Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., suggested that President Joe Biden had an opportunity in his State of the Union address Tuesday to become the moderate he tried to portray himself as during the 2020 election campaign, but doubted he would do so.
Speaking on Newsmax's preview of the annual presidential address, Santorum said released excerpts that he's seen indicate that Biden would appeal to the left wing of the Democratic Party.
''So he can stick to the script, which is what he's done consistently, [as he] just did with appointing this judge to be to be the justice of the Supreme Court, stay with your hardcore left,'' said Santorum, a Newsmax contributor. ''Or he can do what the Green Party in Germany did, which has said 'The world has changed, and we have to adjust with it.'
''The Green Party now is for building coal plants and for building facilities and opening and extending their nuclear power plants. They changed because the world changed.
''Joe Biden has a chance tonight, if [he] wanted to seize the opportunity to set a different course, to say, 'The world has changed, and therefore I'm going to set a different course and tack back to the middle.' And he'd have a good reason to do so. Everything I've seen from the excerpts of the speech he's not doing any of that, doesn't sound like he's going to do that.''
Santorum also referred to the president's nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson — the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court — to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, which Biden was expected to tout as a major accomplishment.
But Santorum didn't expect Biden to live up to the pledge he made in last year's inaugural address to be a unifying force.
''He's not going to go in there and try to unite anybody,'' Santorum said. ''He's not going to go in there and try to reach out to the other side. Here we are at a time when, you know, we have a major war breaking out in Europe.
''The country is looking for a leader who can pull us together like the president of Ukraine has done. And what's fighting going to do? Set up straw men say, 'You Republicans just want to hurt the little guy and I'm going to come to the rescue.'
''This is the same old politics that drives America crazy, and he's just not … he's not able to rise to the occasion. It's pathetic.''
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