President Joe Biden warned Thursday night that “equality and democracy are under assault” in the U.S. as he sounded an alarm about his predecessor, Donald Trump, and “MAGA Republican” adherents, labeling them an extremist threat to the nation and its future.
Aiming to reframe the November elections as part of a battle for the nation’s soul — “the work of my presidency,” Biden used his prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia to argue that Trump and “Make America Great Again” allies are a challenge to nation’s system of government, its standing abroad and its citizens’ way of life.
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Biden declared. He said they “are determined to take this country backward’ they “promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence.”
The explicit effort by Biden to marginalize Trump and his adherents marks a sharp turn for the president, who preached his desire to bring about national unity in his Inaugural address. White House officials said it reflects his mounting concern about Trump allies’ ideological proposals and relentless denial of the nation’s 2020 election results.
“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” Biden is saying, according to prepared remarks released by the White House. “Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”
“For a long time, we’ve reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not,” Biden says. “We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us.”
Biden, who largely avoided even referring to “the former guy” by name during his first year in office, has grown increasingly vocal in calling out Trump personally. Now, emboldened by his party’s recent legislative wins and wary of Trump’s return to the headlines, Biden is sharpening his attacks.
Trump plans a rally this weekend in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden’s birthplace.
At a Democratic fundraiser last week, Biden likened the “MAGA philosophy” to “semi-fascism.”
In Philadelphia, White House officials said, Biden intended to hark back to the 2017 white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, which he says brought him out of political retirement to challenge Trump. Biden argues that the country faces a similar crossroads in the coming months.
Biden allies stress that he is not rejecting the entirety of the GOP and is calling on traditional Republicans to join him in condemning Trump and his followers. It’s a balancing act, given that more than 74 million people voted for Trump in 2020.
“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden said last week. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”
Delivering a preemptive rebuttal from Scranton Thursday evening, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy accused Biden of trying to divide Americans, and blasted the Democrats’ record in Washington, pointing to rising inflation, crime and government spending.
“In the past two years, Joe Biden has launched an assault on the soul of America, on its people, on its laws, on its most sacred values,” he said. “He has launched an assault on our democracy. His policies have severely wounded America’s soul, diminished America’s spirit and betrayed America’s trust.”
Asked about McCarthy’s criticism, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “we understand we hit a nerve” with the GOP leader, and quoted the Republican’s prior statements saying Trump bore responsibility for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Larry Diamond, an expert on democracy and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said calling Trump out for attacks on democracy “can be manipulated or framed as being partisan. And if you don’t call it out, you are shrinking from an important challenge in the defense of democracy.”
Even this week, Trump was posting on his beleaguered social media platform about overturning the 2020 election results and holding a new presidential election, which would violate the Constitution.
Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University, said it’s not unusual for there to be tension between a president and his successor, but it’s “unprecedented for a former president to be actively trying to undermine the U.S. Constitution.”
“The challenge that President Biden faces is to get on with his agenda while still doing what he needs to uphold the Constitution,” Naftali said. “That’s not easy.”
The White House has tried to keep Biden removed from the legal and political maelstrom surrounding the Department of Justice’s discovery of classified documents in Trump’s Florida home. Still, Biden has taken advantage of some Republicans’ quick condemnation of federal law enforcement.
“You can’t be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection,” Biden said Tuesday in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
Biden’s appearance Thursday night was promoted as an official, taxpayer-funded event, a mark of how the president views defeating the Trump agenda as much as a policy aim as a political one. The major broadcast television networks were not expected to carry the address live.
Biden’s trip to Philadelphia is just one of his three to the state within a week, a sign of Pennsylvania’s importance in the midterms, with competitive Senate and governor’s races. However, neither Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democrats’ Senate nominee, nor Attorney General Josh Shapiro, their pick for governor, was expected to attend Thursday night.
The White House intended the speech to unite familiar themes: holding out bipartisan legislative wins on guns and infrastructure as evidence that democracies “can deliver,” pushing back on GOP policies on guns and abortion that Biden says are out of step with most people’s views, and rejecting efforts to undermine confidence in the nation’s election or diminish its standing abroad.
The challenges have only increased since the tumult surrounding the 2020 election and the Capitol attack.
Lies surrounding that presidential race have triggered harassment and death threats against state and local election officials and new restrictions on mail voting in Republican-dominated states. County election officials have faced pressure to ban the use of voting equipment, efforts generated by conspiracy theories that voting machines were somehow manipulated to steal the election.
Candidates who dispute Trump’s loss have been inspired to run for state and local election posts, promising to restore integrity to a system that has been undermined by false claims.
There is no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines. Judges, including ones appointed by Trump, dismissed dozens of lawsuits filed after the election, and Trump’s own attorney general called the claims bogus. Yet Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling has shown about two-thirds of Republicans say they do not think Biden was legitimately elected president.
This year, election officials face not only the continuing threat of foreign interference but also ransomware, politically motivated hackers and insider threats. Over the past year, security breaches have been reported at a small number of local election offices in which authorities are investigating whether office staff improperly accessed or provided improper access to sensitive voting technology.
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Associated Press writer Zeke Miller reported from Washington. Chris Megerian in Washington and Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed.
6 thoughts on “Biden at Independence Hall: Trump, allies threaten democracy – Associated Press”
Clearly this essay is just another AP left slanted story. It’s a joke for the Biden-Obama led administration to say it supports the constitution as written. Almost daily Biden ignores the constitutional limits on executive powers. Forgiving student loans is an insult to all working people who would be paying for others legitimate debts. As for being Fascists, it’s the Democrats who are pushing government control of industries ; the very definition of fascists’.
Hopefully the American voters are fed up with $4 dollar gas, $14 a pound steak and rapidly rising utility costs thanks to a radical Biden-Obama administration.
Talk about an awful, self-contradictory speech. It was 100% political theater. It was a total clown show.
It was clearly designed to invent a shiny political object for all the clown Democrats to point at and thus distract everyone’s attention from Joe “Election Thief” Biden’s abject failures. Hey everyone, don’t look at:
THE ECONOMY
CRIME
INFLATION
BORDER INVASION
MONEY THEFT BY THE DEMOCRATS TO BUY VOTES IN THE MIDTERMS
THE FACT THAT THE WORLD IS LAUGHING AT AMERICA’S WEAKNESS
Instead, look at those that want to Make America Great Again and how THEY’RE A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY, HOW THEY’RE A THREAT TO EVERYTHING OUR FOUNDING FATHERS BUILT!!!!!
That’s might rich coming from the party that successfully cheated in the 2020 election and who are, at this very moment doing everything they can to cheat in the midterms. That’s mighty rich coming from the party that wants to seize permanent power and turn the US into a dictatorship. That’s might rich coming from the party of censorship, gun confiscation, stacking the Supreme Court, destroy the filibuster, two new States and all that other political nonsense.
All his pathetic blustering about how “not all Republicans are MAGA Republicans”, that’s a totally transparent attempt to divide & conquer right out of Saul Alinsky’s book.
And The Mail Order President delivers the Radical Left Monty Thief party line from Independence Hall with a blood red backdrop:
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, DONALD TRUMP IS A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY AND TO ALL LIFE ON EARTH. HAND OVER ALL POLITICAL POWER, MONEY, FIREARMS, AMMO AND ALL PROPERTY TO THE DEMOCRAT RADICAL LEFT MONEY THIEVES, DO EXACTLY WHAT WE TELL YOU TO DO AND WE’LL SAVE YOU FROM A HORRIBLE DEATH AT THE HAND OF DONALD TRUMP!!!! DO IT IMMEDIATELY OR EVERYONE ON EARTH WILL DIE BECAUSE OF DONALD TRUMP AND IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT!!!!! DO IT NOW!!!! FEAR NOT, YOU WILL OWN NOTHING BUT KLAUS SCHWAB AND BILL GATES WILL WAVE THEIR MAGIC WANDS AND MAKE YOU TOTALLY HAPPY!!!! YOU HAVE AN IRONCLAD GUARANTEE FROM THE GREAT DEMOCRAT PARTY, THE PARTY OF TOTAL HONESTY AND INTEGRITY!!!! WE WILL SAVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!! NO, REALLY!!!!
FACT: Democrats cheat in elections.
FACT: Democrats are liars
FACT: Democrats steal OUR MONEY and use it to buy votes.
JOE BIDEN, NOV 7, 2020 QUOTE
“To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They are Americans.”
JOE BIDEN, AFTER STEALING ELECTION AND AT FAKE INAUGURATION, QUOTE:
“The American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us. We have much to do in this winter of peril and significant opportunities. With unity, we can do great things, important things.”
EDFRED THE TWO-FACED UNITER SURE DIDN’T SING THAT TUNE AT LAST NIGHT’S TIGHTLY CHOREOGRAPHED, SUPER-HIGHLY-BIGLY POLITICAL CLOWN SHOW.
He also broke his promise to not politicize the military. But then again, breaking promises is what clowns do.
And what’s with the introduction of “DOCTOR JILL BIDEN”. She has a PhD in “Educational Leadership” from University of Delaware. How utterly pathetic. We should all laugh at her for her pretentiousness. She too, is a clown.
Well, that didn’t last long.
The Democrats now see that their attempt to scare people into voting for Democrat clowns in the midterms has already blown up in their face, so Joe “Election Thief” Biden is already back-pedaling as ordered by his greasy Radical Left Money Thieving handlers.
Yesterday’s speech. QUOTE
“Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country”
Today, QUOTE
“I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country”
What a total, 100%, board certified CLOWN SHOW. The only thing they accomplished to drive more Democrats into the camp of Constitutional Conservatives. That’s worthy of another Nelson HA HA!
Are you done yet? You drag president Biden through every mud pit you can think of and yet you have to wake up each morning to realize he beat your guy…that is hysterical…
They don’t call him Joe “Election Thief” Biden, for nothing. The Democrat Radical Left Money Thieves have systematically cheated in elections since at least 2004 (Rossi vs Gregoire) and they stole the election from Donald Trump in 2020 and everyone knows it. Electorally-speaking, you can’t get any lower down into the primordial swamp than that. Total filth.
But some people, who shall remain nameless, just have to believe everything they read/hear on CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the Clown Car Radical Left media. Like good little sheep, they do exactly what they’re told to do, even wearing bacteria-laden face masks while driving alone in their car. Pathetic!
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