Malliotakis: Rising gas prices, supply chain issues, uptick in crime doesn’t make the state of the union strong

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis disagreed Tuesday night when she heard President Joe Biden say the state of the union is strong.

On Wednesday, Malliotakis pointed to things like rising prices at the gas pump, supply chain issues, and an uptick in crime to paint a stark contrast to the positive image Biden laid out during his first State of the Union address to Congress.

“The Biden administration created a lot of this pain that American families are feeling through their policies,” she said. “We really need to reverse course here.”

The freshman congresswoman echoed some members of her own party, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham who posted a video to Twitter to say that “the state of our union is really in grave danger.”

Malliotakis drew the line at Rep. Lauren Boebert’s actions when she heckled the president while he was talking about the deaths of U.S. service members linked to military base burn pits — including the passing of his son, Beau.

Boebert (R-Colo.) used her jeer to call attention to 13 U.S. service members killed outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Biden didn’t mention.

Malliotakis said she thought the effort to interrupt the speech was wrong, but she would’ve liked to have heard the president address the issue hoping for some semblance of justice for their families.

“To me, it was unconscionable that he didn’t acknowledge those families who are suffering, and the country that has suffered these losses,” she said.

For solutions to the problems, like rising crime and inflation, Malliotakis said she’d like to see Biden go back to some of former President Donald Trump’s policies.

Biden’s call to “fund the police” in contrast to calls for “defund the police” was one way the president tried to separate himself from policies tied to the further left of his party. Malliotakis said she welcomed the reversal.

In addition to advocating for change to state and local criminal justice reforms, Malliotakis said she’d like to see Biden push back against criminal justice reforms at the federal level and increase federal funding for police departments.

On rising gas prices, she said the president should lift the limits on new oil and gas leases in an effort to push toward energy independence.

The administration had been using a new cost estimate system to account for climate change, but after a federal judge in Louisiana blocked that practice last week, the administration has delayed issuing any new leases at all.

Malliotakis tied the need for energy independence to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine as funds continue to flow to Russian gas and oil despite widespread sanctions from the U.S. and its European allies.

Biden used the early portion of his speech Tuesday night to acknowledge the Ukrainian people, and announce a ban on Russian aircraft from entering U.S. airspace. His support for the eastern European nation drew mostly bipartisan applause.

Malliotakis said she supported the additional sanctions, but said doing it earlier could’ve prevented Russian President Vladimir Putin from moving forward with his invasion.

“I really wish he had done them over a month ago when we first called for them, because I think they could’ve really served as a deterrent and made a difference,” she said before calling for a ban on Russian gas and oil.

White House Press Secretary said during a morning appearance on MSNBC that those types of sanctions are something that the U.S. remains open to.