President Biden's 2024 State of the Union address

 By Elise Hammond, Tori Powell, Michael Williams, Maureen Chowdhury, Antoinette Radford, Aditi Sangal and Kyle Feldscher, CNN

Updated 6:57 AM ET, Fri March 8, 2024

Afghanistan, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night for interrupting the speech, according to a statement by the Capitol Police obtained by the New York Times. 

The Capitol Police warned Nikoui to stop and removed him from the House chamber when he did not.

Nikoui yelled “Abbey Gate” and “United States Marines” toward the end of the president’s speech after Biden said, “America is safer today than the year I took office.”

The misdemeanor charge of illegally disrupting Congress carries a $50 fine and is typically resolved without going to court, according to the statement obtained by the Times.

Nikoui is the father of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui who was one of 13 US servicemembers killed in the August 26, 2021, suicide bombing attack on Abbey Gate outside of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Nikoui was a guest of Republican Rep. Brian Mast. Mast posted on X that Nikoui was arrested because he “cried out to Joe Biden to remember his son.”

6:57 a.m. ET, March 8, 2024

Analysis: Biden projects a vision of strength that’s been missing

From CNN's Stephen Collinson

This version of Joe Biden could beat Donald Trump.

At the State of the Union address on Thursday night, the 81-year-old president set out to defuse his biggest liability: deep-seated fears among millions of Americans that he’s too old to serve a second term.

There is nothing worse for a president than looking weak. So every word, gesture, joke and admonition of Biden’s appearance was geared toward the goal of making him look strong.

And in the most important moment of the 2024 election campaign so far, Biden appeared to succeed.

He projected vigor and forcefulness. His voice, which has seemed reedy at times, was sonorant. He was quick off the mark as he goaded heckling Republicans, who again walked into his trap by showcasing their extremism to millions of viewers.

Biden was a trenchant master of the chamber of the House of Representatives, effectively wielding the theatrics of the presidency and commanding an hour of unfiltered primetime television.

Such an energetic performance from Biden has been in far less evidence as he’s perceptibly aged and been weighed down by the burdens of office.

If he is to overcome the kind of low approval ratings that typically doom first-term presidents, he will have to emulate this performance over and over in the coming months.