Trump Biden: The president attacked Trumpism in a speech commemorating the Capitol riot, while refusing to mention his predecessor’s name.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the majority of his first year in office, President Biden has bet that restoring a sense of normalcy to the White House, practising the traditional brand of politics he learned over decades in the Senate and as vice president — and largely ignoring the man he refers to as “the former guy” — would help the country move past the divisiveness of his predecessor.
Trump Biden It was a complete failure
So, on Thursday, Mr. Biden set his dreams of never longer having to deal directly with Donald J. Trump aside and went after him head-on, using an impassioned address in the Capitol to make plain the urgent need to face Mr. Trump — and Trumpism.
“We witnessed it firsthand. “Rioters threatened these halls, threatening the speaker of the house’s life, physically creating gallows to hang the vice president of the United States of America,” stated Mr. Biden from National Statuary Hall.
“What did we miss?” he inquired. “We didn’t see a former president, who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in the White House’s private dining room off the Oval Office, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives were put in danger, and the nation’s capital was under siege,” says one witness.
Mr. Biden became even more forthright afterwards, although refusing to mention Mr. Trump’s name. He said of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about election fraud, “He was just seeking for an excuse, a pretext, to cover for the truth.” “He isn’t simply a past president. He’s a past president who was vanquished.”
Mr. Biden’s strategy for dealing with Mr. Trump and his continued promotion of the baseless assertion that the 2020 election was marred by fraud took a sharp turn in the extraordinary moment, in which a sitting president accused his predecessor of holding “a dagger at the throat of America, at American democracy.”
The president’s address implied that his predecessor, far from withering away, remains the most powerful force in Republican politics and a credible opponent for Vice President Joe Biden in 2024.
And it showed Mr. Biden’s willingness to tackle the difficulties Mr. Trump poses to democratic ideals at home, which have shown little indication of diminishing in the year since a violent crowd sought to prevent Mr. Biden’s election victory from being certified.
Mr Trump took advantage of the opportunity on Thursday with a series of heated statements accusing Mr Biden of backing “open immigration,” “unconstitutional mandates,” and “dirty elections.”
Mr Biden, on the other hand, is in grave danger if he continues to neglect his predecessor. According to recent research, millions of Americans are willing to accept or even encourage political violence against partisan opponents.
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Eulogy for the Newspaper Business by Carl Bernstein 52 Destinations for a New World. Voting rights limitations are being considered or enacted in Republican-controlled states. Supporters of Mr Trump are attempting to seize control of election machines in critical conditions, perhaps giving them the power to prevent a result they don’t like. In polls, a large majority of Republicans believe the results of the 2020 election were illegal.
Mr Trump’s hold on the Republican Party remains strong; he attempts to become the party’s de facto kingmaker. He is polling as the party’s front-runner for the presidential election in 2024. His erroneous claims about electoral fraud continue to polarise Americans.
Last month, the two presidents did something unusual.
they complimented each other. Mr. Biden praised the previous administration’s work on coronavirus vaccines, prompting Mr. Trump to express gratitude. To address vaccine hesitancy among many Trump supporters — unvaccinated Americans are disproportionally Republican — Mr. Biden praised the previous administration’s work on coronavirus vaccines, prompting Mr. Trump to express gratitude.
Mr. Biden has consistently condemned the violent assault on the Capitol since his inauguration, and has even blasted Mr. Trump by name on a few occasions. Prior to Thursday, he had never, as president, spoken out so forcefully against Mr. Trump and his lies, or the Republicans who have aided him.
Mr. Biden said of Mr. Trump, “He loves power over conviction.” “Because he considers his own interests to be more important than the interests of his country and America.” Because his shattered ego is more important to him than our democracy or constitution.”
Returning to a bitter tit-for-tat, said to Republican strategist Frank Luntz, would simply alienate Trump supporters who the administration was seeking to vaccinate.
“We can save millions of lives around the world,” Mr. Luntz said, “but when we rip one other apart like we did on Jan. 6, the harm can be irreversible.”
It was unclear if Mr. Biden’s willingness to confront Mr. Trump so publicly signalled a long-term shift in messaging or was merely a one-off reaction to the anniversary’s pressures. Mr. Biden was said to have been heavily involved in the speech’s preparation and was determined to ensure that it addressed not only the mob, but also the former president who sparked it.
At the same time, Mr. Biden wanted to avoid appearing to give up on bipartisanship entirely, so he included a line saying that he “would always endeavour to work together” with Republicans “who embrace the rule of law, not the rule of a single man.”
However, the speech’s overall confrontational tone signalled a shift in the administration’s stance. When asked why the administration did not respond to Mr. Trump’s falsehoods more often, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the administration had decided that “elevating and giving more fire to the former president’s conspiracy theory-laden arguments isn’t constructive, nor is it what the American people elected him to do.”
Mr. Biden’s move was required, according to Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary under President George W. Bush and a Republican, because Mr. Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election and the assault on the Capitol constituted a national security danger. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security have both published reports stating that such misinformation has motivated domestic extremists to commit violence.
Mr. Chertoff stated, “Given Trump’s ego, it’s totally appropriate to look him in the eye and say, ‘I know what you did, it’s not proper, and it’s not going to happen again.” “It was important for the president to see that I am not afraid to speak up about what is going on.”
According to David Axelrod, Mr. Biden should retain the same tone in the future when it comes to Mr. Trump, a former top adviser to former President Barack Obama.
“Going after Trump, who is profoundly unpopular outside his base, might be good politics, especially if it brings him back into the fray,” Mr. Axelrod said, adding that the ideology that motivated the attack on the Capitol needed to be confronted. “It’s difficult to take that on without facing the lie’s author and major purveyor.”
Even as Mr. Biden attacked Mr. Trump, there is little indication that the speech will influence the behaviour of Republicans loyal to Mr. Obama and unwilling to work with Mr. Biden.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, stated in the days following the riot that Mr. Trump “bears responsibility” for the carnage, only to subsequently return to Mar-a-Lago to keep his friendship with the former president alive. Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and the minority leader, has been more strong in his criticisms of the former president, but some longstanding conservatives are growing concerned about Mr. Trump’s ability to maintain his hold on the party.
In an opinion post published this week in The Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove, a former top adviser to President George W. Bush, condemned “Republicans who for a year have condoned the behaviour of the rioters who stormed the Capitol.”
Mr. Biden is battling to unite his party behind his aims, which include passing a climate and social-spending package bill, as well as federal voting rights legislation, despite having a tiny majority in Congress. The president’s support ratings have been low, owing in part to growing prices and the epidemic, making the passage of his programme all the more important as the midterm elections approach.
After reporters questioned whether Mr. Biden’s words would just deepen America’s divisions, he said he did not mean to create “a modern political struggle” with Mr. Trump.
He did, however, emphasise the importance of candour in going forward.
“You have to recognise the extent of the wound in order to heal,” Mr. Biden added. “You can’t act as if you don’t know what you’re doing.” “This is very serious business.
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