By ZEKE MILLER and JOSH BOAK
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Joe Biden warned Thursday evening that “equality and democracy are under assault” within the U.S. as he sounded an alarm about his predecessor, Donald Trump, and “MAGA Republican” adherents, labeling them an extremist menace to the nation and its future.
Aiming to reframe the November elections as a 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 problem to nation’s system of presidency, its standing overseas and its residents’ lifestyle.
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Biden declared. He stated they “are determined to take this country backward’ they “promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence.”
The express effort by Biden to marginalize Trump and his adherents marks a pointy flip for the president, who preached his want to result in nationwide unity in his Inaugural tackle. White House officers stated it displays his mounting concern about Trump allies’ ideological proposals and relentless denial of the nation’s 2020 election outcomes.
“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” Biden is saying, in accordance with ready remarks launched 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 prevented even referring to “the former guy” by title throughout his first yr in workplace, has grown more and more vocal in calling out Trump personally. Now, emboldened by his social gathering’s current legislative wins and cautious of Trump’s return to the headlines, Biden is sharpening his assaults.
Trump plans a rally this weekend in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden’s birthplace.
At a Democratic fundraiser final week, Biden likened the “MAGA philosophy” to “semi-fascism.”
In Philadelphia, White House officers stated, Biden supposed to hark again to the 2017 white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, which he says introduced him out of political retirement to problem Trump. Biden argues that the nation faces the same crossroads within the coming months.
Biden allies stress that he’s not rejecting everything of the GOP and is asking on conventional Republicans to affix him in condemning Trump and his followers. It’s a balancing act, provided that greater than 74 million individuals voted for Trump in 2020.
“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden stated final week. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”
Delivering a preemptive rebuttal from Scranton Thursday night, House Republican chief Kevin McCarthy accused Biden of making an attempt to divide Americans, and blasted the Democrats’ report in Washington, pointing to rising inflation, crime and authorities 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 stated. “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 stated “we understand we hit a nerve” with the GOP chief, and quoted the Republican’s prior statements saying Trump bore duty for the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Larry Diamond, an professional on democracy and senior fellow on the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, stated calling Trump out for assaults 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 outcomes and holding a brand new presidential election, which might violate the Constitution.
Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University, stated it’s commonplace for there to be rigidity between a president and his successor, but it surely’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 stated. “That’s not easy.”
The White House has tried to maintain Biden faraway from the authorized and political maelstrom surrounding the Department of Justice’s discovery of categorized paperwork in Trump’s Florida house. Still, Biden has taken benefit of some Republicans’ fast condemnation of federal legislation enforcement.
“You can’t be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection,” Biden stated Tuesday in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
Biden’s look Thursday evening was promoted as an official, taxpayer-funded occasion, a mark of how the president views defeating the Trump agenda as a lot as a coverage goal as a political one. The main broadcast tv networks weren’t anticipated to hold the tackle dwell.
Biden’s journey to Philadelphia is only one of his three to the state inside every week, an indication of Pennsylvania’s significance within the midterms, with aggressive Senate and governor’s races. However, neither Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democrats’ Senate nominee, nor Attorney General Josh Shapiro, their choose for governor, was anticipated to attend Thursday evening.
The White House supposed the speech to unite acquainted themes: holding out bipartisan legislative wins on weapons and infrastructure as proof that democracies “can deliver,” pushing again on GOP insurance policies on weapons and abortion that Biden says are out of step with most individuals’s views, and rejecting efforts to undermine confidence within the nation’s election or diminish its standing overseas.
The challenges have solely elevated for the reason that tumult surrounding the 2020 election and the Capitol assault.
Lies surrounding that presidential race have triggered harassment and loss of life threats in opposition to state and native election officers and new restrictions on mail voting in Republican-dominated states. County election officers have confronted stress to ban using voting gear, efforts generated by conspiracy theories that voting machines had been one way or the other manipulated to steal the election.
Candidates who dispute Trump’s loss have been impressed to run for state and native election posts, promising to revive integrity to a system that has been undermined by false claims.
There is not any proof of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines. Judges, together with ones appointed by Trump, dismissed dozens of lawsuits filed after the election, and Trump’s personal legal professional basic referred to as the claims bogus. Yet Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling has proven about two-thirds of Republicans say they don’t assume Biden was legitimately elected president.
This yr, election officers face not solely the persevering with menace of international interference but in addition ransomware, politically motivated hackers and insider threats. Over the previous yr, safety breaches have been reported at a small variety of native election workplaces through which authorities are investigating whether or not workplace workers improperly accessed or supplied improper entry to delicate voting expertise.
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Associated Press author Zeke Miller reported from Washington. Chris Megerian in Washington and Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”