Staff Report –

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Speaking in prime time outside Independence Hall where American democracy was forged, President Joe Biden went on the offensive Thursday night by issuing an unprecedented warning of a “clear and present danger to democracy,” declaring that our democratic values are under assault by forces of extremism loyal to “pseudo-fascist” Donald Trump.

In a 24-minute address to kick off a victory tour and fall campaign swing after signing the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden blamed Trump for stoking a movement filled with election deniers and people calling for political violence.

Related: President Biden Signs Historic Climate Legislation

While the event was covered on some cable channels but ignored by broadcast networks in the U.S. as well as conservative cable channel Fox, Biden admitted that not all Republicans embrace violent extremism, and he said that defending democracy would require rejecting Trump and his ideology in the midterm elections this November.

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” Biden said, flanked by Marine guards. He called it a “battle for the soul of this nation.”

“But there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” he said. “And that is a threat to this country.”

Speaking in Independence Square Park to several hundred invited spectators seated in front of the actual building where the Continental Congress met and ratified the Declaration of Independence and later the United States Constitution, Biden made it clear that he believes the political violence and election denial promoted by the former president and his allies damaged America’s reputation abroad.

He talked of the “extraordinary experiment of self-government” that began there, and declared that “history tells us a blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.”

Related: If You Want to Keep Democracy Alive, Vote … Like Your Life Depends on It

At one point interrupted by protesters who chanted “Let’s go Brandon,” a reference to a crude epithet aimed at Biden that is popular among Trump’s supporters, the president quipped that “good manners is nothing they ever suffered from.” But he also defended their right to protest, saying “they’re entitled to be outrageous.”

That stands in sharp contrast to the way Trump handles hecklers who manage to get into his campaign events at stadium rallies. He encourages his supporters to beat them up and have them violently rejected from the scene.

The stakes are high for Biden and his party leading up to November, and he and his political team have obviously decided that the best strategy to try to hold majorities in the Senate and House rest on casting the midterm elections as an existential crisis, and a choice for voters between Biden’s moderate but strong agenda or a return to the extremism of “MAGA Republicans” who have enabled Trump’s “pseudo-fascist” ideology.

Sources close to Biden say it has been decided that diving right into the cultural war issues of political violence and extremism may be the best route to galvanizing Democratic, independent and college educated Republican voters and inspiring them to vote for Democrats come November 8.

But as a practicing Catholic, he avoided directly mentioning abortion, an issue he has struggled with for decades.

“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” Biden said. “Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”

The president painted a dark portrait of a democracy on the brink, threatened by violence and able to survive only if Americans “choose a different path.” Yet he hailed his administration’s progress as evidence of a prosperous and free country roaring to new heights where the economy is growing rapidly, climate change is being confronted, prescriptions drugs are about to become more affordable for the first time after years of trying, and for the first time in decades, the tax code is about to be changed to finally tax the rich and corporations more.

The focus on threats to democracy is a return to an issue that Biden said drove him to run for the presidency after white supremacists marched on Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. Since taking office, he has often said that the U.S. and its allies are engaged in a long-running struggle between “autocracy and democracy.”

The president had sought to avoid casting the conflict as a purely partisan issue, aides said, and White House officials insisted that the address did not amount to a political event. But the national television networks balked at running it in prime time anyway. Biden directly called on Americans to go to the polls in November and reject Republican candidates who have signed on to the former president’s brand of politics.

Biden condemned the increase in politically violent rhetoric and threats against law enforcement officials, especially in the wake of the FBI’s search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, saying they risk undermining faith in the country’s legal institutions and have no place in normal political discourse.

Biden was specific about domestic threats, calling his political rivals “a party of extremism,” threatening the democratic traditions set out in Independence Hall nearly 250 years ago.

Biden had been planning the speech since early summer, according to sources close to the president, concerned that the forces that animated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol were not fading away. The president grew more motivated to deliver it recently because of persistent false claims of election fraud as voters prepare to go to the polls in the midterms.

Biden has replaced his usual calls for unity in stump speeches with sharp condemnations of “MAGA extremists,” saying Republicans have embraced “semi-fascism.”

His aggressive message — which rank and file Democrats have been calling for — coincides with new polling that suggests his party’s fortunes and his own popularity have improved after several legislative accomplishments, a decline in gas prices and strong job growth that has given Democrats hope that they may retain control of Congress in November after all.

A poll published by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday found Democrats with a small lead over Republicans when voters were asked which party they preferred in their own districts. Five months ago, Republicans held a larger lead over Democrats in the same survey.

The poll also found some improvement in Biden’s approval rating, which rose to 45 percent from 42 percent in March. That could mean Biden is less of a drag on his party’s candidates than some Democratic strategists had feared in the spring.

Related: President Joe Biden Rides Independent Wave to Higher Job Approval Rating

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky once vowed that “100 percent of my focus” would be on stopping Biden from making progress on his Democratic agenda, according to analysis by The New York Times. “But the Senate’s longtime tactician has found himself on the losing end of the legislative ledger.”

Despite the promise of obstruction from McConnell, several of Biden’s high-profile bills have passed, including as a $1 trillion infrastructure package, a bill to improve competition with China and legislation to fight climate change, allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and measures to collect more tax revenue from the rich and corporations.

McConnell needs to protect incumbent Republican senators from a suburban backlash against the kinds of extreme positions in parts of the Republican Party that Biden has been raising more frequently in recent weeks.

Yet the president and the Democrats still face the difficult task of holding control of the House and the Senate at a time of high inflation and deep concerns among a majority of voters about the direction of the country under Democratic leadership. Two-thirds of the registered voters who were polled said they believed the country’s economy was not good or poor, in spite of all the data showing the contrary. They may not be getting the good news, because it is not being reported by the conservative press or news media.

Biden’s team obviously believes the warnings about political extremism and Trump are an important part of motivating Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans to show up at the polls.

The trip on Thursday was Biden’s second to Pennsylvania this week, and he is expected to visit the state again on Labor Day after a weekend stop over at Camp David in Maryland. It is a highly contested swing state with critical races for the House and Senate and a closely competitive governor’s race. The president will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Monday morning, then back in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Labor Day afternoon, according his travel schedule provided by the White House.

Biden promised to bring a sense of normalcy to the White House and largely ignored Trump in his first year. But the former president kept creeping back into focus as all the investigations surfaced into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the “criminal investigation” into the case of classified documents discovered and seized at his Florida residence.

Biden summed up his criticism of Trump and his followers by saying, “You can’t love your country only when you win. It’s fundamental.”

He said Americans were not powerless to stop extremism and did not have to act like “bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy” by failing to vote.

“For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed,” Biden said. “But it’s not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us.”

“Vote! Vote! Vote,” he chanted at the end.

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Full Transcript of Biden’s Speech.

Independence National Historical Park
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

(September 1, 2022)

8:03 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans, please, if you have a seat, take it. I speak to you tonight from sacred ground in America: Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

This is where America made its Declaration of Independence to the world more than two centuries ago with an idea, unique among nations, that in America, we’re all created equal.

This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated.

This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment of self-government the world has ever known with three simple words: “We, the People.” “We, the People.”

These two documents and the ideas they embody — equality and democracy — are the rock upon which this nation is built. They are how we became the greatest nation on Earth. They are why, for more than two centuries, America has been a beacon to the world.

But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.

So tonight, I have come this place where it all began to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our own hands to meet these threats, and about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it.

We must never forget: We, the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment that began more than two centuries ago.

We, the people, have burning inside each of us the flame of liberty that was lit here at Independence Hall — a flame that lit our way through abolition, the Civil War, Suffrage, the Great Depression, world wars, Civil Rights.

That sacred flame still burns now in our time as we build an America that is more prosperous, free, and just.

That is the work of my presidency, a mission I believe in with my whole soul.

But first, we must be honest with each other and with ourselves.

Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

Now, I want to be very clear — (applause) — very clear up front: Not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.

I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans.

But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.

These are hard things.

But I’m an American President — not the President of red America or blue America, but of all America.

And I believe it is my duty — my duty to level with you, to tell the truth no matter how difficult, no matter how painful.

And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.

They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.

MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.

They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.

They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.

And they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections.

They tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people. This time, they’re determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people.

That’s why respected conservatives, like Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Luttig, has called Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans, quote, a “clear and present danger” to our democracy.

But while the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say as clearly as we can: We are not powerless in the face of these threats. We are not bystanders in this ongoing attack on democracy.

There are far more Americans — far more Americans from every — from every background and belief who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it. (Applause.)

And, folks, it is within our power, it’s in our hands — yours and mine — to stop the assault on American democracy.

I believe America is at an inflection point — one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that’s to come after.

And now America must choose: to move forward or to move backwards? To build the future or obsess about the past? To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness?

MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.

But together — together, we can choose a different path. We can choose a better path. Forward, to the future. A future of possibility. A future to build and dream and hope.

And we’re on that path, moving ahead.

I know this nation. I know you, the American people. I know your courage. I know your hearts. And I know our history.

This is a nation that honors our Constitution. We do not reject it. (Applause.)

This is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We do not repudiate it. (Applause.)

This is a nation that respects free and fair elections. We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it. (Applause.)

And this is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool. We do not encourage violence.

We are still an America that believes in honesty and decency and respect for others, patriotism, liberty, justice for all, hope, possibilities.

We are still, at our core, a democracy. (Applause.)

And yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy.

For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it’s not.

We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it — each and every one of us.

That’s why tonight I’m asking our nation to come together, unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology. (Applause.)

We’re all called, by duty and conscience, to confront extremists who will put their own pursuit of power above all else.

Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to — to destroying American democracy.

We, the people, will not let anyone or anything tear us apart. Today, there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail. We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool.

So I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever. (Applause.)

We saw law enforcement brutally attacked on January the 6th. We’ve seen election officials, poll workers — many of them volunteers of both parties — subjected to intimidation and death threats. And — can you believe it? — FBI agents just doing their job as directed, facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens.

On top of that, there are public figures — today, yesterday, and the day before — predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets.

This is inflammatory. It’s dangerous. It’s against the rule of law. And we, the people, must say: This is not who we are. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t be pro-ex- — pro-ex- — pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. They’re incompatible. (Applause.)

We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. It’s wrong. We each have to reject political violence with — with all the moral clarity and conviction this nation can muster. Now.

We can’t let the integrity of our elections be undermined, for that is a path to chaos.

Look, I know poli- — politics can be fierce and mean and nasty in America. I get it. I believe in the give-and-take of politics, in disagreement and debate and dissent.

We’re a big, complicated country. But democracy endures only if we, the people, respect the guardrails of the republic. Only if we, the people, accept the results of free and fair elections. (Applause.) Only if we, the people, see politics not as total war but mediation of our differences.

Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today. (Applause.)

They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: You can’t love your country only when you win. (Applause.) It’s fundamental.

American democracy only works only if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me, only if we respect our legitimate political differences.

I will not stand by and watch — I will not — the will of the American people be overturned by wild conspiracy theories and baseless, evidence-free claims of fraud.

I will not stand by and watch elections in this country stolen by people who simply refuse to accept that they lost. (Applause.)

I will not stand by and watch the most fundamental freedom in this country — the freedom to vote and have your vote counted — and — be taken from you and the American people. (Applause.)

Look, as your President, I will defend our democracy with every fiber of my being, and I’m asking every American to join me. (Applause.)

(A protestor disruption can be heard.)

Throughout our history, America has often made the greatest progress coming out of some of our darkest moments, like you’re hearing in that bullhorn.

I believe we can and we must do that again, and we are.

MAGA Republicans look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies –- lies told for profit and power.

But I see a very different America — an America with an unlimited future, an America that is about to take off. I hope you see it as well. Just look around.

I believed we could lift America from the depths of COVID, so we passed the largest economic recovery package since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And today, America’s economy is faster, stronger than any other advanced nation in the world. (Applause.) We have more to go.

I believed we could build a better America, so we passed the biggest infrastructure investment since President Dwight D. Eisenhower. And we’ve now embarked on a decade of rebuilding
the nation’s roads, bridges, highways, ports, water systems, high-speed Internet, railroads. (Applause.)

I believed we could make America safer, so we passed the most significant gun safety law since President Clinton. (Applause.)

I believed we could go from being the highest cost of prescriptions in the world to making prescription drugs and healthcare more affordable, so we passed the most significant healthcare reforms since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. (Applause.)

And I believed we could create — we could create a clean energy future and save the planet, so we passed the most important climate initiative ever, ever, ever. (Applause.)

The cynics and the critics tell us nothing can get done, but they are wrong. There is not a single thing America cannot do — not a single thing beyond our capacity if we do it together.

It’s never easy. But we’re proving that in America, no matter how long the road, progress does come. (Applause.)

Look, I know the last year — few years have been tough. But today, COVID no longer controls our lives. More Americans are working than ever. Businesses are growing. Our schools are open. Millions of Americans have been lifted out of poverty. Millions of veterans once exposed to toxic burn pits will now get what they deserve for their families and the compa- — compensation. (Applause.)

American manufacturing has come alive across the Heartland, and the future will be made in America — (applause) — no matter what the white supremacists and the extremists say.

I made a bet on you, the American people, and that bet is paying off. Proving that from darkness — the darkness of Charlottesville, of COVID, of gun violence, of insurrection — we can see the light. Light is now visible. (Applause.)

Light that will guide us forward not only in words, but in actions — actions for you, for your children, for your grandchildren, for America.

Even in this moment, with all the challenges we face, I give you my word as a Biden: I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future. Not because of me, but because of who you are.

We’re going to end cancer as we know it. Mark my words. (Applause.)

We are going to create millions of new jobs in a clean energy economy.

We’re going to think big. We’re going to make the 21st century another American century because the world needs us to. (Applause.)

That’s where we need to focus our energy — not in the past, not on divisive culture wars, not on the politics of grievance, but on a future we can build together.

The MAGA Republicans believe that for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail. They believe America — not like I believe about America.

I believe America is big enough for all of us to succeed, and that is the nation we’re building: a nation where no one is left behind.

I ran for President because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. I still believe that to be true. I believe the soul is the breath, the life, and the essence of who we are. The soul is what makes us “us.”

The soul of America is defined by the sacred proposition that all are created equal in the image of God. That all are entitled to be treated with decency, dignity, and respect. That all deserve justice and a shot at lives of prosperity and consequence. And that democracy — democracy must be defended, for democracy makes all these things possible. (Applause.) Folks, and it’s up to us.

Democracy begins and will be preserved in we, the people’s, habits of heart, in our character: optimism that is tested
yet endures, courage that digs deep when we need it, empathy that fuels democracy, the willingness to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans.

Look, our democracy is imperfect. It always has been.

Notwithstanding those folks you hear on the other side there. They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy. But history and common sense — (applause) — good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from.

But history and common sense tell us that opportunity, liberty, and justice for all are most likely to come to pass in a democracy.

We have never fully realized the aspirations of our founding, but every generation has opened those doors a little wider to include more people who have been excluded before.

My fellow Americans, America is an idea — the most powerful idea in the history of the world. And it beats in the hearts of the people of this country. It beats in all of our hearts. It unites America. It is the American creed.

The idea that America guarantees that everyone be treated with dignity. It gives hate no safe harbor. It installs in everyone the belief that no matter where you start in life, there’s nothing you can’t achieve.

That’s who we are. That’s what we stand for. That’s what we believe. And that is precisely what we are doing: opening doors, creating new possibilities, focusing on the future. And we’re only just beginning. (Applause.)

Our task is to make our nation free and fair, just and strong, noble and whole.

And this work is the work of democracy — the work of this generation. It is the work of our time, for all time.

We can’t afford to have — leave anyone on the sidelines. We need everyone to do their part. So speak up. Speak out. Get engaged. Vote, vote, vote. (Applause.)

And if we all do our duty — if we do our duty in 2022 and beyond, then ages still to come will say we — all of us here — we kept the faith. We preserved democracy. (Applause.) We heeded our wor- — we — we heeded not our worst instincts but our better angels. And we proved that, for all its imperfections, America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept.

There is nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American. That’s our soul. That’s who we truly are. And that’s who must — we must always be.

And I have no doubt — none –– that this is who we will be and that we’ll come together as a nation. That we’ll secure our democracy. That for the next 200 years, we’ll have what we had the past 200 years: the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.

We just need to remember who we are. We are the United States of America. The United States of America. (Applause.)

And may God protect our nation. And may God protect all those who stand watch over our democracy. God bless you all. (Applause.) Democracy. Thank you. (Applause.)

8:27 P.M. EDT

White House Link

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