As presidents have done for four decades, Mr. Biden has invited carefully chosen guests to join the first lady, Jill Biden, in the House gallery to make political points. Among them will be Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States; Bono, the singer who has championed AIDS treatment; and Paul Pelosi, the husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was attacked in their San Francisco home by a man hunting his wife.
Also sitting near the first lady will be cancer survivors, business owners, students, a young immigrant seeking legal status, the father of a fentanyl overdose victim, a couple who pushed to legalize same-sex marriage, a Holocaust survivor, an ironworker, a Navy spouse, the man who disarmed a shooter in Monterey Park, Calif., and a woman who encountered trouble in pregnancy but could not be helped because of Texas’ abortion law.
Accompanying them will be the parents of Tyre Nichols, the Black man who was beaten to death by five police officers in Memphis, touching off the latest national debate about policing and race.
In his speech, Mr. Biden will call on Congress to extend a new $35 price cap on insulin for Medicare beneficiaries to all Americans; to make premium savings in the Affordable Care Act permanent; to slap a minimum tax on billionaires; and to quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks. But he will decry any Republican move to trim spending on Social Security and Medicare.
“He is going to continue to look for every opportunity, when it comes to the economy and economic policy, to reach out and work with Democrats and Republicans, find practical paths forward, find compromise,” said Brian Deese, the president’s national economic adviser. “But at the same time, he’ll draw some clear lines of things he’s not prepared to do.”
Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
