PHILADELPHIA (AP) – President Joe Biden charged in a prime-time speech that the “extreme ideology” of Donald Trump and his supporters “threatens the very foundation of our republic,” as he called on Americans from all kinds to help counter what he outlined. as dark forces within the Republican Party trying to subvert democracy.
In his speech Thursday at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Biden unleashed the trappings of the presidency in an unusually blunt and forceful indictment of Trump, and what he said has become the dominant strain of the opposition party. . His band came barely two months before Americans go to the polls in a hotly contested midterm election that Biden calls a crossroads for the nation.
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” he told an audience of about 100, raising his voice to pro-Trump hecklers outside the building where the nation’s founding was debated. He said he did not condemn the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020, but added, “There is no doubt that the Republican Party today is dominated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” using the acronym for ” Make America Great” by Trump. Again” campaign slogan.
Biden’s explicit effort to marginalize Trump and his supporters marks a sharp recent turn for the president, who preached his desire to achieve national unity in his inaugural address.
Biden, who largely avoided even referring to “the old guy” by name during his first year in office, has become increasingly vocal in calling out Trump personally. Now, buoyed by his party’s summer legislative victories and wary of Trump’s return to the headlines, he has sharpened his attacks, last week comparing the “MAGA philosophy” to “semi-fascism.”
Entering risky political ground, Biden took pains to balance his criticism with a call to more traditional Republicans to make their voices heard. Meanwhile, GOP leaders were quick to accuse him of only increasing political divisions.
In a preemptive rebuttal from Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Biden was born, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said it is the Democratic president, not Republicans, who is trying to divide Americans.
“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,” McCarthy said. “He has launched an assault on our democracy. His policies have gravely wounded America’s soul, eroded America’s spirit, and betrayed America’s trust.”
Asked about McCarthy’s criticism, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier Thursday that “we understand we’ve struck a nerve” with the Republican leader, citing the Republican’s earlier statements that Trump was responsible for the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.
Trump plans a rally this weekend in the Scranton area.
White House officials said the strong tenor of Biden’s comments reflected his growing concern about the ideological propositions of Trump’s allies and relentless denial of the nation’s 2020 election results.
“Equality and democracy are under assault” in America, Biden charged, casting Trump and his supporters in the GOP as a threat to the nation’s system of government, its standing abroad and way of life of its citizens.
Trump and MAGA Republicans “promote authoritarian leaders and fan the flames of political violence,” he said. They “are determined to take this country back.”
“Back 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,” he said, referring to social issues that Democrats have tried to place front and center. for voters this fall.
Biden’s appearance was promoted as an official taxpayer-funded event, a sign of how the president views defeating Trump’s agenda as a political goal as much as a policy goal. Red and blue lights lit up the brick of Independence Hall, as the Marine Band played “Hail to the Chief” and a pair of Marine sentries stood at parade rest in the background. However, the major television networks did not broadcast the address live.
The president called on citizens to “vote, vote, vote” to protect their democracy. “For a long time, we have made sure that American democracy is guaranteed. But it’s not.”
Biden recalled the 2017 white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, which he said brought him out of political retirement to challenge Trump. Biden argued that the country faces a similar crossroads in the coming months and proposed defending the “soul of the nation” as “the work of my presidency, a mission that I believe in with all my soul.” .
But Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufman said in a statement that Biden was using the tactics of an authoritarian regime, “trying to turn his political opponents into an enemy of the state.”
Larry Diamond, a democracy expert and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said that calling out Trump’s attacks on democracy “can be manipulated or framed as partisan. And if you don’t call it out, you’re diminishing faced with an important challenge in the defense of democracy”.
The White House has tried to keep Biden out of the legal and political maelstrom surrounding the Justice Department’s discovery of classified documents at Trump’s Florida home. Still, Biden has pointed to some Republicans’ quick condemnation of federal law enforcement, arguing that “you can’t be pro-insurgency and pro-American.”
His trip to Philadelphia was just one of three in the state in a week, a sign of Pennsylvania’s importance in the midterms, with Senate and gubernatorial races. However, neither Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee, nor Attorney General Josh Shapiro, his pick for governor, attended Thursday night.
The White House intended the speech to weave together familiar themes: presenting bipartisan legislative victories on guns and infrastructure as proof that democracies “can deliver,” rolling back GOP policies on guns and abortion that Biden says are not up to par the opinions of most people.
The challenges have only increased since the tumult surrounding the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol.
Lies surrounding this presidential race have led to harassment and death threats against state and local election officials and new restrictions on mail-in voting in Republican-held states. County election officials have faced pressure to ban the use of voting equipment, efforts fueled by conspiracy theories that voting machines were somehow tampered with to steal the election.
Candidates contesting Trump’s loss have been inspired to run for state and local elected office, promising to restore the integrity of a system that has been undermined by false claims.
There is no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of the voting machines. Judges, including Trump appointees, dismissed dozens of lawsuits filed after the election, and Trump’s own attorney general called the claims bogus. However, polls by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research have shown that roughly two-thirds of Republicans say they do not believe Biden was legitimately elected president.
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Associated Press writer Zeke Miller reported from Washington. Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed.