WASHINGTON -- Even before President Joe Biden delivered his first joint address to Congress touting what he has accomplished in the first 100 days of his administration, Republicans on Capitol Hill were prepared to tell a different story: how a new president betrayed his campaign promises about how he would govern.
The centerpiece of the GOP effort to rebut Biden's speech came minutes after Biden finished his defense of government's role in American life, declaring his intent to "prove democracy still works."
The GOP response was delivered by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican senator, who spoke to a national television audience about his personal story of escaping poverty and his fervent belief in the power of free enterprise.
Scott slammed Democrats for not moving more swiftly to reopen schools during the coronavirus pandemic, praised former President Donald Trump's efforts to develop a vaccine, declaring that Biden "inherited a tide that had already turned," criticized their approach to race relations as fighting "discrimination with different discrimination," and defended the GOP's effort to restrict voting in numerous states after Biden's victory.
He delivered Republicans' central political criticism of Biden, claiming that he campaigned as a uniter and a moderate but has governed as a liberal relying only on Democratic votes in Congress.
"President Biden promised you a specific kind of leadership. He promised to unite a nation, to lower the temperature, to govern for all Americans, no matter how we voted," Scott said. "But three months in, the actions of the president and his party are pulling us further apart."
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[Or click here to read a transcript of Sen. Tim Scott's remarks.]
Many of Scott's fellow Republicans delivered sharper barbs. Well before Biden arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday night, Republicans had laid the groundwork for a narrative rooted in false pledges and creeping "socialism." The Republican National Committee, in a series of news releases and social media posts, dubbed Biden's opening act "100 days of failure," and top congressional Republicans piled on.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., first previewed the attacks in an appearance Sunday on Fox News, accusing Biden of a "bait and switch" -- promising to be a leader who values bipartisanship but who instead passed a $2 trillion pandemic relief bill with zero Republican support.
"The bait was he was going to govern as bipartisan, but the switch is he's governed as a socialist," McCarthy said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., continued the theme Wednesday morning, accusing Biden and Democrats of engaging in "brazen misdirection" and living "in an alternate universe where both the campaign promises they made and the mandate the American people delivered were completely different than what happened here on planet Earth."
"Behind President Biden's familiar face, it's like the most radical Washington Democrats have been handed the keys, and they're trying to speed as far left as they can possibly go before American voters ask for their car back," McConnell said.
Inside the sparsely occupied House chamber Wednesday night, Republicans from both chambers signaled areas where they could agree with the president, including on issues such as passing police overhaul legislation by the anniversary of George Floyd's death next month, as well as keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States.
But they also made their differences with the president clear.
McCarthy shook his head and looked back at his caucus when Biden tried to tout how his administration is trying to address the surge of migrants at the southern border, which Republicans have repeatedly said is the result of Biden reversing policies put in place by Trump. Republicans also were seen shaking their heads or laughing whenever Biden suggested Congress should enact gun restrictions and pass a voting overhaul bill.
Ahead of the address, a few Republicans took aim at the unprecedented setting for the speech -- in a mostly empty chamber because of coronavirus precautions ordered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
"It's so weird," said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. "It's 200 in a room that can seat 1,600, in a room full of people that have all been vaccinated, when we sit shoulder to shoulder on airplanes every single week. It is more drama than substance."
AMERICAN FAMILY PLAN
Biden delivered additional fodder for GOP attacks ahead of the speech when he unveiled a second pricey agenda item Wednesday -- his $1.8 trillion "American Family Plan" that would expand access to health care and child care, provide free community college, and create a national paid family and medical leave program.
That followed a separate $2 trillion infrastructure proposal that Biden rolled out in late March, not to mention the pandemic bill -- whose partisan nature soured many Republicans, particularly a small cadre of Senate moderates who are skeptical that Biden will now engage in bipartisan talks.
Where Biden has proposed an infrastructure package upward of $2 trillion on everything from electric cars to home elder care, the Senate GOP moderates have proposed a package less than half as expensive focused more squarely on roads, bridges, airports, railroads and other bricks-and-mortar infrastructure -- financed without major tax increases.
"It's a massive amount of spending," Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters Wednesday. "Maybe if he were younger, I'd say his dad needs to take away the credit card."
While Romney is among the clutch of Senate Republicans still negotiating an infrastructure package, Democrats have made clear they will seek to press forward on a partisan basis on other aspects of their agenda -- skirting a likely GOP filibuster by using a fast-track process for spending and tax legislation known as budget reconciliation that requires only a majority vote to pass legislation.
That is the same process Republicans used in recent years to pass their own tax overhaul and to unsuccessfully attempt to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But scores of Republicans have cast the willingness of Democrats to use those tools as a betrayal of Biden's campaign promises of national unity.
A messaging memo sent out Wednesday by House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., hit similar themes as other GOP leaders, saying Biden "has abandoned his campaign promises to work in a bipartisan manner on behalf of all Americans and has completely ceded to the radical left."
The guidance proceeded to run through 100 days' worth of Republican attacks on the administration's coronavirus relief bill, its handling of the migrant surge at the southern border, and plans for tax increases on the richest Americans and corporations.
Ahead of Biden's speech, the Republican Study Committee also circulated a memo that included 11 "shams" or areas where the conservative group argues Biden has gone against his politically moderate persona or campaign promises, such as by asking Americans to continue wearing masks past his first 100 days in office and including provisions in his relief and infrastructure proposals that deal with unrelated policies.
"Expect more of the same tonight during his Joint Address to Congress ... and remember this: With President Biden, what you see is NOT what you get. We simply can't trust what he says is really going to happen," the memo read.
FOREIGN POLICY
While the bulk of the attacks focused on Biden's vast plans for government spending, Republicans also took aim at his early foreign-policy moves, framing him as someone who is tough on rhetoric but weak on policy against adversaries like China and Russia. This week, key Republicans trained fire on Biden's climate envoy, former Secretary of State John Kerry, after secret tapes caught Iran's foreign minister discussing how Kerry informed him about Israeli attacks. Kerry has denied any wrongdoing.
"Ignoring the facts. Passing the buck. Squandering leverage," McConnell said Wednesday, slamming Biden's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and propose defense spending cuts. "This is not what the American people bargained for. And they know it doesn't have to be this way.
After the speech, several Republicans made quips to criticize or dismiss Biden's address as Democrats hailed it as a powerful articulation of a bold agenda.
"This whole thing could have just been an email," McCarthy tweeted.
One Republican who had very little to say about the speech ahead of its delivery was Trump, who did not mention Biden's name, let alone the impending address, in a half-hour interview with conservative media personality Dan Bongino published on Wednesday afternoon.
Trump did, however, take a shot at Biden's tax proposals -- particularly a proposed raising of the corporate income tax rate, which was cut to 21% under Trump, and a potential increase in taxes on investment income, which is currently taxed at a lower rate than wages for the wealthiest Americans.
"The highest ever -- the taxes will be the highest ever," Trump said, overstating the proposed increases and eliding the fact that Biden's proposals would only affect a tiny fraction of Americans. "These companies, there's not a lot of loyalty to us, they make deals, they're gonna make deals, and they're gonna leave, and they're going to take a lot of jobs with them and a lot of money with them."
After two minutes of discussing tax policy, Trump pivoted to another subject: His claim that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.
