President Biden's 2023 State of the Union address

President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that his administration has "created, with the help of many people in this room, 12 million new jobs — more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years.” 

Facts First: Biden’s number is accurate: the US economy added 12.1 million jobs between Biden’s first full month in office, February 2021, and January 2023. That number is indeed higher than the number of jobs added in any previous four-year presidential term. However, it’s important to note that Biden took office in an unusual pandemic context that makes meaningful comparison to other periods very difficult.  

Biden became president less than a year after the economy shed nearly 22 million jobs over two months, March and April 2020, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The jobs recovery then began immediately after that, under then-President Donald Trump, but there was still an unprecedented hole to fill when Biden took office.  

Biden is free to argue that his stimulus legislation and other policies have helped the country gain jobs faster than it otherwise would have. (As always, it’s debatable precisely how much credit the president deserves for job-creation.) Nonetheless, it is clear that there could only be such an extraordinary number of jobs added in 2021 and 2022 because there was such an extraordinary number of jobs lost in early 2020. 

We're tracking the approximate length of President Joe Biden's second State of the Union speech. Here's how it compares to the longest and shortest SOTU addresses since 1964.

President Joe Biden started his State of the Union address Tuesday by congratulating new, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. This is the first time Biden is addressing a GOP-controlled House.

McCarthy and Vice President Kamala Harris are seated behind Biden.

The president also congratulated Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as the first Black House Minority leader, as well as Sen. Mitch McConnell for being the longest-serving Senate leader.

"I want to give special recognition to someone who I think is going to be considered the greatest Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi," Biden added, which was met by cheers from Democrats as Pelosi blew the president a kiss from her seat in the chamber.

Biden is expected to focus on bipartisanship throughout the address.

President Biden issued a call to bipartisan call to unity during the opening remarks of the State of the Union address, telling Republicans in the House chamber that he's eager to continue working together in the new session of Congress.

Since taking office, Biden said, "we proved the cynics and the naysayers wrong. Yes, we disagreed plenty. And yes, there were times when Democrats went alone. But time and again, Democrats and Republicans came together."

Together, he said, both parties came together to defend Europe, and passed a massive infrastructure bill as well as more than 300 other bipartisan pieces of legislation over the last two years.

President Joe Biden is now delivering his second State of the Union address at the US Capitol.

The remarks come roughly at the halfway point of his term after Republicans regained control of the House chamber. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Vice President Kamala Harris are sitting directly behind the president.

According to excerpts released ahead of the speech, Biden will tell congressional Republicans that he wants to work together instead of “fighting for the sake of fighting” and will reiterate his focus on middle class jobs.

Biden is also expected to address concerns from Congress and the nation as his administration faces an uncertain economic picture, renewed calls for police reform, a war in Ukraine and escalating tensions with China – all while Democrats and the GOP eye 2024

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will deliver the Republican response to Biden’s address.

President Joe Biden has entered the House chamber to deliver his second State of the Union address.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is the designated survivor while President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union address.

Walsh is expected to depart the Biden administration soon after being offered a job heading the NHL’s Players’ Association. His departure wasn't expected to be announced until after Biden’s address.

What is the designated survivor? At least one top official is expected not to be in the US Capitol building during the president's speech, participating instead in an obscure ritual in order to maintain the line of presidential succession in the rare case that disaster strikes. That person is the designated survivor.

Last year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was the designated survivor for Biden’s first State of the Union address, staying away from the Capitol in an undisclosed and secure location during the president’s prime-time remarks.

How it started: According to the National Constitution Center, the tradition of a designated survivor during the State of the Union speech began in the 1950s as a result of fears of a nuclear attack during the Cold War. But the federal government did not publicly name the designated survivor until 1981 when President Ronald Reagan’s Education Secretary Terrel Bell assumed the designation for an address to a joint session of Congress.

After the vice president, the speaker of the House, the Senate president pro tempore, and the secretaries of State, Treasury and Defense are next in the line of succession. Data analyzed by CNN shows that the attorney general, seventh in the line of succession, has been the highest-ranking Cabinet member known to have been appointed to be designated survivor. A Justice Department head has been selected for the role three times.

While not as well known, the National Constitution Center states that designated survivors have also been used during inaugurations and presidential speeches to joint sessions of Congress. Members of Congress also have been designated to skip the State of the Union as a precautionary measure, according to the center.

President Joe Biden is about to give his second State of the Union address.

See photos of arrivals and other scenes from before the speech.

A majority of the Supreme Court is in attendance at this year's State of the Union address.

Members of the court just walked into the chamber, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson — which is her first time attending.

Members of the Supreme Court usually attend the State of the Union, though they do not play an official role. Roberts has said in the past that he is not always content attending the event that is so geared around politics, but he is the only sitting justice to go to every address since joining the court in 2005.

Over the years, some combination of justices have always crossed the street to attend the speech, but others have refrained either due to scheduling conflicts or the feeling that the event has devolved into what the late Justice Antonin Scalia referred to as a “childish spectacle.” 

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor are not in the chamber this year. The last time all nine sitting justices attended the speech was in 1977. 

CNN's Ethan Cohen and Melissa DePalo contributed reporting to this post.