Former Biden White House press secretary and MSNBC host Jen Psaki on Friday complimented President Biden’s fiery State of the Union address the night before and said viewers could especially feel the anger that he holds toward the Supreme Court justices after they overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.
“I thought the moment with the Supreme Court on abortion was one of the most interesting moments,” Psaki said. “President Biden is a traditionalist, he’s an institutionalist, especially when it comes to our judicial system.”
“And you could feel the anger from him over Dobbs and over some of the recent actions of the Supreme Court. I thought that was a particularly powerful moment,” she continued.
During his address, Biden denounced the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — that returned power to individual states on abortion.
The president said, “Look, its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote the following — and with all due respect, justices — ‘Women are not without electoral — electoral power’ — excuse me — ‘electoral or political power.’”
“You’re about to realize just how much you were right about that,” he added.
One of the president’s distinguished guests was Katie Cox, a woman who fled the state of Texas to get the abortion care she needed without prosecution.
Several Supreme Court justices were in the front row on the House floor for the address.
Biden’s remarks come just weeks after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children and clinics can be held liable for wrongful death if the embryos are destroyed. It reignited a national conversation about in vitro fertilization (IVF) and post-Roe reproductive rights.
The president said the state court’s ruling was a “direct result” of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Biden also invited to the address Latorya Beasley, an Alabama resident who had her first child through IVF in 2022 and was undergoing another round of treatment that was canceled after the ruling.