Biden Gets Republicans to Promise They Won’t Cut Medicare or Social Security During State of the Union

President Joe Biden appeared to get Republicans to agree not to cut funding for Medicare or Social Security during the State of the Union Tuesday night.

Republicans are threatening to hold the debt ceiling hostage until the federal budget is reduced. One of their plans includes slashing funds for social welfare programs including Medicare and Social Security.

“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I’m not saying it’s the majority,” Biden said during his speech.

Republicans quickly cut him off with groans and shouts of, “No!” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted out, “Liar!”

Biden went off-script in response: “Anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.”

When he was greeted with more dissent, he said, “So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?”

Republicans began applauding, to which he replied, “Alright, we got unanimity!”

“So tonight, let’s all agree—and apparently we are—let’s stand up for seniors,” Biden continued. “And if anyone tries to cut social security, which apparently no one’s gonna do … I’ll stop them. I’ll veto it.”

“I’m not going to allow them to be taken away, not today, not tomorrow, not ever, but apparently it’s not gonna be a problem.”

The Republican Party has already indicated it wants to cut Medicare and Social Security. Senator Rick Scott has previously proposed sunsetting the programs every five years. In August, Senator Ron Johnson proposed removing Social Security and Medicare as federal entitlement programs and instead making them discretionary spending programs that Congress approves on a yearly basis.

What’s more, Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare every year he was in office. For the 2021 federal budget alone, Trump proposed slashing about half a trillion dollars from the programs.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to bring a white balloon to the State of the Union Tuesday night, a move she unveiled just hours after her new best friend Kevin McCarthy said there would be no “childish games” from Republicans during the speech.

She didn’t end up bringing the balloon, which referred to the Chinese spy balloon that has caused plenty of political debate and political theater over the past week.

It’s a decent troll (and a broken clock is also right twice a day). But it’s not to everyone’s taste. Lauren Boebert, who made headlines with Greene for heckling Joe Biden throughout the entire previous State of the Union, was dismissive of her former ally when asked if she would be making a “symbolic protest” during the address.

Greene’s announcement of her helium-filled guest also came just a few hours after House Speaker McCarthy told reporters that “we have a code of ethics of how we should portray ourselves … We’re not going to be doing childish games, tearing up a speech,” referring to Nancy Pelosi’s iconic shredding of Donald Trump’s last State of the Union.

Greene allied herself closely to McCarthy during his grueling run for speakership, and she was rewarded with positions on several key House committees.

Greene’s balloon was not seen in the chamber later Tuesday night, as she heckled the president throughout his speech.

This post was updated.

Dozens of George Santos’s constituents traveled by bus from Long Island, New York, to the Capitol on Tuesday to call for Republican leadership to expel their not-necessarily duly elected congressman. The protesters, joined by New York Representatives Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres, hoisted signs that read, “No taxation w/out honest representation!” and “NY-3 says: It’s time to FIRE the LIAR!”

The protestors, alongside advocacy organization Courage for America and local group Concerned Citizens of NY-03, took the approximately five hour journey to the Capitol to directly deliver a petition to Santos’s office that reportedly has over 1,000 signing constituents calling for Santos’s expulsion.”

“You have to be really psychologically impaired to throw that around like it’s nickels,” said Republican constituent Ben Marzouk, in reference to Santos’s lie about his mother dying during 9/11. “It’s not difficult to see and to do what’s right and wrong. [Speaker Kevin] McCarthy, do the right thing. Expel him. Have some respect, have some dignity, and do the right thing.”

Goldman suggested that House leadership has hesitated to push Santos to resign because “they are concerned that George Santos has information that may be damaging to them about their role in the fraud scheme.” Torres added to the idea, saying the only reason for Santos not to resign is  “to maintain leverage for a plea bargain in the event of criminal prosecution.”

Goldman and Torres’s suggestions aside, Santos resigning would shrink the GOP’s already slim majority in the House, one that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has worked desperately to obtain control over. So it is perhaps unsurprising that, after suggesting the House Ethics Committee was investigating Santos on Tuesday, McCarthy then assured us that it is not in fact doing so.

Santos’s actions have transcended simply being a buffoonish and pathological liar; already under local, federal, and even international investigations for his financial dealings, potential campaign finance violations, lying about his résumé, his fraudulent use of a checkbook owned by an older man in Brazil, and a scam in which Santos raised money off a homeless veteran’s dying service dog, Santos has now been accused of sexual harassment by a prospective staffer.

So, as McCarthy and the Republicans continue to avoid even subjecting Santos to a proper ethics inquiry, know that this is what they’re supporting.

Over the weekend, Representative Lauren Boebert visited the Storehouse Dallas Church in Texas, where the congregation opened up the stage for the Colorado congresswoman to preach to them. During her “sermon,” she professed her deepest hopes, the fundamental beliefs and wishes she imbues her faith into. In particular, she appeared to pray for the death of President Joe Biden.

“Joe Biden’s president. We don’t know what to do, Lord!” Boebert said. “It’s all right, we pray for our presidents. You know, it says, ‘Let his days be few and another take his office.’”

The audience laughed.

“That’s why I filed articles of impeachment for Joe Biden,” Boebert added. “Unfortunately, he does have a really great insurance policy named Kamala Harris,” she finished with a chuckle.

The implication was not just about Biden’s days in office being few.

Boebert said a similar line last June, and specified the noted Bible verse she was referencing, Psalm 109:8, which reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” The following line of the verse reads, “Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow.” The surrounding lines call for “evil to oppose” the enemy, for the enemy’s descendants to “be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.”

Boebert appears to have now unapologetically, and repeatedly, prayed for Biden’s death.

Meanwhile, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—who, along with Boebert, helped incite a riot on the Capitol, was a special event guest alongside self-proclaimed Nazi and Hitler-lover Nick Fuentes, and has spread conspiracies about Parkland and Sandy Hook—presided over the House on Monday.

The pair’s prominence in the party and freedom to continue behaving so egregiously without any consequence from their own ranks lies in stark contrast to Republicans’ shameless removal of Representative Ilhan Omar from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last week.

A new report confirms even more details about the Chinese spy balloons that floated in U.S. airspace during the Trump administration, despite Republicans’ vehement protestations to the contrary.

An Air Force intelligence report from April found that a Chinese spy balloon had circled the globe in 2019, passing by Hawaii and flying directly over Florida during its journey, CNN reported Monday.

The report directly contradicts multiple Republican claims that there had been no such incidents during Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump himself and several of his former security and intelligence advisers also insisted there had been no balloon incidents, which is apparently now an actual national security phrase and not a mishap at a traveling circus.

The Department of Defense said in a statement Saturday that at least three suspected Chinese spy balloons had crossed the United States during Trump’s time in office, citing an anonymous senior official.

The Air Force report, which confirms there had been a spy balloon, did not specify when the 2019 balloon passed over Florida. But Trump was at one of his Florida properties 39 days that year, according to a Washington Post analysis, so there is a small chance it could have passed right over his head.

The latest balloon has unleashed one of the weirdest timelines of late, which is no small feat. It has sparked a wave of political fighting, as well as a social media trend of conservative politicians performatively aiming guns at the sky.

The balloon appeared over the U.S. just days before Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to touch down for his first visit to Beijing. China says the balloon was for weather research and had simply been blown off course—a claim the U.S. rejected.

Blinken’s trip was supposed to ease tensions between the U.S. and China. But now they seem to be inflating.