President Joe Biden charged in a prime-time address that the “extreme ideology” of Donald Trump and his adherents “threatens the very foundation of our republic,” as he summoned Americans of all stripes to help counter what he sketched as dark forces within the Republican Party trying to subvert democracy, as was reported by the AP.
In his speech Thursday night at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Biden unleashed the trappings of the presidency in an unusually strong and sweeping indictment of Trump and what he said has become the dominant strain of the opposition party. The AP reported that his broadside came barely two months before Americans head to the polls in bitterly contested midterm elections that Biden calls a crossroads for the nation.
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” he said before an audience of hundreds, raising his voice over pro-Trump hecklers outside the building where the nation’s founding was debated. The AP reported that he said he wasn’t condemning the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020 but added, “There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” using the acronym for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.
“Maga Republicans do not respect the constitution,” Biden said at the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as was reported by the Independent of the UK. “They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.”
Referring to Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential vote was rigged against him, and the subsequent attack on the US Capitol in a bid to overturn the results, Biden added, “they refuse to accept the results of a free election.”
The explicit effort by Biden to marginalize Trump and his followers marks a sharp recent turn for the president, who preached his desire to bring about national unity in his inaugural address, the AP report stated.
Furious about his attack, Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the president of destroying the economy, overseeing a spike in crime and having a lax border policy, as was reported by The Independent of the UK. She also attacked him for the recent raid by the FBI on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, the report said.
“The only thing Americans have to fear are your policies that have destroyed our economy, spiked crime & murder rates to terrifying levels, opened our border to a daily foreign invasion of aliens & deadly Chinese fentanyl, leveled our once great Trump led American energy independence, and your rogue federal forces in the DOJ & FBI that you’ve weaponized against President Trump and those of us who have his back,” she wrote in a series of tweets.
Delivering a preemptive rebuttal from Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Biden was born, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said it is the Democratic president, not Republicans, trying to divide Americans, as was reported by the AP.
“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 severely wounded America’s soul, diminished America’s spirit and betrayed America’s trust.”
Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Trump, called Biden’s speech dictatorial, the Independent of the UK reported.
“President Biden tonight gave the speech of dictator in the style of a dictator, in the visual of a dictator, using the words of a dictator,” he said on Fox News.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted: “Did Joe Biden just declare war on Red State America? I sure hope not.”
Gaetz added: “This was his enemies of the state speech. And like every other radical, Marxist tyrant, he accused his opponents of being fascist while he engages in repressive, authoritarian behavior.”
Ohio Republican Senate nominee JD Vance attacked the president for not taking “responsibility for the fact that the country is not doing well, “ as was reported by the Independent of the UK.
“Instead he has decided that the enemy is not him, not the people who’ve made bad decisions, but the patriotic Americans who are frustrated enough about the country that they love to work to change it,” he told Fox News.
“This was an inappropriate speech,” said Ari Fleischer, a former aide to President George W. Bush and now a Fox News contributor, as was reported by The Hill.com. “This was a campaign speech, and the U.S. Marine Corps has some explaining to do. How did they get used? Why were two Marines used in the background of that shot?”
The Hill also reported that on CNN’s morning program, “New Day,” host Brianna Keilar spoke with veteran Allison Jaslow, who argued Democrats politicized two Marines staged in the background of Biden’s televised address.
“Somebody made the decision to put those Marines in the shot,” Jaslow said. “And the reality is those Marines didn’t have a choice.”
