U.S. President Joe Biden is poised to deliver a hopeful assessment of the country, rather than a bright political proposal, as he delivers his second keynote tonight as he seeks to overcome domestic pessimism and fears about his own governance.

His speech to a politically divided Congress comes as the country grapples with tangled, intersecting currents at home and abroad — economic uncertainty, a debilitating war in Ukraine, tensions with China — as fears rise over Biden’s possible re-election.

The President will take the floor in the House of Representatives at a time when only a quarter of US adults believe the country is moving in the right direction, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Research Center. About three quarters say that everything is going the wrong way. At the same time, most Democrats do not want Biden to run for another term.

The US president will try to counter those feelings, aides say, while at the same time trying not to seem out of touch with American concerns.

Historian and President of Chapman University, Luke Nichter, said the closest parallel to the present can be traced back to the 1960s, when global uncertainty was combined with internal turmoil. Biden has the potential to be a “reassuring presence” for the country, he said.

The setting for Biden’s speech will be markedly different from a year ago when Nancy Pelosi sat behind him as Speaker of the House. Pelosi has been replaced by Republican Kevin McCarthy, and it’s unclear what kind of reception the Democratic president has in store for… the troubled Republican.

Now that COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, the White House and lawmakers from both parties are inviting guests to send political messages to the country by their presence on the floor of the House of Representatives. The parents of Tyre Nichols, who was severely beaten by police in Memphis and later died, are also expected to attend.

Biden is turning his attention to other topics after spending the first two years of his life pushing for major bills, including a bipartisan infrastructure package, advancing high-tech manufacturing legislation, and climate change.

Much of this is out of necessity. Biden is facing the newly elected Republican Party, which wants to undo many of his achievements and promises to conduct numerous investigations, including looking into recent discoveries of classified documents in his home and former office when he was vice president.

At the same time, Biden will have to find a way to raise the federal debt limit by this summer and keep the government funded. Biden said he would not negotiate to pay off the country’s debt obligations. Republicans were just as adamant, insisting that Biden should make concessions on spending.

Ahead of President McCarthy’s speech, he urged Biden to sit down at the negotiating table with Republicans in the House of Representatives to cut spending as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

“Mr. Speaker, it’s time to get down to business,” McCarthy said from the speaker’s podium on Capitol Hill.

While hopes for broad bipartisan support are slim, Biden intends to renew his call to Congress in 2022 for a “unity program” of action to combat the opioid epidemic, mental health, veterans and cancer control. At the same time, it will also turn into gun violence and police abuse.

McCarthy, in effect, urged Biden to support Republican efforts to put the country’s finances on a path to a balanced budget, which would require deep and politically unpopular federal spending cuts that Biden and Democrats are strongly opposed to.

McCarthy, however, insisted that cuts to Social Security and popular health and retirement programs, primarily for older Americans, were “not on the table” in the budget talks. The House Republican leader also said that “defaulting our debt is not an option.”

The White House has insisted that the Republicans fail to protect the programs and accused them of “threaten to bankrupt our economy” by imposing conditions on the debt limit.

The speech came just days after Biden ordered the military to shoot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew over the country unhindered, drawing public attention and reminding of strained relations between the two world powers.

Last year’s speech came just days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, and many Westerners doubt Kyiv’s ability to withstand the onslaught. During 2022, the US and other allies sent tens of billions of dollars in military and economic aid to bolster Ukraine’s defenses. Biden must now advocate—both at home and abroad—for the preservation of that coalition while the war continues.

Source: Associated Press.