On Wednesday, President Biden lashed out at former President Trump and other Republicans who continue to tout 2020 election lies, warning that democracy is on the ballot just six days before the elections. -mandates and following the violent attack on the husband of President Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“American democracy is under attack because the defeated former President of the United States refused to accept the results of the 2020 election,” Biden said. “He refuses to accept the will of the people, he refuses to accept the fact that he lost. He abused his power and put loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution. And he made a big lie an article of faith of the republican party MAGA, the minority of this party.
The president, speaking at a Democratic National Committee event at Union Station near the Capitol, warned the public that the country faces a crossroads in next week’s election that could upend democracy.
The speech came less than a week after an alleged attacker broke into the speaker’s home and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Biden briefly focused on attack at the start of the speech, but his broader message was that Americans reject political violence, voter intimidation and election denial while hundreds of GOP candidates are on the ballot. voting next week for various offices who have declined to say whether they will accept the results if they lose.
“There’s a lot at stake in these midterm elections…but there’s something else at stake: democracy itself,” Biden said.
The speech echoed Biden’s speech in early September in Philadelphia, when he said Trump and his allies, the so-called MAGA Republicans, were a threat to American democracy.
The president argued Wednesday that Americans should be able to agree on three things: that the right to vote is sacred, that political violence should be condemned and that they believe in democracy.
“We don’t settle our differences in America with a riot, a mob, a bullet or a hammer. We settle them peacefully at the polls,” Biden said, alluding to Pelosi’s attack.
The speech comes six days before an election that will determine who controls Congress and after millions of Americans have already cast their ballots. Biden has repeatedly stressed that the midterm elections should not be viewed as a referendum on his job performance, but as a choice between two distinct visions for the country.
While some in the Democratic Party think the focus should be on kitchen table issues like reducing the cost of gas, groceries and energy, Biden has made it clear that the differences between the two parties extend to the fate of democracy itself.
Biden argued that Trump-aligned Republicans would seek to “succeed where they failed in 2020” by trying to “take away voters’ rights and subvert the electoral system itself.”
Biden acknowledged that the outcome of the midterm elections may not be decided until a few days after Election Day, urging Americans to be patient.
“It has always been important for citizens of a democracy to be informed and engaged. Now it is important that citizens are also patient. That’s how it’s supposed to work,” he said.
He said there had been no election in the history of the United States other than the 2020 election that Americans could be more certain of the outcome of because legal challenges and recounts had been raised, which all proved that the results were correct.
“It was a raging mob that had been driven into a frenzy by a president repeating over and over again the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It’s a lie that has fueled the dangerous upsurge of political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years,” he said.
“Silence is complicity,” he said, saying there was an “alarming increase” in people in the United States who tolerate political violence.
When he opened his remarks detailing the attack on Paul Pelosi, he noted that the attacker said “where is Nancy”, which echoes the words shouted by the crowd on January 6, some of which took stormed and ransacked the president’s office.
Paul Pelosi was attacked early Friday morning at the couple’s home in San Francisco and underwent surgery for a fractured skull and serious injuries to his right arm and hands.
Biden decided to deliver Wednesday’s remarks because of the “alarming number” of Republican officials who said they would not accept the midterm election results, the White House press secretary said Wednesday. Karine Jean-Pierre. The attack on Paul Pelosi also factored into the president’s decision to deliver the speech, according to Jean-Pierre.