Biden’s known for being long-winded. Here’s how long his first State of the Union was.

2 years ago

President Joe Biden is not known for brevity, but he delivered a State of the Union address Tuesday pretty much in line with other presidents since the 1960s, clocking in at 1 hour and 2 minutes.

The average State of the Union has been about an hour after 2000, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from the American Presidency Project. Biden largely spoke on-script with his prepared remarks on Tuesday night, though with some notable off-the-cuff quips about deer wearing Kevlar vests and repeating a call to “fund” the police.

Bill Clinton holds the record for the longest State of the Union speech at nearly 1 hour and 29 minutes in 2000, according to the project.

Biden’s loquaciousness is well-documented. In January, he plowed past the longest-lasting press conferences by his predecessors with a 1 hour and 51-minute prime-time event, compared to Donald Trump (1 hour and 26 minutes) and Barack Obama (1 hour and 27 minutes).



But Biden's first State of the Union was the fourth-longest of the seven most recent presidents’ first speeches, according to C-SPAN. Trump spoke for more than 1 hour and 20 minutes in his first State of the Union in 2018.

And it was a few minutes shorter than his first joint address to Congress last year, which lasted 1 hour and 5 minutes, according to the American Presidency Project. That speech isn’t technically deemed a “State of the Union” address.

As many State of the Union speeches do, Biden's address Tuesday touched on a wide range of topics, from Covid-19 to Russia's invasion of Ukraine to police reform. His prepared remarks totaled 6,476 words.

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