Cedric Richmond teases Biden’s first State of the Union

President Biden will use his State of the Union address on Tuesday to both lay out his plans for 2022 and tout the accomplishments from his first year in office, according to White House adviser Cedric Richmond.  

“I think what the president will do is lay out his vision for the next year, but also talk about the challenges that we met during the first year,” Richmond, who leads the White House Office of Public Engagement, told The Hill’s Steve Clemons in an interview on Friday.  

“With this administration, we’ve had a number of challenges that we had to meet starting on day one with COVID, moving on to Colonial Pipeline, to Afghanistan, to all of those things and we are meeting challenges,” Richmond said, referring to the cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August.  

Richmond also signaled that Biden would discuss how his administration is working to address pandemic-induced inflation that has had an adverse impact on Americans even as the economy has recovered.  

He said one of the administration’s goals is to “look at those things that are affecting families and right now.”

“We know rising costs is something that many families are facing, and we are specifically looking and trying to address that every day,” he added. 

Richmond made the comments during The Hill’s event “America’s Report Card” on Friday.  

Biden is slated to deliver his State of the Union address, his first as president, on Tuesday.  

The White House has not yet offered a full preview of his address.  

Biden is likely to tout some accomplishments, including Friday’s historic nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.  

Richmond also indicated he would address the crisis in Eastern Europe with the Russian invasion of Ukraine this past week.  

“I think that the president will, again, continue to lay out to the American people why it’s important and what we’re doing,” Richmond said. “He’ll touch on it again.”