President Joe Biden challenged the new House Republican majority Tuesday night to work together with him to “finish the job” of repairing America’s unsettled economy and fragile democracy even as the emboldened opposition geared up to try to force him to change course.

In his first State of the Union address in this new era of divided government, Biden prepared to call on lawmakers to embrace his proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy and extend more social aid to the needy, citing the example of bipartisan legislation passed in his first two years in office when Democrats were in charge on Capitol Hill.

“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together and find consensus on important things in this new Congress as well,” Biden said, boasting that he had signed more than 300 bipartisan laws. “The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere.

“That’s always been my vision for the country and I know it’s many of yours,” he added, “to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America, America’s middle class, and unite the country. We’ve been sent here to finish the job, in my view.”

The appeal for bipartisan unity was a message aimed as much at the American public watching on television as those attending the speech in person, an effort to position the president as a responsible leader beset by a quarrelsome opposition. No one expects the Republicans who captured the House in November’s midterm elections to embrace Biden’s legislative program, nor for that matter is the president likely to agree anytime soon to the other side’s demands for deep spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling.

But the speech and the GOP response set for later in the evening will frame the terms of debate heading into the coming year, even as Biden prepares to announce a campaign for reelection this spring. The president and the House are heading for a collision that could jeopardize the nation’s credit rating and incomplete economic recovery with both sides already seeking to win the battle of public opinion.

Republicans brushed off Biden’s call for cooperation Tuesday long before he was to arrive at the Capitol, which was once again surrounded by security fences two years after a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6, 2021, seeking to halt the counting of electoral votes sealing Biden’s election. They portrayed Biden as a failed leader captured by the liberal wing of his party.

“President Biden campaigned on being the adult in the room,” Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, said on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. “But he’s not even calling the shots in his own party. Over and over, on issue after issue, this president has handed the car keys to the radical left and turned himself into a passenger.”

The shifting power dynamics were on display Tuesday night. Sitting behind the president for the first time at a joint session was the newly selected Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, who won his post only after 15 ballots and promises to his right wing to confront Biden aggressively at every turn.

While waiting for the president to enter, McCarthy stood stiffly, barely interacting at first with Vice President Kamala Harris, who was standing next to him and appeared to try to engage him in small talk.

Once on the rostrum, Biden made a point of congratulating McCarthy and shaking hands with him. “Mr. Speaker, I don’t want to ruin your reputation,” he said jokingly, “but I look forward to working with you.”

The hovering presence of the president’s defeated predecessor manifested itself as well, with the party’s official response assigned to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, who served as Trump’s White House press secretary. Trump has already announced his campaign to run for president again in next year’s election, setting up the prospect of a rematch with Biden.

In excerpts from her speech released in advance, Sanders faulted the president for “high gas prices, empty grocery stores” and racial animus. “And while you reap the consequences of their failures, the Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day,” she planned to say. “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.”

In taking the rostrum Tuesday night, however, Biden’s challenge was not only to navigate the new partisan realities of Washington but to persuade the broader nation that it is on the right path after the devastation wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6 attack. He sought to offer an optimistic vision in sour times, celebrating economic gains at a moment when polls show that many Americans still do not feel them.

The president celebrated recent gains in the economy, including falling inflation and strong job growth, while taking credit for legislation meant to curb prescription drug prices for seniors, expand health benefits for veterans, invest in climate change programs and rebuild roads and bridges.

NYTNS