--- title: Hecklers Turned the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad description: Biden held his own against a fur-coiffed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and other GOP hecklers, easing questions about his age and sharpness. canonical: https://time.com/6253881/marjorie-taylor-greene-state-of-the-union-hecklers-biden-ad/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-02-08T16:50:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:12:53.238Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hecklers Turned the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad og:description: Hecklers like Marjorite Taylor Greene helped turn the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad og:url: https://time.com/6253881/marjorie-taylor-greene-state-of-the-union-hecklers-biden-ad/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd8ff44ded2d91ea/698a3a2e47ca38321f3ba7c6/GettyImages-1246878556.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: State of the Union 2023 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hecklers Turned the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad twitter:description: Hecklers like Marjorite Taylor Greene helped turn the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd8ff44ded2d91ea/698a3a2e47ca38321f3ba7c6/GettyImages-1246878556.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Hecklers Turned the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=7014f283-cefa-4b39-b4cf-5d860b65410e&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: SOTU Audience Gets Riled-Up When Biden's Talks About Medicare and Social Security [Watch (HLS stream): SOTU Audience Gets Riled-Up When Biden's Talks About Medicare and Social Security](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mveYzEJA.m3u8) (2:43)  _Published 2023-02-08. Biden didn’t exactly invite audience participation, but lawmakers couldn’t be stopped. Along with whoops and cheers from Democrats, Republicans frequently interrupted the President. One of the most heated moments came when Biden accused the GOP of wanting to slash Social Security and Medicare. Many Republicans in the chamber booed loudly in response, shouting “No!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most frequent hecklers of the night, yelled out, “Liar!”_  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Feb 8, 2023 4:50 PM UTC Biden didn’t exactly invite audience participation, but lawmakers couldn’t be stopped. Along with whoops and cheers from Democrats, Republicans frequently interrupted the President. One of the most heated moments came when Biden accused the GOP of wanting to slash Social Security and Medicare. Many Republicans in the chamber booed loudly in response, shouting “No!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most frequent hecklers of the night, yelled out, “Liar!”  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Feb 8, 2023 4:50 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ When a fur-coiffed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene [yelled “liar”](https://time.com/6253808/state-of-the-union-interruptions-shouts-biden-taylor-greene/) Tuesday night, among the loudest in an abrupt chorus of boos, the oldest President to ever deliver a State of the Union address didn’t miss a beat. He smiled and went far afield from his script as GOP lawmakers tried to reject his claims that Republicans were ready to gut social entitlement programs. “Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? We’ve got unanimity?” he asked. “Apparently it’s not going to be a problem,” he deadpanned at another moment. The striking exchange, and Biden’s ease in handling it in front of an audience of millions, illustrated why the Democratic establishment isn’t yet ready to toss their 80-year-old standard-bearer overboard. Despite a halting, vamped opening to Tuesday’s State of the Union speech—a Super Bowl [joke](https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/state-of-the-union-2023-president-biden/card/biden-jokes-about-super-bowl-mixes-up-days-glAXONe5JNSvPWd9f3dP)? Why?— Biden proved himself plenty capable of holding his own when his Republican hecklers started to stalk him. In fact, he actually demonstrated how he might be able to troll them into their own self-own status in real time. Give Biden acrimony, he’ll toss back accomplishments. Throw him hostility, he’ll offer hope. “As my football coach used to say, ‘Lots of luck in your senior year,’” he deadpanned at one point, mocking lawmakers who seemed to think high school was the same as the big leagues of Congress. Biden baited Greene’s fellow Republicans into pledges of fealty to Social Security. When others pummeled him on the U.S.-Mexican dotted line—”secure the border”—Biden taunted them with an offer to work on comprehensive immigration reform. And when Republicans tried to lay blame at the ongoing drug addiction and overdose crisis at Biden’s feet, he simply asked Republicans if they’d work with him to combat it. For as much as Democrats are gritting their teeth and girding for the worst when it comes to Biden’s likely 2024 campaign, Tuesday night’s State of the Union gave them reason to hold onto optimism. It wasn’t a robust reason, but it was sufficient. Biden showed he can keep his ground in the face of Republican attack; in fact, he seemed to delight in the heckling that came from the floor of the House. For every “liar”—[and worse](https://time.com/6253808/state-of-the-union-interruptions-shouts-biden-taylor-greene/)—that rose from the floor, Biden seemed ready with the rejoinder of his first-term economic record. For every peel of stage laughter coming from his physical left and his political right, Biden stood ready to offer some undeniably impressive facts. And for every protest to his trolling suggestion that Republicans were ready to ditch Social Security, Biden had a taunt right in the margins of his heavy black binder. Biden’s third joint address to Congress set the tone not just for the next year but also his still-unannounced re-election campaign. Biden [laid the trap of bipartisan collaboration](https://time.com/6253631/biden-mccarthy-bipartisanship-state-of-the-union-2023/) as well as anyone in recent memory but also set the timer on some partisan timebombs. Biden is convinced that he is the only Democrat in the land who can block Donald Trump’s return to the White House and is increasingly itchy to make his 2024 re-election bid real. He has effectively frozen the field of would-be challengers, resetting the nominating calendar in such a way that renders challengers as also-rans. He has never been a strong fundraiser or nurturer of outside moneybags, but the deep-pocketed allies are nonetheless ready to bankroll his efforts to stay in the gig that he has chased since his 20s. So it’s worth considering Tuesday night’s State of the Union as the prologue to Biden’s next chapter, perhaps the final eighth volume in his Robert Caro-esque chronicle. (For the record, not that I’d write it: the first volume would be the first Senate race; Volume II: his Senate term ahead of the 1988 race; III: his return to the Senate; IV: the 2008 primary: V: his time as Vice President; VI: his time as a free radical from 2016-20; and VII: the last two years, leading us to the present.) Biden holds dear to him the spirit of Irish poets, in that the specter of legacy is always just barely off-stage and always above it. Biden wants wins, and his speech—and the interruptions to it—suggest a measure of confrontation is going to define it. That said, Republicans weren’t entirely sure that the interludes of heckling and hectoring were useful to their side. In fact, plenty of Republicans groaned in the chamber and groused privately that the likes of Greene managed to make the speech into an interactive experience not terribly dissimilar to the British Parliament’s tradition of P.M. Questions. In public, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shushed his caucus a number of times as they chucked invectives at Biden. More quietly—but still in view of the public—Utah Sen. Mitt Romney tried to [silence](https://time.com/6253829/mitt-romney-george-santos-state-of-the-union/) a GOP House member who has proven plenty shameful to the brand. Romney—who in 2008 and 2012 thought he would do well to be giving a State of the Union himself as President—told Rep. George Santos that he was an embarrassment. Biden seemed to share that assessment, opting to see Santos and deny him a handshake on the aisle. Again, Biden mightn’t be the most optimal nominee-in-waiting Democrats have ever had on deck, but he’s hardly the most problematic. And that, right there, is why Tuesday night’s State of the Union leaves a whole of the Democratic Party’s top donor roster less dour than they began their week. It’s also why the ragtag Republican contenders hoping to see a slow, doddering commander in chief ready to be put out to pasture were standing at the starting line with empty hands. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript [00:00] Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage. [00:03] I get it unless I agree to recognize plants. [00:08] All you at home, should know what those plans are. [00:12] Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share. [00:14] Some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social [00:18] Security Sunset. I'm not saying it to majoria. [00:24] Let me give you anybody. [00:26] Who doubts it. [00:27] Contact my office. [00:29] I'll give you a copy. [00:31] I'll give you a copy of The Proposal. [00:35] Chinese Congress, doesn't vote. [00:44] If Congress doesn't keep the programs where they are that go with [00:48] other Republicans say I'm not saying it to majority of you. [00:51] I don't even think it's even a significant. [00:54] What is being proposed by individual? [00:58] I'm not blaming, not naming them, but it's being proposed by [01:01] some of you look folks. [01:08] The idea is that we're not going to be we're not going to be [01:12] moved into being threatened to default on the debt if you don't [01:16] respond. [01:30] Show folks, as we all apparently, agree. [01:34] Social Security Medicare sauce is off the books now, [01:37] right? Or not to this car. [01:40] All right. [01:53] Social Security Medicare a Lifeline for millions of seniors, [01:55] Americans have to pay into them from the very first paycheck [01:58] they started. So tonight, let's all agree. [02:01] And we currently are at stand up for seniors. [02:11] Stand up and show them. [02:14] Stand up and show them the security. [02:19] We will not cut Medicare. [02:22] Call Jennifer Blum in America, people they earned and if anyone tries [02:26] to cut Social Security, but you probably know he's going [02:28] to do. [02:30] Are there any white risers cut Medicare? [02:32] I'll stop them. [02:34] I'll beat yo it. [02:36] I'm not going to allow them to take away be taken away. [02:40] Not today. Not tomorrow night. [02:41] Everybody parents not going to be a problem. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6253881/marjorie-taylor-greene-state-of-the-union-hecklers-biden-ad/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6253881/marjorie-taylor-greene-state-of-the-union-hecklers-biden-ad/"},"headline":"How Hecklers Turned the State of the Union Into a Biden 2024 Ad","datePublished":"2023-02-08T16:50:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T07:12:53.238Z","description":"Biden gracefully held his own against GOP hecklers, easing questions about his age and sharpness.","url":"https://time.com/6253881/marjorie-taylor-greene-state-of-the-union-hecklers-biden-ad/","keywords":["The D.C. 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