President Biden To Deliver State Of The Union Address

President Biden’s speechwriters have likely been making last-minute changes to the State of the Union address he’ll deliver Tuesday night, thanks to the alleged Chinese spy balloon that found its way into U.S. airspace last week and which an American F-22 eventually shot down on Saturday.

While the balloon incident may have some Americans asking questions, the president’s handling of the incident has brought him a fresh wave of criticism from Republicans. Some feel he handled it so poorly that he may not mention it at all in his speech to the nation.

"Why would he?" asked Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK5) "Americans are pretty upset."

Upset, Congresswoman Bice said, that the administration allowed the floating surveillance device to traverse the entire continental United States, over sensitive military installations, before finally bringing it down off the coast of South Carolina days after first detecting it.

"There were plenty of opportunities for it to be taken down in remote areas," Bice stated, "but this president didn’t act."

President Biden has flatly refuted such claims, insisting that he had to rely on the expertise of the Pentagon.

"I told them to shoot it down on Wednesday." the president told reporters. "They said to me, 'Let's wait for the safest place to do it.'"

How Biden weaves the incident into his State of the Union address will be one thing to watch for Tuesday night. How he describes the state of the national economy, Bice said, will be another.

"I think we'll hear sort of a rosy picture: the economy is doing well, unemployment's low," predicted Bice, "but we still have high inflation and real wages are still down from where they were before his presidency...So, things are not, I think, as rosy as the president would lead people to believe."

Bice and others in the Oklahoma delegation feel strongly the president needs to address immigration and specifically the record number of migrant encounters on the southern border.

"I will stand up and cheer when he says it’s time to finish the wall," said Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK2), saying it's 'unbelievable' that four million people have tried to illegally cross the border since Biden took office.

Following the president's positive meeting last week with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republicans are also hoping to hear Biden talk about fiscal restraint.

"We’re running record deficits, we have the highest debt in modern American history," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK4) in an interview last week, "He can’t run the country the next two years the way he has the last...We’ll see what he lays out -- some of which we'll agree with and cooperate on, other things we won't -- but it’s his chance to make his case to Congress and through that venue to the American people as to what he wants to do."