Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former House Speaker, said that Republicans heckling President Biden on Tuesday during the State of the Union address was “showbiz.” During Biden’s speech, many members of the GOP would shout in response to certain things that Biden was saying.
Several GOP members heckled Biden after his comments that there were those within the GOP who would want to get rid of Medicare and Social Security, or who had at least asked that Congress would need to continue approving these programs by passing them again if they wanted them maintained.
In an interview with CNN, Pelosi said that Biden knows that there are Republicans who have questioned both Medicare and Social Security’s status as they were trying to force spending cuts to the federal government in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. However, Pelosi said that watching the address it felt like Republicans were protecting a bit too much in their efforts to show that Medicare and Social Security are not actually on the table.
Biden also pointed to the leader of their Senate campaign committee, Sen. Rick Scott [R-Fla.], who had proposed that all federal legislations, including Medicare and Social Security, would need to be voted on again or they would sunset within five years. In the proposal, Scott had argued that those laws that were worth keeping would be passed through Congress again.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the other hand has maintained that both Social Security and Medicare are “off the table” and they won’t be part of the negotiations on spending cuts relating to the increase of the debt ceiling.
