WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden should accuse Republicans of supporting an extreme ideology that threatens democracy for rare prime time remarks Thursday as he steps up attacks on Tories ahead of the midterm elections.
The 8 p.m. ET speech from the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia will focus on the “battle for the soul of the nation,” the White House said — a phrase Biden was used since 2017 to rally opposition to former President Donald Trump and the “Make America Great Again” movement.
“MAGA forces are determined to roll back this country. Back to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to birth control, no right to marry whoever you love,” Biden plans to say, according to reports. excerpts from the speech published by the White House.
“For a long time, we’ve taken comfort in the fact that American democracy is guaranteed. But it’s not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Defend it. Each of us,” Biden plans to say.
Ahead of the speech, a senior administration official said the President will denounce “a movement that does not recognize free and fair elections, a movement that speaks more and more of violence in response to actions that it does not like or with which it does not agree, that which is not the way democracies behave”. The official added, however, that it was “not a speech about any particular politician, or even about any particular political party.”
Yet the Republicans are preparing their own response. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Will give a preview Thursday from Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pa., on the president’s “assault on the soul of the nation.” .
While the Biden administration is casting the remarks as an official White House event, not a campaign event, the speech comes as the president steps up his efforts to help Democrats retain control of Congress with the election in half term in just over two months.
Biden compared Republicans who embraced MAGA philosophy at the heart of Trump’s presidency for “semi-fascismat a fundraiser for Democrats last week.
During remarks earlier this week, also in Pennsylvania, Biden accused Republicans of not supporting law enforcement and the rule of law for their attacks on the FBI following the Mar-a- Lago, their calls to defund the FBI, and the reluctance of some party members to condemn the January 6 rioters.
“What the president believes, and that’s a reason to have that on prime time, is that there’s an overwhelming number of Americans, the majority of Americans, who believe that we have to go on, we we have to save the fundamental values of our country.”, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. “What he’s not going to do is hesitate to speak out against the extremism he sees, these MAGA Republicans.”
In a statement Thursday, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel accused Biden and Democrats of playing Americans off against each other.
“Joe Biden is the chief divider and embodies the current state of the Democratic Party: one of division, loathing and hostility toward half the country,” McDaniel said.
