President Joe Biden wants abortion rights to be a centerpiece of his rematch with Donald Trump this fall. Biden’s State of the Union speech on Thursday could reveal how he hopes to frame the debate.

The Bidens have invited Kate Cox, the Texas woman at the center of a high-profile abortion case, as a guest — and the president is expected to highlight her story as he touts his executive actions to protect and expand access to abortion after the fall of Roe and slams Republicans for pushing restrictions at the state and federal levels.

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President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last year included a slew of promises and hints about what the president wanted to accomplish in the year ahead.

So how did Biden live up to these promises? POLITICO dug through last year’s speech and assessed his progress on some of the major issues just before he’s set to deliver Thursday night's highly anticipated address. We graded him using the following scale: success, in progress, needs improvement, fail.

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The White House plans to announce a new federal task force focused on easing health care costs, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The move comes as President Joe Biden seeks new ways to show voters he’s cracking down on the so-called corporate greed that he has increasingly blamed for high prices — a message he is expected to highlight during his State of the Union address on Thursday.

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President Joe Biden on Saturday confirmed he will deliver the final State of the Union address of his term on March 7.

“In this moment of great challenge for our country, it is my solemn duty to extend this invitation … so that you may fulfill your obligation under the U.S. constitution to report on the state of our union,” Speaker Mike Johnson wrote in a letter formally inviting the president to address a joint session of Congress.

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President Joe Biden may announce his 2024 reelection bid as soon as next week, timed to the four-year anniversary of his successful run for the White House, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Advisers to the president are considering launching the bid on Tuesday with a video reelection message and fundraising appeal. But the plans are not yet finalized and the date could change, according to the people briefed.

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Many Democrats are terrified of President Joe Biden running for a second term. Most of them, according to recent polls, don’t want him to.

But in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Biden did something largely unexpected: He lessened the mental anguish of those privately nerve-wracked, infamously bed-wetting Democrats — for a moment, at least.

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Here’s an opening line I did not expect to write an hour or so ago: President Joe Biden gave a pretty good State of the Union address — indeed, one of the better ones I’ve heard.

What made it work was not just that Biden was in a buoyant spirit, with an energy that’s often lacking, but that it was a clearly political speech with a clear political goal: to define Biden as the guy who is on your side, going after the big boys who were flourishing at your expense.

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President Joe Biden made a forceful case for his policy vision during Tuesday’s State of the Union address, crediting his expansive agenda for pulling the nation out of historic crises — and mapping a clear path to continued progress over the next two years.

During the 73-minute speech, Biden touted his administration’s success across a range of high-stakes challenges, from rallying global allies around Ukraine amid a grinding war to delivering bipartisan victories at home aimed at strengthening the economy and bolstering America’s competitiveness.

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The State of the Union rarely previews big battles in Congress. Tuesday night’s row between President Joe Biden and GOP lawmakers may prove to be an exception.

Biden’s speech began as a promise to play nice with newly empowered House Republicans. Things then went stunningly off-script as GOP jeering escalated throughout the roughly 75 minutes, drowning out some of the president’s biggest moments and foreshadowing a long two years to come under divided government.

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Promises, promises. President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last year was loaded with them: from Ukraine to infrastructure, to immigration and reproductive rights.

So, how did the president do in fulfilling those pledges? POLITICO sifted through some of last year’s claims to track his progress just before he delivers what’s expected to be another policy-packed speech Tuesday night.

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Rep. Delia Ramirez, afirst-term Democrat from Illinois, is set to give a progressive response to the State of the Union address next week.

Her speech on Tuesday, given on behalf of the liberal Working Families Party, is expected to address President Joe Biden’s speech and rebut the Republican responses given by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona.

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The Justice Department announced on Thursday that it was tapping Associate Deputy Attorney General Kevin Chambers to lead the department’s pandemic fraud efforts.

In a news release, the department said Chambers would focus on “large-scale criminal enterprises” and “foreign actors” who tried to profit off Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic. Chambers will establish “Strike Teams,” as the Justice Department redoubles its work to combat pandemic fraud. The department has already uncovered alleged fraud involving more than $8 billion in federal aid, hitting nearly every key component of the roughly $6 trillion in emergency coronavirus spending Congress passed to aid families, workers and businesses.

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President Joe Biden’s approval rating is on the rise — for now — in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Biden’s State of the Union address last week.

Multiple surveys over the past week, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll out Tuesday, show a modest-to-moderate uptick in voters’ views of Biden’s job performance, up from his low-water mark earlier this year.

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Joe Manchin is once again setting the agenda for Democrats and says he’s willing to make a deal. They’re listening — cautiously.

Hours after President Joe Biden laid out what he hoped to salvage from Democrats’ defunct “Build Back Better” social spending plan, Joe Manchin quickly assembled a counteroffer. It might amount to deja vu for Democrats, many of whom still feel burned from last year’s debacle, yet many in the party are willing to entertain any shot they have to unify while they still have control of Congress.

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There’s a war in Europe and economic angst at home, but President Joe Biden's State of the Union brought Democrats closer to the backdrop they've craved ever since he was elected: normalcy.

Hundreds of lawmakers crammed into the House chamber Tuesday night, almost entirely maskless for the first time in Biden’s presidency — although somewhat distanced, despite falling Covid cases. Perhaps the clearest sign that Congress is regaining something of its old rhythms this year, though, was the tried-and-true partisanship that greeted the speech.

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President Joe Biden is not known for brevity, but he delivered a State of the Union address Tuesday pretty much in line with other presidents since the 1960s, clocking in at 1 hour and 2 minutes.

The average State of the Union has been about an hour after 2000, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from the American Presidency Project. Biden largely spoke on-script with his prepared remarks on Tuesday night, though with some notable off-the-cuff quips about deer wearing Kevlar vests and repeating a call to “fund” the police.

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President Joe Biden unfurled a resolute defense of democracy in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, declaring that the United States would act as a leader for the free world as it rallies with Ukraine against a brutal Russian invasion.

With a war raging an ocean away, Biden vowed that the United States would emerge from years of division and disease to protect and expand freedoms at home and abroad.

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President Joe Biden on Tuesday drew bipartisan applause — including from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — for his calls to fund the police in his State of the Union address.

“We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police,” Biden said to strong applause, with cameras showing McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise clapping and giving him a standing ovation. “Fund them. Fund them. Fund them with resources and training.”

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