New York Democrats and Republicans ran to their familiar corners in reacting to President Joe Biden’s fiery State of the Union address on Thursday night.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a close political ally of Biden’s who attended the address as a guest of U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan/Bronx), applauded the president for drawing a “stark contrast” between himself and former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee in this year’s election.
“President Biden’s State of the Union was rooted in his optimistic vision for our future — one that uplifts working and middle-class families that have built our nation — and paints a stark contrast to those trying to divide the country and set us back,” Hochul said, in a Thursday night statement.
But Biden’s speech, unsurprisingly, did not go over well with New York Republicans, who universally blasted it as hyper-partisan and out of touch.
State GOP Chair Ed Cox, in a statement posted on X, said Biden’s address, where he challenged Republicans on multiple issues, came off as “angry and taunting.”
“SOTUs have the attention of the nation and the nation expects to be treated with respect by the president,” Cox said. “Last night, a hyped-up Biden took the low road, dished out mud and unwittingly signaled an ugly end to an incompetent and disastrous presidency.”
Upstate GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is a fierce Trump supporter, said Biden’s speech “dismisses” the struggles of everyday Americans. She decried the president’s handling of the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants over the US southern border, relationships with foreign nations and the economy.
“Under just three years of Joe Biden, our nation has experienced one crisis after another from the Biden Border Crisis which has devastated American communities, to weakness on the world stage, and the highest inflation in my lifetime,” Stefanik said, in a post on X.
Biden did receive a positive nod from Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, who has become one of his sharpest critics from within his own party.
Mayor Eric Adams said he was “glad” to hear Biden devote a portion of his address to getting a handle on the immigrant crisis. With more than 180,000 migrants arriving in the city over the past two years, the mayor has been increasingly critical of Biden for not providing the five boroughs with enough resources and financial support.
“In recent weeks, I have been encouraged to hear that the president is heeding our call and considering taking executive action to manage our broken immigration system,” Adams said, in a statement. “I am hopeful that any action provides cities with federal funding to cover the costs of this crisis, expedited work authorizations for migrants, and a nationwide resettlement strategy so that a handful of cities are not handling an influx of asylum seekers on their own.”
