President Joe Biden introduced Congress together with his fourth State of the Union handle on Thursday night time, one which was clearly crafted to separate him as firmly as doable from his presumptive opponent on this 12 months’s election—former president Donald Trump. (Biden coolly referred to Trump solely as “my predecessor” in his speech.) Under, discover the 5 key moments from Thursday’s SOTU handle.

Trump was derided, in fact

Biden alluded to Trump’s candidacy by calling for “a future based mostly on the core values which have outlined America: honesty, decency, dignity, equality. To respect everybody. To present everybody a good shot. To present hate no protected harbor,” and referring to “another individuals my age” who “see a special story: an American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution. That’s not me.” (Trump is definitely 4 years youthful than Biden, however all of us spherical down, proper?)

Abortion was centered (lastly)

The specter of the Supreme Courtroom’s 2022 resolution to overturn Roe v. Wade has forged an extended shadow on the Biden administration, and in gentle of current reproductive rights-related controversies like Alabama’s try and outlaw IVF and Texas’s more and more punitive abortion restrictions, the White Home has made an arguably overdue try and heart the problem. Friends at Thursday’s State of the Union handle included Kate Cox (the Dallas girl compelled to go away Texas with a purpose to terminate her nonviable being pregnant) and Elizabeth Carr, the primary child to be born by way of IVF in 1981.

The Biden administration’s name for a short lived ceasefire was renewed

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 assaults, Biden has primarily expressed solidarity with Israel, and on Thursday night time, he reaffirmed that Israel “has a proper to go after Hamas.” Nonetheless, in a tone shift that may have been prompted, at the very least partly, by the excessive fee of Arab Individuals voting “uncommitted” in the course of the Michigan main on account of Biden’s assist for Israel, the president condemned the 30,000-plus-person loss of life toll in Gaza and endorsed a two-state resolution. (Vice President Kamala Harris additionally lately voiced her assist for a short lived ceasefire.)“Humanitarian help can’t be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip,” he mentioned. “Defending and saving harmless lives must be a precedence.”

Biden took a tough stance on Ukraine

“I can’t bow down,” he promised Russian president Vladimir Putin early in Thursday night time’s remarks, encouraging Congress to approve the bipartisan nationwide safety settlement introduced within the Senate and excoriating the notion that “help for Ukraine is being blocked by those that need us to stroll away from our management on this planet.” The US doesn’t at the moment have troops on the bottom in Ukraine, and Biden assured the nation that that may stay the case whereas reaffirming his administration’s assist for Ukraine.

Voting rights have been emphasised

Bettie Mae Fikes, a singer and civil rights activist often known as the “Voice of Selma,” was in attendance on the State of the Union handle, and Biden paid tribute to the late congressman John Lewis whereas emphasizing the significance of combating again towards “voter suppression, election subversion, limitless darkish cash, and excessive gerrymandering.”