Biden's State of the Union Address: State of the Union: Biden Hails Economic Gains and Challenges the G.O.P.

Feb 28, 2024

The president’s speech unveiled no big new proposals, but he offered to work with Republicans even as he parried hecklers and sought to allay Democratic concerns about his vigor heading into 2024.

Inside the tense exchange between Romney and Santos.

Trump stages his own ‘State of the Union’ speech.

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Stephanie Lai

WASHINGTON — It began on the floor of the House, in an impromptu but strikingly testy exchange just before the State of the Union address.

Senator Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican known for his party-bucking stands and emphasis on moral rectitude, could be seen scolding Representative George Santos, the New York freshman who faces multiple investigations after fabricating much of his résumé.

Mr. Romney admonished Mr. Santos for positioning himself in a prime camera-ready spot in the chamber, saying he didn’t belong there, and had no shame.

“I didn’t expect that he’d be standing there trying to shake hands with every senator and the president of the United States,” Mr. Romney said afterward to reporters who asked about the incident, which was captured on camera and erupted on social media.

He added: “Given the fact that he’s under ethics investigation, he should be sitting in the back row and staying quiet instead of parading in front of the president and people coming into the room.”

After the tense exchange between the two Republicans, the usually cheerful Mr. Santos looked slightly stung, and then annoyed. The hostile encounter stood out in a sea of lawmakers, glad-handing and happily greeting one another.

The Utah Republican, in his remarks to reporters, did not hold back, calling Mr. Santos “a sick puppy” who should resign — a position that puts Mr. Romney at odds with Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California and the House leadership. Among the falsehoods put forward by Mr. Santos are assertions that he worked at Goldman Sachs, graduated from college, had grandparents who fled the Holocaust and a mother who escaped from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Romney told reporters such statements are not merely exaggerations.

“He says he, you know, that he embellished his record. Look, embellishing is saying you got an A when you got an A-. Lying is saying you graduated from a college that you didn’t even attend, and he shouldn’t be in Congress.”

The encounter was in many ways vintage Romney, who was one of the few Republicans to vote for impeaching President Donald J. Trump and has not shied from defying his party’s base. A onetime bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mr. Romney, 75, often frames his positions in deeply moral terms.

“He shouldn’t be in Congress,” Mr. Romney said. “If he had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be there.”

Still, the moment was also vintage Santos, who appears to enjoy nothing more than attention and was determined not to give Romney the final word, offering a final taunt on Twitter.

Shortly after the speech ended, Mr. Santos tweeted at Mr. Romney, the party’s failed 2012 presidential nominee, that he would never make it to the White House.

Hey @MittRomney just a reminder that you will NEVER be PRESIDENT! https://t.co/ANxiQPxAua

Michael Barbaro contributed reporting.

Michael C. Bender

David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist and former Obama adviser, said the Republican response to the State of the Union from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was “a very hard-edged speech that was calculated to thrill the Republican base.” “But it was a jarring contrast to Biden’s appeals to unity,” he said in a text message.

Michael C. Bender

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas delivered a scorching admonition of President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, casting him as the head of a failed administration hijacked by a “radical left” agenda that has delivered high gasoline prices and empty grocery shelves while teaching children to “hate one another on account of their race.”

“The Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day,” Ms. Sanders said. “Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight.”

Ms. Sanders, who rose to national prominence as press secretary in the Trump White House, was elected to her first public office in November and sworn in just 28 days ago.

She was picked to deliver the Republican response by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, both of whom described her as an avatar for the future of the Republican Party.

Ms. Sanders was the first Arkansan to deliver a response to the State of the Union since 1985, when Bill Clinton, then a 38-year-old governor, responded to President Reagan’s address. Her speech was also the first English-language State of the Union response from a first-time elected official since 2007, when Senator Jim Webb of Virginia gave the address three weeks after being sworn in.

Ms. Sanders, who campaigned last year on the promise of ushering in “a new generation of leadership,” leaned into the contrast between her age and that of Mr. Biden. At 40, Ms. Sanders is the nation’s youngest governor, while Mr. Biden, 80, is the oldest president in U.S. history.

Speaking from the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Ark., she encouraged a younger crop of politicians to fight for conservative ideals, calling for “a new generation of Republican leaders.”

“It’s time for a new generation to lead,” Ms. Sanders said. “This is our moment.”

While Ms. Sanders’s speech was crafted as a rebuke to Mr. Biden, the focus on age and generation also evoked her former boss, Donald J. Trump. In 2017 he became the second oldest president sworn into office, and now, at 76, he is seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination for the third consecutive time.

Ms. Sanders, who has been mentioned by some Trump allies as a potential running mate for the former president, has not endorsed his latest bid. Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for Ms. Sanders, said Tuesday that the governor was “focused on Arkansas and being governor.”

Ms. Sanders spent much of her speech describing personal stories about her time in the Trump White House, battles with cancer for herself and her mother and the work she had done during her first weeks as governor.

She highlighted executive orders she signed on her first day in office that banned the term “Latinx” from official use in the Arkansas government and required the state to review education policies that, in the order’s words, “indoctrinate students with ideologies” like critical race theory. Both issues will likely be invoked across the country as the party spends the next two years defending its new House majority while seeking to seize control of the Senate and the White House.

She also teased an education proposal she said she would unveil on Wednesday that she described as “the most far-reaching, bold, conservative education reform in the country.” Such a plan would put her in the company of several Republican governors who have seized on education issues as they consider whether to run for president.

Ms. Sanders, the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, has become one of the relatively few high-profile Trump administration officials who bolstered their careers through the experience. That milestone has become particularly noteworthy considering she worked in a particularly fraught corner of the White House, where survival — more often than success — was the daily goal while working for a president eager to react to cable news headlines and social media posts.

Still, Ms. Sanders also became a polarizing figure in her own right.

She suspended the White House press pass of a CNN reporter, Jim Acosta, who had angered the president, though a judge later ordered the pass reinstated. In a separate episode, Robert S. Mueller III wrote in his special counsel report that Ms. Sanders had acknowledged as untrue her earlier claim that the White House had heard complaints from “countless” agents about James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director fired by Mr. Trump.

But while Ms. Sanders has focused on a “new generation” of leaders, she has already spent a lifetime in Republican politics.

She was 9 when she worked on the first of her father’s six political campaigns. She served as campaign manager, at the age of 27, for John Boozman’s first Senate race in 2010 and was a senior adviser for Tom Cotton’s first Senate contest in 2014.

In her speech on Tuesday, Ms. Sanders made an appeal to leaders “born in the waning decades of the last century, shaped by economic booms and stock market busts, forged by the triumph of the Cold War and the tragedy of 9/11.” She called on them to offer “new ideas to solve age-old problems” that would “challenge the present order and find a better way forward.”

“This is our opportunity,” she said. “If we seize this moment together, America can once again be the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Michael C. Bender

Eager to burnish his 2024 bona fides as some Republicans raise doubts about his third bid for the White House, former President Donald J. Trump stood Tuesday between two American flags — in his signature blue suit and red tie — and offered his own assessment of the nation.

But even the first line was incorrect.

“Here’s the real State of the Union,” Mr. Trump said.

The real State of the Union was delivered earlier Tuesday by the sitting president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. For more than two years, Mr. Trump has repeated the lie that he won the 2020 election, falsely claiming that the election was stolen. His claims have been rebuked by numerous recounts, court rulings and assessments from his own administration.

There was no other allusion to the last presidential race during Mr. Trump’s two-minute videotaped speech, which he released after Mr. Biden finished his address.

Instead, Mr. Trump spent most of his video excoriating the Biden administration, while hitting on some of the same themes he had during two campaign events on Jan. 28, which were aimed at assuaging doubts about his 2024 campaign that have arisen in the establishment wing of the Republican Party.

Mr. Trump, who has presided over three disappointing election cycles as the Republicans’ leader, held his first event at a New Hampshire state party gathering and then introduced his South Carolina leadership team in Columbia, S.C., in the statehouse hallway where lobbyists prowl during legislative sessions. Both were extraordinary settings for a politician known for upsetting the establishment and taking direct aim at longstanding public institutions.

In his video on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said Mr. Biden was responsible for millions of undocumented immigrants who “have stormed across our southern border” and for a decline in real wages for 21 consecutive months.

Mr. Trump, who is facing a criminal investigation into his handling of classified government documents and a criminal referral to the Justice Department from the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, accused Mr. Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department. “And I’m a victim of it,” he added.

“But the good news is we are going to reverse every single crisis, calamity and disaster that Joe Biden has created,” Mr. Trump said. “I am running for president to end the destruction of our country and to complete the unfinished business of making America great again.”

Linda Qiu

— Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 107,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2021, the last full year with data available. That is an increase from 2020, when 97,000 people died from overdoses, and continues a yearslong trend of drug overdoses increasing. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl were the main source.

Customs and border agents seized some 14,700 pounds of fentanyl in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended in September, but most of the smuggled substance is not being transported by unauthorized immigrants or because of a porous southern border. Border agents who patrol the areas between crossing points seized some 2,200 pounds compared with the 12,500 pounds agents seized at legal ports of entry.

President Donald J. Trump’s administration — for which Ms. Sanders served as press secretary — regularly heralded such drug seizures as evidence of a secure, not porous, border.

Karoun Demirjian

Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee defended yelling out “it’s your fault” as Biden described the fentanyl crisis, telling reporters it was “a visceral response.”

“You just had an almost the entirety of the conference speak out against his words,” Ogles told reporters. “It just so happened as they were getting quiet, I got louder.”

Ogles is one of several Republicans who vocally objected to parts of Biden’s speech, a phenomenon that was met with a shrug, compared with how Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina was rebuked after shouting “you lie” at President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress in 2009.

Julian E. Barnes

Sanders did not make a direct reference to the spy balloon, same as Biden. But she did address it, saying Biden’s “refusal to stand up to China is dangerous” and following that up with a reference to his “refusal to defend our skies.” Some Republicans had wanted the U.S. to take out the spy balloon as soon as it was detected, but the Biden administration opted to wait and shoot it down only when it was over water.

Stephanie Lai

Senator Schumer told me as he was leaving the Capitol that he thought the president had “lots of vigor,” a nod to how the address was a test of Biden’s ability to serve as the oldest president.

Julian E. Barnes

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ address will most likely be light on the foreign policy front, at least to guess from previous minority party responses. But the spy balloon’s transit of the country last week — and Republican criticism over how the administration handled the surveillance — could get a mention and give the governor an opportunity to address the rivalry with China.

Julian E. Barnes

The Ukraine war, the most urgent of the current foreign policy challenges, did get a small section of the speech. Biden avoided the politically divisive parts of his administration’s support for Ukraine, and what additional aid — like fighter jets or longer-range missiles — the United States might be willing to give. Instead, he focused on how the West has held together, a legitimate accomplishment of his administration, which most recently navigated potential disagreements over tanks and heavy weaponry.

Stephanie Lai

Ahead of the speech, Romney was seen speaking with Santos on the House floor. He told me and other reporters that he had approached Santos to tell him he should not be in the center, eagerly trying to shake the president’s hand.

“Given the fact that he’s under an ethics investigation, he should be sitting in the back row and staying quiet, instead of parading in front of the president,” he said.

When asked if he was disappointed that McCarthy had not called on Santos to resign, Romney responded, “Yes.”

Alan Rappeport

Biden made clear that his focus on protecting Social Security and Medicare ahead of the midterms would continue for the next two years and that the White House continued to see it as a winning political argument. Expect to hear more about that as the debt limit fight plays out in the coming months.

Carl Hulse

Biden made good use of the presidential bully pulpit tonight and Republicans had to mainly sit quietly and take it, a lesson in the power of the presidency even when your party has won control of a piece of government. No doubt their criticism of the speech will be heavy, but he delivered it to a national television audience that heard mainly his side of things.

Reid Epstein

When he goes on the road this week — Wisconsin is the first stop tomorrow — Biden is going to be talking about mixing it up with Republicans during the State of the Union. It goes to his self-image as a fighter, which happens to be good politics as well.

Lisa Friedman

Overall, climate change got pretty short shrift in this speech, about 230 words if you count the victory lap he took on the Inflation Reduction Act. It's important to remember that climate was one of Biden’s top four priorities going into the presidency.

Eduardo Medina

One small object appeared to be puzzling some people online as they watched the State of the Union: What was that metallic-looking artifact near Speaker McCarthy? It may have looked like an eccentric salt-and-pepper holder, or maybe even a decorative minibar, as one person guessed. But according to the House of Representatives website for archives, it is a coin-silver inkstand from the early 1800s, considered the oldest surviving artifact of the House. It has three crystal inkwells and is adorned on both sides by eagles.

Helene Cooper

Overall, as State of the Union performances go, I think Biden knocked this one out of the park. He seemed to enjoy most the punching and counterpunching with the G.O.P. hecklers. It was, dare I say it, an interesting and lively speech?

Katie Rogers

Jeff Nussbaum, who was a Biden White House speechwriter until last spring, gives his review of tonight’s address, praising him for “seeking common ground and defining sacred ground.”

Jim Tankersley

In a decidedly not-short speech, Biden gave the economy the most airtime, according to an NBC News calculation.

"Economy" leading topic of Biden's SOTU speech, according to an @NBCNews minute by minute analysis. https://t.co/b0Y3bUpwwL pic.twitter.com/4a4AlhiUhv

Helene Cooper

Lisa, I agree on the Turkey-Syria earthquake. That is a surprise.

Helene Cooper

Better late than never! “The state of the union is strong.”

Lisa Friedman

I must say I am quite surprised that President Biden did not make any mention tonight of the devastating Turkey-Syria earthquake. The death toll is nearing 8,000.

Helene Cooper

“Democracy must not be a partisan issue,” Biden says. File that under “things that few people thought the president of the United States would have to say.”

Karoun Demirjian

Kind of notable that Biden chose not to make any specific asks of Congress when it comes to the rest of the world, especially given how many challenges he laid down at lawmakers’ feet during the economic and public safety sections of his speech. A sign of how much foreign policy power Congress has ceded to the executive over the years, or just him avoiding calling attention to the challenge of keeping things like Ukraine assistance funded?

Helene Cooper

“If she goes, I can’t stay.” Biden quotes the father of a young girl with cancer, who is, Biden said, beating the odds and watching from the White House. This would strike a chord with anyone who had nursed a sick child.

Lisa Lerer

This story about the couple with a daughter with cancer is heartbreaking. Also, I doubt that 4-year-old is still watching this speech.

Michael Crowley

— President Biden

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, President Biden led a huge political, economic and military response that has involved dozens of countries. Surprising many experts who predicted that the United States’ European allies would argue over strategy and lose their resolve, the 30-member NATO alliance has shown a unity unseen since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and, a year after the Russian invasion, continues to supply vast amounts of weapons to Ukraine.

That unity has not been perfect: NATO leaders have argued at times, including their recent tussle over whether and how to supply modern tanks to Ukraine. But many analysts believe it has surprised President Vladimir V. Putin, who did not anticipate such a strong degree of Western resolve.

President Biden also successfully rallied dozens of nations beyond NATO to join in economic sanctions against Moscow, including Asian countries like South Korea and Japan. That coalition excludes major nations like India and China, which are supporting the Kremlin's war machine through major purchases of Russian oil. But it remains among the broadest coalitions the United States has led against an adversary.

Jim Tankersley

Republicans have also booed him heartily on some of those same issues.

Jim Tankersley

Biden has managed to get Republican applause on more issues than I expected, including safety-net programs, fentanyl and taking on social media sites and other tech companies.

Julian E. Barnes

A “USA, USA” chant at the end of the China section. For the Balloon War, I suppose.

Reid Epstein

The Democratic National Committee is sending fundraising emails and texts from Jill Biden during the speech, asking for $7 (email) or $20 (text). “I’m so proud of Joe,” she wrote.

Helene Cooper

Please observe that the China balloon got a “make no mistake.”

Julian E. Barnes

He really does need to discuss the Balloon War more explicitly.

Ana Swanson

Biden is drawing a contrast with Trump on his treatment of China, but actually, many of the policies have been pretty similar. The major difference is that the Biden administration has taken a more careful and comprehensive approach that has ultimately proved pretty tough, whereas the Trump approach was more impulsive — aggressive but also scattershot.

Helene Cooper

Balloon! But he won’t say the word. Too undignified? President Biden says, “Make no mistake about it, as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.”

Julian E. Barnes

Biden is beginning his discussion of China without mentioning the spy balloon that transfixed Americans as it floated across the country last week.

Jeanna Smialek

— President Biden

President Biden said that some Republicans wanted to allow Social Security and Medicare to sunset, and implied that they were tying those demands to the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit.

It is true that a couple of Republicans have previously suggested allowing those entitlement programs to sunset as mandatory spending, instead bringing them up for regular renewal. But Republicans have recently distanced themselves from such efforts. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, has said that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” in talks over raising the debt ceiling, which Congress must vote to do in the coming month or risk a default on the government’s bills. Likewise, President Donald J. Trump has warned Republicans to leave the programs alone in the negotiations. Mr. Biden, nodding to lawmakers responding to his speech, acknowledged that it seemed that cuts to the programs were “off the books now.”

Helene Cooper

“We’re going to stand with you as long as it takes,” President Biden tells the Ukrainian ambassador. That is quite a promise considering this war is showing no signs of ending, and prospects of a negotiated settlement still seem far off. But the United States has already sent Ukraine billions since Russia invaded a year ago, and that number goes up every week.

Julian E. Barnes

Biden offered no details of additional aid to Ukraine. But there is no doubt that U.S. support for Ukraine’s military — $29.3 billion in cash and equipment from Pentagon stockpiles — has been absolutely critical for Kyiv’s success against the Russian military.

Julian E. Barnes

Intelligence leaders have said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia’s strategy is to try to outwait the West. But Biden pledges to Ukraine’s ambassador that the United States “will stand with you — as long as it takes.”

Julian E. Barnes

There have been numerous predictions that the coalition for Ukraine would break, but Biden is correct: So far the coalition has held together, and continued to step up its support.

Michael Crowley

— President Biden

Experts say that President Biden took office after years of global gains for autocracy and deep problems for democracies — as illustrated by the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. According to the nonprofit group Freedom House, in every region of the world “democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power.”

It is hard to say whether Mr. Biden has changed the situation. He has made the defense of democracies a core theme of his presidency and held a White House democracy summit in December 2021. He has worked to contain two major autocratic powers, building a coalition against Russia in defense of Ukraine — which has weakened its economy and isolated it diplomatically — and rallied allies to contest China’s political influence and technological gains. American voters rejected many election conspiracy theorists in the midterm elections last year.

But Russia and, especially, China retain considerable foreign political influence. Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, had a far-right riot in the heart of its government last month. Italy elected a prime minister whose party has fascist roots. Huge crowds in Israel are protesting new right-wing government policies that opponents call an assault on democracy itself. Last February, the Economist magazine’s annual democracy index found that “global democracy continued its precipitous decline in 2021.” Mr. Biden’s rosier view is difficult to substantiate.

Julian E. Barnes

Biden opens his Ukraine discussion by saying that a year ago, the question was whether America and its allies would stand together against Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. “One year later, we know the answer: Yes, we would. And we did,” he says.

Lisa Lerer

Abortion gets mentioned pretty far into this speech, which is interesting given how dominant an issue it was in the midterm elections for Democrats. It’s a reflection of how little Congress can do, given the House and the dynamics of the Senate, to restore a federal right to an abortion.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

As Biden pleads with Congress to pass his immigration legislation, some Republicans appear to chant “secure the border.” This is one of Biden’s least favorite policies to discuss, a former senior official told me, in part because of Congress’s inability to take action and overhaul the immigration system.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg

— President Biden

The Inflation Reduction Act, which Mr. Biden signed into law in August, does fulfill Democrats’ long-held goal of empowering Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs directly with pharmaceutical makers. But the law has limits. The negotiation provisions do not kick in until 2026, when the federal government may begin negotiating the price of up to 10 medicines. The number of drugs subject to negotiation will rise over time.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg

— President Biden

On average, about 450 people in the United States are dying each day of Covid-19, according to a New York Times database. That number is way down from the roughly 3,200 Americans who were dying each day in early 2021. But the current daily average of Covid-19 deaths is higher than it was in December 2022, when roughly 250 Americans were losing their lives each day to the virus.

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the state of the pandemic in early 2021. Roughly 3,200 Americans were dying each day then, but not because of the Omicron variant, which was peaking in the United States in early 2022.

How we handle corrections

Linda Qiu

— President Biden

Mr. Biden is correct that a quarter of the national debt was accumulated over the four years Mr. Trump was in office. But the former president did not unilaterally add to that amount. In fact, two major factors driving that increase were mandatory spending levels set long before Mr. Trump took office and bipartisan spending bills that were passed to address the pandemic.

From the 2018 to 2021 fiscal years, the government collected $14.3 trillion in revenue, and spent $21.9 trillion, according to data compiled by the Congressional Budget Office. In that time, mandatory spending on programs such as Social Security and Medicare totaled $14.7 trillion alone. Discretionary spending totaled about $5.8 trillion.

The budget estimated that Mr. Trump’s tax cuts — which passed in December 2017 with no Democrats in support — added roughly another $1 trillion to the federal deficit from 2018 to 2021, even after factoring in economic growth spurred by the tax cuts.

But other drivers of the deficit include several sweeping measures that had bipartisan approval. The first coronavirus stimulus package, which received near unanimous support in Congress, added $2 trillion to the deficit over the next two fiscal years. Three additional spending measures contending with Covid-19 and its economic ramifications added another $1.4 trillion.

Jeanna Smialek

— President Biden

It is true that inflation has slowed down for the past six months: That means that prices are still increasing, but they are doing so more gradually. The Consumer Price Index picked up by 6.5 percent in the year through December, which is notably slower than the 9 percent peak in June. That pace is still much more rapid than the roughly 2 percent that was typical before the pandemic.

It is also true that wages are climbing sharply compared with the pace that would be normal. But for much of the 2021 and 2022, wage gains struggled to keep up with rapid price increases. That has recently begun to change: Average hourly earnings increases exceeded Consumer Price Increases on a monthly basis in both November and December 2022.

Linda Qiu

— President Biden

The federal deficit did decrease by $1.7 trillion, to $1.4 trillion in the 2022 fiscal year from $3.1 trillion in the 2020 fiscal year, though Mr. Biden’s fiscal policies are not the sole factor.

In fact, much of that decline can be attributed to the expiration of pandemic-era spending, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which advocates lower levels of spending. In February 2021, before the Biden administration enacted any fiscal legislation, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit would have reached $1.1 trillion in the 2022 fiscal year, less than what ended up happening.

Coronavirus stimulus funding from 2021 added nearly $1.9 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, the budget office estimated. The budget agency also estimated that the infrastructure package added $256 billion to the deficit, though supporters disagreed with the analysis. The Inflation Reduction Act, which was the only significant piece of legislation to reduce the deficit, trimmed it by $238 billion over the next 10 years.

Jeanna Smialek

— President Biden

Food inflation is beginning to slow, though it remains very rapid. Compared with a year ago, food prices are 10.4 percent higher. But monthly food price increases have been slowing steadily in recent months, coming down from a very swift rate in May 2022.

Of course, the current situation does not feel great to many consumers: Food prices are still climbing from already-high levels. And some specific food products are much more expensive than last year. Eggs, in particular, have been a pain point for consumers in recent months.

Linda Qiu

— President Biden

Mr. Biden’s statement gives the impression that a decades-old trend has reversed, but the data tells a different story. American exports reached a new high in 2022, with exports of goods alone topping $2 trillion. But the United States also imported a record high last year, $3.3 trillion in goods — countering the notion that imports have slowed. As a result, the United States also recorded the highest ever trade deficit since 1970 of $950 billion, and a trade deficit in goods of $1.1 trillion.

Jeanna Smialek

— President Biden

It is accurate that inflation has been global, and that supply chain issues tied to the pandemic have been a major driver of price increases. It is also true that food and energy disruptions tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exacerbated it. But those factors did not spur inflation on their own: Supply chains became clogged in the first place partly because American demand for goods was abnormally strong during the pandemic.

That surge in demand came as stuck-at-home consumers shifted their spending away from services and toward things like new furniture. Their spending was also fueled partly by repeated stimulus checks and other pandemic aid. Several studies by economists at the Federal Reserve have found that government spending fueled some, but far from all, of the inflation.