Union jobs, crime and Palestine: Philly Dems respond to Biden’s State of the Union

As President Joe Biden delivered his third State of the Union address on Thursday evening, around 75 union members, campaign volunteers and local officials congregated at the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters headquarters on Spring Street in Philadelphia.

Nikki Lu, the state campaign manager for the Biden campaign, greeted the audience, which included House Speaker Joanna McClinton; state Sens. Sharif Street, Vincent Hughes and Nikil Saval, Philadelphia County Commissioners Chair Omar Sabir and City Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier and Michael Driscoll.

The crowd went silent as the president started his speech, which began with foreign affairs and a call for greater support for Ukraine. He noted that Sweden had just joined NATO and expressed support for the defense organization’s member nations. Biden took a shot at the likely Republican nominee, Donald Trump, for the former president’s comments about NATO.

“Now, my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want,’” he told the joint session of Congress. “It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable.”

However, the president quickly moved on to domestic issues, starting with what he called that darkest of days.

“My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth of January 6th,” he said. “I will not do that. This is a moment to speak the truth and bury the lies.”

As expected, Biden promised to sign any bill legalizing abortion access if voters would elect a Congress that would pass one.

“I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again,” he said.

It was the president’s discussion of his infrastructure spending, job creation and fair taxes which drew the most attention from the watch party. He mentioned the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, saying it created 46,000 new projects which are “modernizing our roads and bridges, ports and airports, and public transit systems.” He added that his policies have “attracted $650 billion of private sector investments in clean energy and advanced manufacturing creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America.”

The crowd erupted in applause when Biden promised many of those jobs would be union jobs. “The middle class built this country. And unions built the middle class,” he said.

Frank Mahoney, deputy political director for the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, who was in attendance, expressed appreciation for the infrastructure funding. He pointed to projects underway such as the construction to fix I-95 and other roads and bridges and new allocations to update electrical and HVAC systems at Philadelphia International Airport. He noted that the president has pushed for project labor agreements that ensure workers on those projects will be unionized.

“He’s been a true champion for union workers and not scared to talk about it and not scared to say it,” Mahoney told WHYY News. “And that’s why we’re excited to hear him say it again in this speech.”

Other audience members shared his sense of optimism. Asked about what she thought were some of the key points the president made, West Philadelphia resident Santa Conix pointed to fair taxes.

“And the crime, the guns, the gun laws,” she added. “We definitely need that because so many innocent people are getting killed.”

Brian Kisielewski, an attorney who lives in the Roxborough neighborhood, said he thought the president made a compelling case for reelection.

“I was really happy to see that he could put out a nice roadmap of everything he’s done, what he wants to do, and really do it in a cohesive and clear way,” he told WHYY News.

He added that the Biden’s speech also helped assuage his concerns about how the administration has been handling the crisis in the Middle East.

“I think he did a good job of balancing the line with Israel and Palestinians and Gaza,” Kisielewski said. “I was very happy to see that he talked about protecting civilians. I think that’s a really important issue for a lot of people, not just for Israeli civilians, but also for Palestinian civilians.”

The president also gave a shout out to U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, who is also up for reelection in Pennsylvania. Casey has made a mission of attacking what he calls “greedflation,” the practice of deceptive pricing tactics. This includes his Shrinkflation Prevention Act, which his office says will “crack down on corporations that deceive consumers by selling smaller sizes of their products without lowering the prices.”

“Pass Bobby Casey’s bill and stop this,” the president demanded.