At State of the Union, Biden must shift his focus — and Congress’s priorities — to the war in Ukraine

While Democrats still expect a large focus on domestic politics, they acknowledge that the Ukraine crisis has provided a chance for Biden to rise to his 2020 campaign promises of being a seasoned statesman who would unite our allies.

“There’s no doubt that what’s happening in Ukraine will feature prominently in the State of the Union address,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who met with Europeans earlier this month at the Munich Security Conference, said Friday. “One of the reasons that the country supported President Biden was his ability to bring together our allies, to support NATO.”

Biden’s popularity remained strong well into last summer, but began a precipitous fall with the deadly end to the U.S. pullout of Afghanistan in August. Two coronavirus variants have complicated a pandemic Biden had hoped to end, while the president’s legislative agenda ran up against Democratic infighting.

In his speech, Biden has a chance to reclaim some of the lost mantle of global leader. Putin’s moves so far have largely united NATO allies who had spent the previous four years embattled over then-President Trump’s insults to friends and his public embrace of Putin.

The speech will also serve as a clear attempt to move beyond a domestic legislative agenda that, despite initial successes, turned downright disastrous over the holidays.

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain briefed senior congressional aides Wednesday about what to expect.

According to two Democrats on the call, Klain only briefly mentioned the Build Back Better agenda. Once envisioned as a $3.5 trillion cornerstone of Biden’s legacy — reshaping laws for health care, climate change, child care, prescription drugs and more — the slimmed down version of “BBB” ran into defeat when Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) backed out of talks in the Senate.

In early January, some Democrats looked to the State of the Union as the moment Biden would lay down a new marker for that agenda. The catch phrase became “chunks,” for which pieces of Build Back Better could be cobbled together in a way that could win Manchin’s approval without disappointing the liberals who dominate the House Democratic caucus.

But the last month has seen nothing approaching progress on that front, and Wednesday’s call with Klain suggested that the president would mention that effort in passing and instead focus more on steps to fight inflation — now the No. 1 issue for most voters — and touting their accomplishments from last year.

With the midterm elections eight months away, Klain and aides on the call agreed that Democrats need a more reality-based focus with a singular goal of positioning their vulnerable incumbents in the best posture possible.

Plus, with Ukraine under attack and the nomination of federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden’s speech will divert to those matters as well — and so too will the agenda on Capitol Hill.

That’s welcome news to Van Hollen, who is ready to promote the successes from last year’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure plan and how, at least for now, the pandemic is in retreat.

“Acknowledge the ongoing challenges that people are facing with rising costs,” Van Hollen said of Tuesday’s speech, “but the overall theme should be: We’re beating this pandemic, we’re moving on, and the economy is in good shape, we’ve added a record number of jobs over the last year, real GDP has grown a lot. And, so, we are back, we are back.”

Many Republicans denounce these attempts to move past the pandemic as Biden’s party simply realizing the political peril of continuing to try to enforce stringent coronavirus-related prohibitions, suggesting only the politics changed in recent weeks.

“The American people see right through Democrats’ masking political theater and will never forget how they played politics with our children,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Friday after new federal guidance eased masking recommendations for most Americans.

Many on both sides, however, appear to be in agreement that the next few weeks or months will see a shift toward bipartisan efforts to shore up the defenses of NATO allies in Eastern Europe and provide whatever assistance possible to Ukrainian forces.

In a memo to lawmakers Friday, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) devoted the top portion of the near-term agenda to addressing the new wartime priorities. “We will have a difficult task ahead as we prepare to take further actions, in partnership with our allies, against Putin and his autocratic regime and to offer aid and support to the Ukrainian people while reassuring our NATO allies of America’s unwavering commitment,” Hoyer wrote.

White House officials have already suggested a $6.4 billion infusion to help allies as well as build defenses against Russian cyber attacks. There’s talk of another $5 billion to help boost the global vaccination effort, along with another $30 billion for domestic efforts at battling the pandemic.

All that could end up in its own legislation or, if it comes together quickly, be folded into the already emerging bipartisan package to fund the federal agencies at nearly $1.5 trillion for the fiscal year. That spending outline faces a March 11 deadline.

Van Hollen, one of more than two dozen lawmakers who traveled to European security conferences last week, said the delegation devoted a large portion of talks to the short-term help Congress needs to advance.

“We’re ready to do it,” Van Hollen said, adding that there could be months or years of work ahead. “We’re in this for the long haul, in terms of supplying the Ukrainian resistance with funds.”

All this will be happening as Biden and Democrats rally around Jackson’s nomination to be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, which Senate leaders expect to give final approval on later this spring.

She was confirmed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last year with 53 votes, including three from Republicans in what was considered a trial run for the elevation to the highest court in the land.

Her nomination comes as Democratic leaders attempt to unify ranks and energize the liberal base ahead of what is still shaping up as a very difficult November midterm election season.

Democrats hope Tuesday night serves as a pivot point for Biden to move beyond the internal feuds of last year, as well as the brutal pandemic and the deadly Afghan withdrawal.

None of which seemed likely when the new year began.

“The State of the Union address is a very special opportunity for the president to talk about how America is back, we’re putting the pandemic behind us, our economy is on a roll,” Van Hollen said.