Biden visits Arizona tech plant, avoids border

President Joe Biden on Tuesday delivered a speech during the tooling-in ceremony for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plant. The president repeated his belief that the $52 billion in semiconductor investments and another $200 billion for scientific research will help U.S. middle class.  The new plant and another TSMC plant, along with new plants from Intel, Micron, Wolfspeed, and other tech companies, are part of an effort to pull the manufacturing for crucial semiconductor chips used in military and defense technology onto the U.S. mainland.

How are Republicans reacting? Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said he thinks Biden’s putting his focus in the wrong place, and that he’s surprised Biden won’t be visiting Arizona’s border with Mexico while he’s in the state.

Dig deeper: Listen to my report on The World and Everything in It podcast about the construction of these semiconductor manufacturing plants.