President Biden's 2024 State of the Union address

President Joe Biden said Congress should urgently pass legislation to regulate artificial intelligence, including banning “AI voice impersonation and more.” 

Biden urged lawmakers to “harness the promise of AI and protect us from its peril,” warning of the technology’s risks to Americans if left unchecked.

His remarks come weeks after a fake robocall campaign cloned his voice and targeted thousands of New Hampshire primary voters in what authorities have described as an AI-enabled election meddling attempt. 

But US lawmakers have struggled to advance any meaningful AI legislation in the roughly one year since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made a rare and personal effort to put AI at the top of the congressional agenda.  

Even as disinformation experts warn of AI’s threats to polls and public discourse, few expect Congress to pass legislation reining in the AI industry during a divisive election year. 

President Joe Biden called out former President Donald Trump and GOP members of Congress in his address Thursday for seeking to “bury the truth” about what happened during the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

The president, as he did throughout his State of the Union address, did not use Trump’s name, Instead, he referred to him as “my predecessor.” 

As Biden sought to show a contrast with his likely 2024 opponent, the January 6 insurrection was the second major topic of the president’s remarks, following his calls to Congress to support the people of Ukraine.

Here’s how many minutes President Joe Biden spent on the following topics in the first portion of his third State of the Union:

President Joe Biden said Thursday night: “I have been delivering real results in fiscally responsible ways.”  

“We've already cut the federal deficit — we’ve already cut the federal deficit of over $1 trillion,” he said.  

Facts First: Biden’s claim leaves out such critical context that it is misleading. While the annual federal budget deficit was more than $1 trillion lower in the 2023 fiscal year than it was in both the 2020 fiscal year (under President Donald Trump) and the 2021 fiscal year (partially under Trump and partially under Biden), analysts have repeatedly noted that Biden’s own actions, including laws he has signed and executive orders he has issued, have had the overall effect of worsening annual deficits, not reducing them. As in past remarks, Biden didn’t explain that the primary reason the deficit fell by a record amount during his tenure was that it had skyrocketed to a record high at the end of Trump’s term because of bipartisan emergency pandemic relief spending, then fell as expected when that spending expired as planned.   

“The deficit is a trillion dollars lower, roughly, than when President Biden took office. That’s true. But that’s driven not because he ‘reduced’ the deficit by a trillion dollars, but because when he took office it was the middle of Covid and we had been temporarily injecting huge sums of money into the economy,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group that promotes deficit reduction and tracks the issue, said in a February interview. 

The deficit hit a record of about $3.1 trillion under Trump amid the hefty pandemic-related spending in fiscal 2020. The deficit then fell under Trump and Biden in fiscal 2021 (to about $2.8 trillion) and again under Biden in fiscal 2022 (to about $1.4 trillion). But it then rose in fiscal 2023 (to about $1.7 trillion). And the jump from 2022 to 2023 would have been much bigger, from about $1 trillion in 2022 to about $2 trillion in 2023, if not for a Treasury Department accounting decision related to the Biden student debt cancellation program the Supreme Court blocked before it came into effect. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the deficit will decline slightly in fiscal 2024, to about $1.5 trillion. Regardless, all of the Biden-era deficits are among the biggest in US history.  

Factors out of a president’s control, like interest rates hikes, have played a role in keeping deficits high under Biden. And Biden has signed some deficit-fighting bills; his signature Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is expected to bring down deficits by a total of more than $230 billion over a decade, while the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 is expected to cut a cumulative $1.5 trillion from federal deficits over a decade. 

Still, Biden’s actions have clearly added to deficits. These actions include a pandemic relief law, a bipartisan infrastructure law, a bipartisan law to spur semiconductor manufacturing, a boost to food stamp benefits and an extension of the Trump-era pandemic pause on federal student loan repayments. 

Biden can fairly say that his policies have contributed to a strong economic recovery that has boosted tax revenues and thus eaten into deficits. On the whole, though, Goldwein said deficits under Biden have been “higher than they otherwise would have been because of legislation President Biden has signed into law and executive actions he’s taken.” 

President Joe Biden expressed optimism in his ability to lead the country, making reference to his age that's been a controversial topic among some voters who say he's too old.

Biden already is the oldest president in history, ahead of Ronald Reagan, who was 77 at the end of his second term. If elected in 2024, Biden would be 86 at the end of his second term.

Biden made light of his age Thursday night, saying, "I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while, and when you get to my age certain things become clearer than ever."

CNN's Betsy Klein contributed reporting.

President Joe Biden provided a preview of what his second term would look like at his Thursday State of the Union address, vowing to take actions to legislate artificial intelligence, lower the federal classification of marijuana and work on gun legislation.

Biden said he wants to help cities and towns invest in more police officers and mental health workers. He said he also wanted to give "communities the tools to crack down on gun crime, retail crime and carjacking."

He also referenced the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers in 2022.

Biden said he wants to "harness the promise of AI" while protecting Americans "from peril," adding he wanted to ban AI voice impersonation. The technology was used to fake a robocall from Biden in the lead up to the New Hampshire primaries.

Just as he’s done on the campaign trail, President Joe Biden touted his administration’s efforts to reduce the burden of prescription drug costs. In his address, he also pointed out the savings for taxpayers. 

Facts First: It’s true that two of the main drug price provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats pushed through Congress in 2022, are expected to reduce the deficit by $160 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In total, the law’s drug measures are expected to reduce the deficit by $237 billion, though delaying the implementation of a Trump administration drug rebate rule accounts for the difference.  

The Inflation Reduction Act authorized Medicare to negotiate the prices of certain costly prescription drugs for the first time. This measure is expected to save $98.5 billion over a decade, according to the CBO. Negotiations for the initial 10 drugs are underway. The final prices will be made public by September and take effect in 2026. 

The law also requires drugmakers to pay a rebate to the federal government if they raise the prices of certain medications faster than the rate of inflation. This is expected to save $63.2 billion over a decade, according to the CBO.    

Biden's third State of the Union speech clocked in at 1:07:23, coming in about five minutes shorter than last year's address.

See how this speech compares to the shortest and longest speeches in recent history.

President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass two pieces of voting rights legislation — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

In his State of the Union address, the president said that a “transformational moment of history” happened on this day nearly 60 years ago.

But today, there are still issues that threaten the right to vote: “Voter suppression. Election subversion. Unlimited dark money. Extreme gerrymandering.”

Biden said it is “time to do more than talk,” as he urged lawmakers to vote on the bills.