Biden lays out plan for America 'on the move again' in address to Congress
Sen. Tim Scott delivered the Republican response to Biden's address.
On his 99th day in office, Biden made the case for his policy agenda and updated the nation in his first address to a joint session of Congress.
Biden finished his speech with a great message of hope for Americans who overcame a year of tumult, saying that he is "more confident or optimistic about America."
"Folks, as I told every world leader I ever met with over the years, it's never ever, ever been a good bet to bet against America and it still isn't," Biden said, to a great round of applause. "There is not a single thing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity. We can do whatever we set our minds to if we do it together. So let's begin to get together."
Sen. Tim Scott’s Republican response followed.
"Our president seems like a good man. His speech was full of good words," Scott said. "But three months in, the actions of the president and his party are pulling us further and further apart."
Following Biden's first address to a joint session of Congress, Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down for an exclusive interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday.
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Scott offers message of hope in closing GOP response
Scott, who drew on his own experience growing up in the South with a single mother, talked about the American dream.
"We are all in this together, and we get to live in the greatest country on Earth, the country where my grandfather, in his 94 years, saw his family go from cotton to Congress in one lifetime," Scott said.
Scott also offered a message of hope as he closed his speech, looking to America's future.
"Our best future will not come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams. It will come from you, the American people," Scott said.
Scott says America 'not a racist country'
Scott, the only Black Republican senator, discussed the issue of race, in a year when America has reckoned with race relations.
"America is not a racist country," Scott said. "It's backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination, and it's wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present."
Scott also criticized Democrats, saying that race is "not a political weapon."
Republicans criticize Biden for lack of bipartisanship
Scott said that Biden has not fulfilled his campaign promise of bipartisan collaboration, citing how Democrats passed COVID-19 relief along partisan lines.
"He promised to unite a nation, to lower the temperature, to govern for all Americans, no matter how we voted," Scott said. "This was the pitch. You just heard it again. But our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes. We need policies and progress that brings us closer together."
Congress' response to Biden
Following the president remarks, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce said, "The much smaller crowd still able to keep up the applause lines but also clear that even with masks, it can't mask the displeasure from the opposition."
Biden to urge Congress to act on immigration, gun reform legislation
Biden tonight will call on lawmakers to pass key elements of his policy agenda, including an immigration reform bill he sent to Congress earlier this year and three gun reform bills that have passed the House, according to White House officials.
Biden's immigration reform bill includes a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. He'll also urge lawmakers to bring relief to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, holders of "Temporary Protected Status" and farmworkers. Biden will urge Congress to pass three bills already passed by the House that strengthen background checks, ban assault weapons and ban high capacity magazines, according to a different White House official.
However, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has already thrown cold water on the notion of passing the immigration reform bill this year, although other immigration issues have some hope of moving through the evenly-split Senate. Moderate Democrat and key Senate vote, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has opposed the gun reform bills, leaving little hope for a passage.
-ABC News' Benjamin Gittleson and Trish Turner