President Joe Biden will deliver a primetime speech on Thursday night on the ‘continued battle for the Soul of the Nation,’ the White House announced.
He will make his remarks outside of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, the site where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and adopted by America’s founding fathers.
The speech comes as Americans prepare to head to the polls in November for the midterm elections.
The president will discuss how the nation’s standing in the world and its democracy are at stake.
“He will talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack,” the White House said. “And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy.”
It is unclear if he will mention his predecessor in the Oval Office: former President Donald Trump.
Biden had made Trump’s supporters and his brand of conservatism a punching bag for Democrats, accusing ‘extreme MAGA Republicans’ of wanting to take away people’s rights.
He is seeking to paint November’s contest – which will decide control of the House and the Senate – as one between the support of Democracy or the GOP extremism.
President Joe Biden will deliver a primetime speech on Thursday night on the ‘continued battle for the Soul of the Nation,’ the White House announced
Biden’s speech also comes as Trump continues to push his false claim he won the 2020 presidential election.
Trump on Monday outright demanded he be declared the winner of the last presidential election – and called for another one to be held as soon as today.
The former president repeated his lie the election was rigged.
‘This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country.
‘REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social media account.
Biden has been targeting Trump supporters as he campaigns for Democrats. Last week, the president accused Trump and ‘extreme’ Republicans of ‘semi-fascism’ at a fundraiser for Democrats at a posh private home in the Maryland suburbs outside of Washington D.C.
‘What we’re seeing now, is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,’ Biden told about 100 wealthy donors. ‘It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the – I’m going to say something – it’s like semi-fascism.’
Biden began his 2020 presidential campaign in Philadelphia in a May 2019 speech. Biden has said he was inspired to run for president after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a clash between white supremacists and counter-protesters left three dead and dozens injured.
He also has decried the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol, where Trump supporters tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
On the first anniversary of the riot, Biden said the country is in a battle for its soul.
‘I said it many times and it’s no more true or real than when we think about the events of January 6th: We are in a battle for the soul of America. A battle that, by the grace of God and the goodness and gracious — and greatness of this nation, we will win,’ Biden said in remarks in the Capitol building.
Donald Trump continues to push the false claim he won the 2020 election
He lashed out at the bureau and called for a new presidential election after Mark Zuckerberg said an FBI warning led to Facebook suppressing the story and a somewhat dubious poll suggested a majority of Americans would have changed their vote if it was reported
Biden is upping his own travel schedule to try and help Democrats keep control of Congress.
The event in Philadelphia will be his third in the battleground state of Pennsylvania in the span of one week.
Biden will be in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., on Tuesday to give a speech on supporting law enforcement that he was originally scheduled to give in mid-July before he tested positive for covid.
And, on Labor Day, the president will be will campaign with Democratic candidate John Fetterman on Labor Day amid his Senate battle with Dr. Mehmet Oz.
The campaign stop is one of two Biden will have on Labor Day, when he travels to two midwest states with key contests for the midterm election, to rally one of Democrats’ most faithful group of voters.
The president will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to ‘celebrate Labor Day and the dignity of American workers,’ the White House said in a statement on Monday.
Biden will attend each city’s famed Labor Day parade. Labor unions are a key Democratic constituency and Biden has long times to many workers’ unions.
The president is honing his attack lines on Trump supporters ahead of the November contest, painting them as ‘extreme MAGA Republicans.’
At a political rally in Rockville last week, Biden said Trump and MAGA Republicans were ‘destroying America.’
‘I respect conservative Republicans, I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans,’ Biden told the crowd gathered at the Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Maryland.
Biden warned that ‘the MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and our economic security, they’re a threat to our very democracy.’
‘They refuse to accept the will of the people, they embrace political violence, they don’t believe in democracy,’ he continued. ‘That’s why in this moment, those of you who love this country, we must be stronger, more determined and more committed to saving America than the MAGA Republicans are destroying America.’
Biden outed Congressional Republicans who he said told him they felt they should have voted for the Inflation Reduction Act – his most recent legislative accomplishment that includes healthcare, prescription drug and climate initiatives – but didn’t, fearing political repercussions.
‘You’d think if the Republicans really cared about reducing inflation they would have voted for the Inflation Reduction Act,’ Biden said. ‘But every single Republican voted against it – even I know at least a dozen of them who thought they should vote for it, but they would be primaried for it.’
No Republican in either the House or Senate voted for the legislation.
‘Every single American needs to return the favor when we vote,’ Biden said.
President Joe Biden blasted former President Donald Trump and ‘MAGA Republicans’ for ‘destroying America’ at a Maryland rally Thursday night
Biden went hard on the so-called ‘MAGA Republicans’ and the former president throughout his address.
‘In 2020, you and 81 million Americans voted to save our democracy, that’s why Donald Trump isn’t just a former president, he’s a defeated former president,’ Biden said.
‘Will we be a country that moves forward or backward? Will we build a future or obsess over the past? Will we be a nation of unity, of hope, of optimism, not a nation of anger, violence, hatred and division?’ he asked the crowd.
‘Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans have made their choice. To go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate and division, but we’ve chosen a different path,’ the president said.
Both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – Biden’s two Labor Day stops – have competitive gubernatorial and Senate contests in November.
The president will travel to a third midwest state with a competitive gubernatorial and Senate contest – Ohio – next Thursday.
Biden is also riding high after his poll numbers have bumped up to his highest mark of the year – 44 per cent – according to a Gallup survey released Thursday.
Pollsters surveyed U.S. adults from August 1-23, a period of time in which Biden recovered from COVID-19, and a rebound infection, took out al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri and inked his name on the Inflation Reduction Act.
Some of the economic numbers also have Americans feeling better, including a decrease in the price of gas.
Democratic candidates, some of whom had been avoiding Biden when he came to their state, are flocking back to his side.
Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan, who was busy the last time Biden was in the state, said he would join the president when Biden is there next Thursday.
And Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman will be with Biden on Labor Day.
‘John will be marching in the Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh next week and he looks forward to talking to the President there about the need to finally decriminalize marijuana,’ Fetterman’s campaign said.
Fetterman will not be at Tuesday’s event in Wilkes-Barre.
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