President Biden and his team plan to hit the road after the State of the Union address to amplify his message and sell his agenda with visits to key battleground states – the start of a month of campaign-style barnstorming now that the general election campaign is over seriousness has begun.
Mr. Biden will travel to Philadelphia on Friday and Atlanta on Saturday for campaign speeches, where he will visit two of the half-dozen swing states he won in 2020 and expects to defeat former President Donald J. Trump again in November to defeat. Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Arizona and Nevada, two other states in the same category.
The Cabinet will also join the effort, with secretaries from Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Energy and Veterans Affairs, as well as various agency directors, making the trip. Officials will discuss policy goals such as protecting abortion rights and promote government achievements such as strong job growth. The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers added 275,000 jobs last month.
“Three years ago, I inherited an economy that was on the brink,” Mr. Biden said in a statement after the jobs report on Friday. “Now our economy is the envy of the world. We added 275,000 jobs last month – almost 15 million since I took office.”
On Thursday, Mr. Biden used his State of the Union address to launch a series of blistering attacks against Mr. Trump, portraying him as a threat to American democracy and stability in the world. The president, who made his arguments loudly and forcefully, tried to tempt Americans also to assure that, at 81, he was ready for a second term.
“As with any State of the Union address, the president will use the energy and momentum to travel the country and talk to voters about what his agenda is for their communities and what it will accomplish,” said Kevin Munoz , a spokesman for the Biden-Harris campaign. After stops in Philadelphia and Atlanta, Mr. Biden “will undertake additional travel throughout the month – rallies, coalition events, campaign organizing events, retail stops and more.”
The president’s team didn’t even wait for the speech to begin publishing it. A row of television cameras from 10 local stations from around the country were set up directly in front of the West Wing on Thursday. White House officials like Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, and Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, could move from one to the other to make the administration’s case in a kind of Washington version of speed dating.
The White House also invited radio hosts, Hispanic broadcasters, and digital media influencers and publishers to spend part of the day at the White House for interviews. Ms. Harris was scheduled to conduct a briefing for digital news outlets and creators before the speech.
Source link
2024-03-08 21:09:33
www.nytimes.com
