President Biden's State of the Union address received widespread praise. The incumbent president touched on various subjects, ranging from inflation to the broader state of the US economy, emphasizing the progress made on both subjects under his administration. With the 2024 presidential election nearly confirmed to be a contest between Biden and former President Donald Trump, the sitting commander-in-chief utilized the high-profile platform to unofficially kick off his re-election campaign.
Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman breaks down the takeaways from Biden's speech to the nation and how voters and corporate America are reacting to it.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
BRAD SMITH: President Biden coming out swinging in defense of the US economy's progress in his State of the Union address touting his crackdown on corporations shrinkflation junk fees and lowering consumer costs. But did it resonate? That's the big question to break down what it means for Americans. Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman is here. Rick, I know you had your popcorn ready or maybe some snow caps. Who knows? What did you take away from this State of the Union?
RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. And the bag was smaller than it was last year because of shrinkflation, of course. Well, it was a good night-- it was a good night for President Biden. I mean, he's getting very strong reviews. Maybe the bar was set pretty low. People thought this might be a snooze fest or even worse that he would really flub something up that would be a negative viral moment for him.
Didn't really happen. And he was a very energized last night. I mean, whatever vitamin C he's taking. I think I want some of them. The reviews today are using words like fierce, feisty, fiery. He looked very vigorous. And it was a very political speech and he referred to Trump. He never said the word Trump. But he referred to my predecessor 13 times. So he was completely in campaign mode.
And he did-- he did what we expected. He bragged about the US economy. He said the US economy is the envy of the world. I think that's true more or less except in America. Only Americans seem to think the American economy stinks which is maybe the biggest problem he's going to have while campaigning is convincing Americans that the economy is as strong as he thinks it is. And as strong as some of the data shows.
But I think major takeaway here is he has now fully launched his 2024 re-election campaign. And if he can keep up this level of energy for the next seven months, that would be a relief for Democrats. We'll see if he can.
SEANA SMITH: Rick, do you think it's going to have an impact? Or how much impact do you see it having with some of the swing voters out there, which we know are going to be so critical in this election?
RICK NEWMAN: Absolutely critical and we're talking about a relatively small number of voters in perhaps only four or five or six states. So my own view, I mean, official Washington, the political press corps gets all excited about the State of the Union. My own view is, this does not change minds. We're still far away from election day. And anybody who actually is a swing voter is not going to make up their mind whether to vote for Biden or not based on what they see in this speech.
And a lot of-- most Americans don't even watch the speech. But this will generate some good press coverage for Biden. It already has, in fact and I've seen some analysts this morning saying this has changed the narrative. It has put Biden on offense. Maybe put Trump on defense. So Biden just needs to-- I think he needs two things. He needs to keep this level of energy going without any mistakes.
And he needs the improvements in the economy that have been gradually coming along, mostly inflation-- getting that inflation rate down and getting people to notice that it's down. He just needs these incremental trends to continue. And if they do, Biden has a pretty good shot in November. But there's a lot that can change during the next seven months.
BRAD SMITH: Rick, just lastly, while we have here, there was one point of contention that got at least some billionaires getting Twitter fingers or fingers, I'm not sure if that's going to really work the way that I thought it would. But anyway, they got Twitter fingers as we used to call it. Bill Ackman was the first one. Talking about drug prices here and Biden mentioned this within his speech, talking about Americans paying more for prescription drugs than anywhere else.
It's wrong. He's ending it. Bill Ackman chimed in on this. We saw Mark Cuban chimed in on this. And it revives this general thought of, OK, for the billionaires that have already thrown some capital, some funding behind Nikki Haley previously. Of these two candidates, where do we think that's going to net out?
RICK NEWMAN: I think Biden would welcome attacks from billionaires. I mean, if billionaires don't like his agenda. I mean, that is exactly-- that's the enemy you want to have if you're waging a populist re-election campaign, which is what Biden is doing. In terms of people who are supporting it. I think the money behind Nikki Haley is not going to go to Biden. I mean, those are-- she is very conservative. She is nowhere near the centrist or center left Democrat that Joe Biden is.
So I don't think Biden's going to get that money. But I also don't think he needs it. Biden's campaign is extremely well funded at this point. And by the way, Donald Trump's campaign is not. So if some of those wealthy donors just sat out the election and did not help out Donald Trump or his super PACs, that would benefit Biden. And I have a-- I have a hunch that is the way it's going to go.
By the way, I did see one survey recently that said, some people who supported Nikki Haley perhaps more of them are inclined to vote for Biden than for Trump. That would be terrific news for Biden because that is exactly the type of fence sitting voter that he needs to get in order to win.