After State of Union, Obama heads to Nebraska, Louisiana

North Dakota’s Congressional delegation weighed in on President Obama’s final State of the Union address.

Democrats cheered loudly when Obama mentioned fixing a broken immigration system, protecting children from gun violence and raising the minimum wage.

President Barack Obama’s eighth and final State of the Union speech Tuesday night was focused on the future of the country, and one thing became clear: the president is just as concerned as many Americans are about the possibility of Donald Trump taking over the Oval Office next January.

Obama: “If this Congress is serious about winning this war, and wants to send a message to our troops and the world, authorize the use of military force against ISIL”.

“We have to reduce the influence of money in our politics, so that a handful of families and hidden interests can’t bankroll our elections - and if our existing approach to campaign finance can’t pass muster in the courts, we need to work together to find a real solution.”

Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman? He started with what he called a basic fact – the United States of America, he said, now has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.

And seriously. Republicans have been saying Obama has been degrading the presidency since the day he took office, if not before. “This isn’t a matter of political correctness“. Marco Rubio was also critical in a video response, “While Isis [Islamic State] is beheading people and burning them in cages he [President Obama] says climate change is our greatest threat”. “Period. Period. It’s not even close”.

While Obama did not directly call out Republicans, he sharply, and at times sarcastically, struck back at rivals who have challenged his economic and national security stewardship. We are entering a world of change and consequently we will have to live with the decisions of the future face of Washington. “It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency - that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better”, he said. He said in the speech that he would try to do better to bridge the divide.

“The president’s record has often fallen far short of his soaring words”, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said in the Republican rebuttal. “It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong”, Obama said. He noted Vice President Joe Biden‘s moonshot initiative to cure cancer, and the work Vice President Biden and Congress have done to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the biggest funding boost in 12 years, as delineated in the spending bill passed in December. “We must resist that temptation”, Ms Haley said.

In his most pointed swipe at the Republican candidates running to succeed him, Obama warned against “voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us or pray like us or vote like we do or share the same background”.