The White House said Wednesday that President Joe Biden’s speech about threats to democracy was important because of Republicans who won’t accept the results of next Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previewed Biden’s speech at the top of Tuesday’s White House briefing.
“Democracy is under assault and we cannot pretend otherwise… Mega MAGA Republican officials…don’t believe in the rule of law,” Jean-Pierre said. “They refuse to accept the results of elections and they fan the flames of political violence.”
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Jean-Pierre told reporters “an alarming number of Republican officials suggesting they will not accept the results of this election … The president believes it is a moment of reckoning. This is not a regular moment in our democracy.”
She did not identify the Republican officials who said they will not accept the results of the election, in which the party is heavily favored.
“Denying the results of an election makes you a threat to our democracy,” she said.
Biden’s top spokeswoman said these themes would be part of his remarks Tuesday night.
“The president will continue to speak about the challenges facing our democracy and his enduring belief that America will persevere,” she said. “He’ll also keep acting to address political violence, including by continued implementation of the first-ever National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism that he released in June of 2021.”
Jean-Pierre has her own history of questioning election results. She was also pressed on Biden’s complaints about red-state voting laws’ impact on the midterm elections.
She said the White House would accept the results as legitimate. One of the Democrats’ top candidates this year is Stacey Abrams, in a rematch with Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), four years after she claimed voter suppression illegitimately took their previous contest away from her.
Jean-Pierre said it was “ridiculous” to ask if Biden thought anyone voting Republican on Tuesday was a threat to democracy. She also pointed to the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), as an example of political violence fueled by incendiary rhetoric. She added that it should not be controversial to speak out against such speech.
The press secretary also maintained that Biden has always been nonpartisan in condemning violence and incitement.
“The president has always, always condemned political violence,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, again, if you’re a Republican, an independent, or a Democrat.”
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Biden has made the threat to democracy posed by a subset of Republicans not limited to former President Donald Trump a major theme in his midterm election messaging even as polls show the public to be concerned about the economy and crime.
The president’s venue for Tuesday’s speech is a train station and shopping mall that has suffered as a result of both problems in recent years. It is located near the Capitol, which was attacked by Trump supporters as Congress sought to certify Biden’s election in 2021.
