After comparing Republicans and some Democrat senators with racists, President Joe Biden said he ran for office “to unite the country.”
Biden stated, “I ran for president because I wanted to unify the country,” during a speech on his video that he recorded across the street from the White House about the importance of infrastructure spending.
Biden angrily attacked the Senate Tuesday for blocking legislation to federalize state and local elections, and opening up elections to possible fraud.
Biden stated that senators who voted against the federal law were voting for historical racists.
Are you ready to stand on the side of George Wallace or Dr. King? Are you ready to stand on the side Bull Connor or John Lewis? Are you ready to stand on the side of Jefferson Davis or Abraham Lincoln?
Biden criticized the Senate for not removing the Senate filibuster rules in order to pass the legislation. This is a step that even moderate Democrats don’t support.
Republicans were furious at Biden’s divisive rhetoric and reacted with anger to the speech.
Senator Mitt Romney (R.UT) criticized Biden. He said he “accused a lot of my good-natured colleagues in Senate of having sinister and even racist inclinations” while stating that the president had indicated that he wasn’t interested in “unifying” the country with his rhetoric.
Senator Mitch McConnell called Biden’s speech a “rant”, which was “incorrect and incoherent” and “below his office.”
On Thursday, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D–AZ) surpassed Biden and took the Senate floor to denounce Biden’s plan to abolish the filibuster. This was just minutes before he arrived at Capitol Hill to present his case to Democrats.
This image is from Senate Television. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) speaks on the U.S. Senate floor on Thursday, January 13, 2022. President Joe Biden will meet privately at the Capitol with Senate Democrats. This visit is intended to give a boost to the party’s long-stalled election and voting legislation. Sinema, who was already adamant about the bill’s prospects, said she couldn’t support a “short-sighted” rule change that would allow it to pass a Republican blockade.
In an interview with Jake Tapper of CNN, Sen. Dick Durbin acknowledged that the president may have gone a bit too far with his rhetoric.
Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, suggested that critics of Biden’s speech weren’t acting “on the level” by claiming the president called his political opponents racist.
She said that he wasn’t comparing them as human beings, but he was comparing their choices to historical figures.
