Harris calls Biden’s SOTU ‘spectacular’ — Republicans disagree

​Vice President Kamala Harris heaped praise on President Biden for his State of the Union address Wednesday, saying he did a “spectacular job” of conveying a unified message on Russia and the ​critical ​issues facing America — even as Republicans said Biden missed the mark and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confessed that it left a “lot more to be desired.”

​”​The president also, I thought, did a spectacular job of trying to appeal to American leaders, regardless of party affiliation, to come together in a unified way around these issues that impact people regardless who have they voted for in the last election,​” Harris told ​host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”​

“​That’s how we continue to make our country strong,​” she said. ​”​That’s our intention.​”​

Harris also called for unity among the US and other Western nations in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.​

“What we want is that the Ukrainian people will be free and that they will be safe. But we are now at a place where, obviously, Russia has yet again invaded Ukraine and we must stand in solidarity with our allies and make sure there are severe and swift consequences, which is what we’ve been doing,” ​Harris said.

The veep claimed that the wide-ranging sanctions imposed on Russia for invading Ukraine are having an effect. 

“We are seeing the impact of the work that we have done. We are seeing the ruble in a free fall. We are seeing the stock market in Russia has essentially closed. What we have seen is that the credit rating of Russia is now junk,” she said. “So, what we know is that we’re having an impact and we’re taking it quite seriously.”

Biden in his speech said Russian President Vladimir Putin had “badly miscalculated” the resolve of the Ukrainian people and how the US and NATO would respond to his attack on a sovereign nation. 

“He rejected repeated efforts at diplomacy.​ ​He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And he thought he could divide us at home. Putin was wrong. We were ready​,” Biden said. 

​”​We prepared extensively and carefully. We spent months building a coalition of other freedom-loving nations from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa to confront Putin,” the president said.

Biden also acknowledged that he was giving his first State of the Union address after Americans have “lived through two of the hardest years this nation has ever faced.”

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the GOP’s official rebuttal that rather than moving America forward, Biden and the Democrats ​”have sent us back in time — to the late ’70s and ’80s.”

“When runaway inflation was hammering families, a violent crime wave was crashing on our cities, and the Soviet army was trying to redraw the world map,” she said. “Even before taking the oath of office, the president told us that he wanted to ‘make America respected around the world again and to unite us here at home.’ He’s failed on both fronts.”

Reynolds said the administration’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan last August — which Biden did not mention in his address — “betrayed our allies and emboldened our enemies.”

While she called for the country to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, she also talked about Biden’s actions leading up to Russia’s invasion.

“But we shouldn’t ignore what happened in the run-up to Putin’s invasion: Waiving sanctions on Russian pipelines while limiting oil production here at home; focusing on political correctness rather than military readiness; reacting to world events instead of driving them,” she said.

“​Weakness on the world stage has a cost. And the president’s approach to foreign policy has consistently been too little, too lat​e.”

Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), member of the progressive “Squad,” also was left unenthused by the speech, ​criticizing it for lacking any substantive proposals on immigration and not spending enough time to promote renewable energy. 

“I think that there’s a lot more to be desired there,” she said.