'Brag, Joke, Pick A Fight': What Joe Biden Should Do in His State of the Union

Seven (Unsolicited) Tips for the President of the United States

(Source: White House / Adam Schultz)

On Thursday evening, President Joe Biden will give one of the most important speeches of a political career spanning more than five decades. With Donald Trump ahead in multiple polls, this year's State of the Union address provides the POTUS with a unique opportunity to address a television audience of tens of millions when the stakes are especially high.

The question is: what should he do with it? How does he turn this primetime speech to his political and electoral advantage? As some of you may know, I wrote a book on rhetoric, persuasion, and debating, called Win Every Argument, and so I very modestly put together this list of seven tips for… ahem… the president of the United States.

1. Go on the Offensive

The president is facing multiple attacks on multiple fronts from both the news media and the Republican Party and so the best defense, as the saying goes, is a strong offense. 

Biden should abandon the traditional Democratic Party defensive crouch and go on the offensive. He needs to be willing to call out and pick fights with some unpopular opponents - congressional Republicans, Fox ‘News’, Big Pharma, even Benjamin Netanyahu.

Remember: perhaps Biden’s single best moment as president is when he mocked and sparred with the House Republicans who tried to heckle him from the audience during last year’s State of the Union. 

Policies and ideologies aside, the American public want a fighter as their leader. 

2. Target Trump

Super Tuesday is done. Nikki Haley is out. Donald Trump is the 2024 Republican presidential candidate.

So it’s long overdue for Biden to rain rhetorical fire on the twice-impeached, four-times-indicted former president.

We know that, in private, Biden calls Trump a “sick f*ck” and a “f*cking asshole.” 

Yet in public, the president has spent the past four years trying to move on from Trump and the Trump era; trying to distance himself from his predecessor. “I don’t think about the former president,” he told journalists in 2021.

Well, it’s time to not just think about ‘The Former Guy’ but target him. Remind amnesiac American voters who Trump is and what he has done. Call him a fraudster (a court says you can). Call him a rapist (a court says you can). Call him an insurrectionist (a court says you can). Above all else, call him a criminal defendant (he is, after all, facing 91 felony charges in four different courts). 

Are these ad hominem attacks? Maybe. But as I point out in my book, ad hominem attacks are fair game and, whether you like it or not, they work.

3. Don’t be Afraid to Brag

Why do voters (wrongly) think the economy was better under Trump than it is today under Biden? Partly, I suspect, because the former president wasn’t shy when it came to constantly bragging about his modest economic achievements to anyone who would listen.

If Joe Biden isn’t going to blow his own economic horn, who will? The New York Times?

Inflation is under control, unemployment is at a record low, and growth is surging. The U.S. economy is outperforming its industrialized peers. In fact, as one prominent economics commentator tweeted this week: “2023 was an incredible year for the US economy.”

I hate to say it, but the president should channel Trump's unshakeable confidence on Thursday evening. This is no time for false modesty.

4. Don’t Obsess Over the Border

The president will surely be tempted to address the so-called “crisis” at the southern border by outlining his own draconian plans for a crackdown on immigration. That would be a mistake. Polls show that voters blame Biden, not Trump, for the recent refusal of Republicans in Congress to pass the president’s bipartisan border security bill. The attempt at 3-D chess from the White House didn’t work. Why?  Because voters hear “the border” and they automatically get mad at… the Democrats. 

The truth is that Republicans would like nothing more than to spend the next eight months discussing immigration. Biden should resist the urge to give them that political gift. 

5. Do Laugh About Aging

Almost every recent poll suggests large numbers of Americans, including a big proportion of Democrats, are concerned about Biden’s age. So Biden needs to address this issue head-on during his State of the Union, and the best way is to make light of it with humor and snark. He can even borrow from Ronald Reagan’s playbook. "I will not make age an issue of this campaign,” the 73-year-old sitting president famously quipped during his 1984 presidential debate with Walter Mondale, in response to the moderator’s question about his age. “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.”

This wouldn’t be hard for Biden. He’s made effective gags about his age before. "I like Rupert Murdoch," he said at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last year. "How can I dislike a guy who makes me look like Harry Styles?"

6. Show Empathy 

Biden is known for his empathetic side; for being willing to mourn and grieve with heartbroken families. There is, however, one group of people for whom he has never seemed to have much empathy: the Palestinians. As a former administration official told Mother Jones: “The President does not seem to acknowledge the humanity of all parties affected by this conflict.”

In recent weeks, Biden has made some rhetorical attempts to show that he cares about the lives of Gazans under occupation (despite his ongoing arms sales to their occupier). “We value and pray for… all those who are living in dire circumstances,” he declared at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 1. “Innocent men, women, and children held hostage or under bombardment or displaced, not knowing where their next meal will come from or if it will come at all.”

We need to hear much more of this from a president who is facing an organized revolt from sections of his party base in Michigan, Minnesota, and beyond. 

7. Do The Vision Thing

“Oh, the vision thing.” That’s how a struggling George Bush Snr. (in)famously responded when he was pressed by a reporter, not on his short-term campaign plans, but his bigger-picture political agenda.

Biden needs to outline his grand vision for America. He needs to energize, excite and inspire the voters watching at home. He has to lay out what he has in store for them in a second term. Like it or not, voters are less interested in what the president has done in the past and much more interested in what he plans to do for them in the future.

So it isn’t enough for Biden to say he’s not Trump. It isn’t enough for him to warn of the dangers to voting rights, abortion rights, and the climate, should voters opt for his predecessor in November. Above all else, on Thursday evening, he has to give voters a very clear reason to vote for Joe Biden and not merely against Donald Trump.