on his promise by passing the MAT Act, which removed the X-waiver as a barrier for health care providers prescribing life-saving medications for opioid use disorder at a time when fewer than 1 out 10 of Americans can access the treatment they need. President Biden also signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act that included a two-year extension to classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I substances under the Controlled Substances Act, ensuring law enforcement has the tools they need to respond to the manufacture and trafficking of illicitly manufactured synthetic opioids driving the overdose epidemic.

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FEBRUARY 07, 2023

The White House Announces Guest List for
the First Lady’s Box for the 2023 State of the Union Address

BRIEFING ROOM

STATEMENTS AND RELEASES

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  First Lady Jill Biden will welcome guests to join her in the viewing box for President Biden’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday, February 7, 2023. Each of these individuals were invited by the White House because they personify issues or themes to be addressed by the President in his speech, or they embody the Biden-Harris Administration’s policies at work for the American people. The Second Gentleman, Mr. Douglas Emhoff, will also join the First Lady in the viewing box.   

In recognition of sustained U.S. support for Ukraine nearly a year after Russia launched its unprovoked attack, the First Lady has again invited the Ambassador of Ukraine, Oksana Markarova, to join her as a guest for the State of the Union.

The following individuals, listed in alphabetical order, will be seated in the box with the First Lady and Second Gentleman:

Maurice and Kandice Barron (New York, New York)

The Barrons’ three-year old daughter, Ava, is a survivor of a rare form of pediatric cancer. Mr. Barron penned a letter to the President to express gratitude for the Bidens’ commitment to the Cancer Moonshot initiative and share their experience as parents and caregivers of a child with cancer. In 2022, Ava’s doctors gave the Barrons good news by officially declaring her in remission. Their family’s story is one of hope and possibility, inspiring us to continue working towards a future where we end cancer as we know it.

Lynette Bonar (Tuba City, Arizona)

Bonar is an enrolled member of Navajo Nation. She was a sergeant and former medic in the U.S. Army. She spent 19 years providing clinical care as a Registered Nurse and Executive at the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation, including eight years as Chief Executive Officer. In 2019, Dr. Biden joined Bonar to celebrate the opening of the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation’s Specialty Care Center which was the first cancer center opened on a Native American reservation, bringing cancer treatment and other oncology services to the Navajo, Hopi, and San Juan Southern Paiute tribal members who previously had to travel great distances to receive care.

Bono (Dublin, Ireland)

The lead singer of U2, Bono is a groundbreaking activist in the fight against HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty.  Working in concert with other activists, he played a pivotal role building public and bipartisan political support for the creation of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), a program announced by President Bush in his State of the Union twenty years ago, and championed by then-Senator Biden.  PEPFAR is credited with revolutionizing the provision of life-saving HIV medications in poorer countries and saving 25 million lives worldwide. Bono is the cofounder of the nonpartisan ONE Campaign, which works with governments to fight poverty and preventable disease, and (RED), which has raised more than $700 million from businesses to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Deanna Branch (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

Branch shared her family’s experiences with lead exposure with Vice President Harris in Milwaukee in 2022 and at the White House in 2023. Branch is working to build a lead safe environment for her community after her son Aidan battled lead poisoning as a result of unsafe levels of lead in their drinking water and home. She and her two sons had to move out of the house that they loved because it was no longer a safe environment to raise a family. Through historic levels of funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and American Rescue Plan, and using additional tools across federal, state, and local governments, the Biden-Harris Administration is working to replace all lead service lines in America in the next decade.

Kristin Christensen and Avarie Kollmar (Seattle, Washington)

Christensen is a mother of three and a caregiver to her husband who was medically retired from the Navy due to combat-related injuries. In 2021, she was appointed as a Fellow with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation where she and her daughter, Avarie, advocate for military and veteran children in caregiving homes, known as “Hidden Helpers.” Christensen and Avarie share their stories to help others to identify as caregivers, seek out support, and know they are not alone. Christensen also works with local and state officials to support caregivers through the Dole Foundation’s Hidden Heroes Cities and Counties Program. In 2022, Christensen and Kollmar shared their experiences with the First Lady during a Joining Forces event in support of Hidden Helpers.  Joining Forces is the First Lady’s White House initiative to support military and veteran families, survivors, and caregivers.

Ruth Cohen (Rockville, Maryland)

Cohen is a survivor of the Holocaust and a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. During the Nazi regime, Cohen and her family were forced from their home, and Cohen was later sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Cohen was liberated in 1945 and immigrated to the United States three years later. In 2022, Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Emhoff met Cohen prior to International Holocaust Remembrance Day to raise awareness about the history and dangers of antisemitism. Cohen is a special guest of Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff.

Mitzi Colin Lopez (West Chester, Pennsylvania)

At just three years old, Colin Lopez’s parents brought her to the United States from Mexico.  She grew up only knowing the United States as her home. As a DREAMer, she applied for and received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2015, and has since graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She is an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform and in 2021, Colin Lopez met the President to share her experiences as a DACA recipient.

Maurice “Dion” Dykes (Knoxville, Tennessee)

Dykes is currently training to fulfill his dream of becoming a teacher through a teacher Registered Apprenticeship program, one of the pathways supported by Tennessee’s Grow Your Own strategic efforts. Approved by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2022 with support from the American Rescue Plan, Tennessee’s teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs have helped the state establish no-cost pathways to the teaching profession. Dykes spent the first 25 years of his career working in graphic design. In 2022, the First Lady met Dykes during a visit to Sarah Moore Greene Magnet Academy to highlight ways states and school districts are recruiting and preparing qualified educators for the classroom.

Kate Foley (Arlington Heights, Illinois)

Foley is a 10th grade computer-integrated manufacturing student at Rolling Meadows High School in Illinois High School District 214, a public high school that prepares students for future careers through partnerships with the local community college, work-based learning opportunities with employers, and career advising programs. Foley hopes to pursue a career as a biomedical engineer using the knowledge learned through her engineering classes started as a high school student. In 2022, the First Lady met Foley during a visit to Rolling Meadows High School to highlight the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to strengthening our economy and building pathways from high school to good-paying jobs, through career-connected learning.  

Darlene Gaffney (North Charleston, South Carolina)

Gaffney was diagnosed with Stage 2 Breast Cancer in March 2015. A cancer survivor, she joined Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church’s Cancer Support Ministry because she wanted to use her own experience to educate others in her church and community about the importance of early detection and getting recommended cancer screenings.  In 2021, the First Lady met with Gaffney at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center during a visit to promote breast cancer awareness. In February 2022, the President and First Lady reignited the Cancer Moonshot initiative, setting ambitious goals to end cancer as we know it.

Doug Griffin (Newton, New Hampshire)

Griffin lost his 20-year-old daughter, Courtney, in 2014 to a fentanyl overdose. Now, Griffin is turning his loss into action by supporting other families like his affected by addiction, raising awareness about the stigma associated with addiction, and calling for better access to substance use disorder treatment services. In 2021, Griffin penned a letter to the President and First Lady to share his family’s painful journey. Addressing stigma associated with addiction, raising awareness about the dangers of fentanyl, going after drug traffickers’ profits fueling the production of synthetic opioids, and dramatically expanding access treatment for substance use disorders are key focuses of President Biden’s National Drug Control Strategy – a whole-of-government approach to beat the overdose epidemic.

Saria Gwin-Maye (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Gwin-Maye is as an ironworker and member of Ironworkers Local 44 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2023, she introduced the President at the Brent Spence Bridge in Covington, Kentucky, which is receiving a major investment thanks to the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Ironworkers like Gwin-Maye, and other union workers will get the opportunity to do work repairing Brent Spence Bridge and on other significant projects nationwide as a result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Jacki Liszak (Fort Myers, Florida)

Liszak is the President and CEO of the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce and is an elected Fire Commissioner for the Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District. She and her husband also own and operate small businesses in the area. In 2022, the President and First Lady met Liszak when they surveyed the storm damage from Hurricane Ian. The President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are lowering energy costs and making communities like Fort Myers more resilient to extreme weather events through record funding to strengthen and weatherize our nation’s power grid, roads, bridges, homes, public water systems and more.

Harry Miller (Upper-Arlington, Ohio)

Miller is a senior in mechanical engineering and a former football player for The Ohio State University. In 2022, he announced he would no longer continue to be a student-athlete to prioritize his mental health and has since become an advocate for mental health and emotional wellness.  President Biden has named tackling the mental health crisis a key pillar of his Unity Agenda, laying out a strategy to transform how mental health is understood, perceived, accessed, treated, and integrated – in and out of health care settings. Since taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration has significantly increased federal government investments in mental health support for Americans across the country.

Gina and Heidi Nortonsmith (Northampton, Massachusetts)

The Nortonsmiths’ advocacy work as plaintiffs in Goodridge vs. MA Dept. of Public Health led to their state becoming the first in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. They celebrated this victory by getting married on the first day that same-sex marriage licenses were issued in Massachusetts in 2004. In 2022, the Nortonsmiths introduced the President at the Respect for Marriage Act celebration on the South Lawn of the White House.

Paul Pelosi (San Francisco, California)

Pelosi is a businessman, father, and husband of Speaker Emerita of the House Nancy Pelosi. Mr. Pelosi was violently attacked by an intruder in their California home in the fall of 2022. The attack reportedly was politically motivated, with the intruder’s alleged intent to harm and kidnap the former Speaker. According to court filings, the intruder confronted Mr. Pelosi, asking “Where’s Nancy?,” a similar chant of those responsible for the January 6th Capitol insurrection.

Paul Sarzoza (Phoenix, Arizona)

Sarzoza is a small business owner, serving as the President and CEO of Verde, a cleaning and facilities services company. His biggest customer is TSMC, a semiconductor manufacturing company, which is expanding because of the President’s CHIPS and Science Act.  To keep up with the increased demand for his company’s services, Sarzoza plans to hire 150-200 employees in the next year. The growth of Sarzoza’s business demonstrates the Biden-Harris Administration’s economic plan at work.  

Brandon Tsay (San Marino, California)

Tsay demonstrated remarkable courage when he disarmed the shooter responsible for the mass shooting at the Monterey Park Lunar New Year celebrations, ensuring his violent rage would not take more lives at the nearby Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio, which is owned by the Tsay family. Tsay is credited with preventing the gunman, who had killed 11 people and injured 10 others, from carrying out a second attack in Alhambra.  

RowVaughn and Rodney Wells (Memphis, Tennessee)

RowVaughn and Rodney Wells are the mother and stepfather of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year old unarmed Black man who was severely beaten by multiple police officers during an alleged traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee. Nichols was hospitalized afterwards and died three days later as a result of his injuries. President Biden has made clear that we must take action to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again. In addition to signing an executive order last year, the President continues to call on Congress to send the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to his desk.

Amanda and Josh Zurawski (Austin, Texas)

Amanda was 18 weeks pregnant when her water broke. She and her husband Josh were devastated, as they had been trying for a baby for over a year.  Her doctors were unable to intervene to help her because they were concerned that providing the treatment she needed would violate the Texas abortion ban, which prohibits abortion care unless a woman’s life is in danger.  She was sent home with instructions to come back if she developed signs of a life-threatening infection, which she did, three days later. Zurawski developed sepsis and nearly died because of the delay in receiving treatment. She continues to suffer from medical complications due to the delay.

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Sources: White House /Guardian News youtue, ABC, Arirang News, C-SPAN, MSNBC
catch4all.com, Sandra Englund, February 7, 2023

Rev February 8th, 2023