President Biden on Wednesday delivered a rousing speech in support of Democracy in which he went after former President Trump and other Republicans who continue to tout 2020 election lies that have fomented political violence while warning that democracy is on the ballot just six days before the midterms.
Speaking at a Democratic National Committee event at Union Station near the Capitol, the president warned the public that the country faced a crossroads in next week’s election that could upend democracy.
“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 just six days before the midterms. “He refuses to accept the will of the people, he refuses to accept the fact that he lost. He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution. And he’s made a big lie an article of faith of the MAGA Republican Party, the minority of that party.”
The speech came less than a week after a right-wing assailant broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Biden focused briefly on the attack at the start of the speech, but his broader message was for Americans to reject political violence, voter intimidation and election denialism as hundreds of GOP candidates are on the ballot next week for various offices who have refused to say if they will accept the results should they lose.
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“There’s a lot at stake in these midterm elections … but there’s something else at stake: democracy itself,” Biden said.
The speech carried echoes of Biden’s address in early September in Philadelphia, when he said Trump and his allies, so-called MAGA Republicans, posed a threat to American democracy.
“This intimidation, this violence against Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisan officials just doing their jobs, are the consequence of lies told for power and profit,” he said. “In this moment, we have to confront those lies with the truth. The very future of our nation depends on it”.
The president argued 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, or a bullet or a hammer. We settle them peacefully at the ballot box,” Biden said, alluding to the Pelosi 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.
