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Shortly after launching into his State of the Union address on Thursday night, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> served notice he was about to drive some wedges into the Republican Party.

“If anybody in this room thinks [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will stop in Ukraine, I assure you he will not,” Biden said.

Seated behind him was House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), in his first State of the Union in that role. He nodded slightly in apparent approval.

When Biden called for providing Ukraine weaponry, Johnson again nodded, ultimately offering some applause.

Biden added: “My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple: We will not walk away.”

What some might not have realized in that moment is that each of Biden’s statements closely echoed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-breathes-some-hope-into-ukraine-funding/" target=_blank>how Johnson has, at times, talked about Ukraine</a>. But Johnson is the man standing in the way of a bipartisan Senate bill that got 70 votes and would send another $60 billion to Ukraine.

And the reason for Johnson’s stance is clear: the large segment of his conference that declined to join in his apparent approval of Biden’s statements during Thursday’s speech.

This was a key theme of Biden’s State of the Union address. He repeatedly focused on stances with strong public backing — <a href="https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/americans-continue-support-military-and-economic-aid-ukraine" target=_blank>6 in 10 Americans support</a> continuing to help Ukraine — that Republicans are divided over or oppose. And he often got very divided and uncertain responses from that side of the aisle.

Perhaps the biggest example was immigration, at which point things started getting contentious.

When Biden hailed the bipartisan border security bill that Republicans ultimately killed last month as being historically tough, many Republicans jeered.

“Oh, you don’t like that bill, huh?” Biden responded, a big smile growing on his face. “That conservatives got together and said it was a good bill? I’ll be darned. That’s amazing.”

He had a point. The bill was negotiated by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and hailed by some big-name Republicans as a great deal that probably wouldn’t be on the table again. But that was before the party decided to kill it amid former president Donald Trump’s opposition. Some GOP officials acknowledged their party had chosen <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">2024 election</a> politics over securing the border.

As Biden went on to describe the details of how the bill would firm the border up, Lankford could be seen mouthing that his summary was “true.”

Biden brought up Trump’s statement that he would tell Russia to “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/10/trump-nato-allies-russia/" target=_blank>do whatever the hell they want</a>” to NATO countries that don’t spend enough on defense, saying that “it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous and it’s unacceptable.” Republicans have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/12/republican-nato-hawks-wave-white-flag-trumps-provocations/" target=_blank>struggled to account</a> for Trump’s comments, with some suggesting he wasn’t serious. But some criticized them, and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) stood and applauded Biden on Thursday night.

Biden spoke of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jan. 6</a>, accusing some in the GOP of spreading “lies” about that day and criticizing those, like Trump, who sought to overturn the election. Then he quickly added: “You can’t love your country only when you win.” Johnson and a handful of Republicans applauded gently.

Biden spoke of codifying <i>Roe v. Wade</i>, something <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-poll-roe-dobbs-ban-opinion-fcfdfc5a799ac3be617d99999e92eabe" target=_blank>6 in 10 Americans say they want</a> but Republicans oppose.

He pointed to repeated GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare, which <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/05/politics/cnn-poll-trump-verdict-election-charges/index.html" target=_blank>6 in 10 Americans oppose doing</a>.

Biden also challenged Republicans to “stand up for” protecting in vitro fertilization, after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/19/alabama-supreme-court-embryos-children-ivf/" target=_blank>imperiled it</a>. “Guarantee the right to IVF,” Biden urged Congress. “Guarantee it nationwide.”

Despite Republicans insisting en masse after the Alabama ruling that they supported IVF — and Americans saying 67 percent to 8 percent that IVF <a href="https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_XLG2Z6p.pdf" target=_blank>should be legal</a> — Republicans did not heed Biden’s call to settle the matter.

The speech highlighted a Republican Party that often struggles to toe the line of Trump and the most animated portions of its base. Republicans in both the House and Senate have proved bitterly divided over a series of issues — in ways that Democrats simply aren’t, with the glaring exception of Gaza. And with all factions of the GOP gathered Thursday night, Biden was only so happy to highlight those divides.

Indeed, despite Biden pointing to positions that appear to have strong support — and even earning some apparent approval from Johnson on some of them — the speaker  had a telling response on Fox News afterward.

“I mean, the State of the Union, there’s always some partisan elements to it, but there’s normally applause lines that everyone can join in on,” Johnson said.

Johnson accused Biden of spewing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/08/fact-check-state-of-the-union/" target=_blank>falsehoods</a> and added that “there was almost nothing that we could agree to.”

University of Minnesota

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.

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