Biden speech takeaways: More conciliation than conflict

By JOSH BOAK and AAMER MADHANI
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time since voters in the midterm elections handed control of the House to Republicans. Facing a new reality of a divided Congress in a bitterly partisan Washington, Biden nevertheless made the hopeful appeal in his State of the Union address that the American electorate is uninterested in its elected leaders “fighting for the sake of fighting” and that “there is no reason we can’t work together.” He called for unity and tried to emphasize conciliation over conflict, easier to do in the rarefied setting of a State of the Union address, seemingly impossible to sustain in such divided times.