Biden took the stage shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday at Independence Historic Park in Philadelphia, where several hundred people sat in white lawn chairs and the facade of Independence Hall was lit up in red and blue. “This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated,” Biden said. “Here we launched the most amazing experiment in self-government the world has ever known.” “But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under attack,” he continued. “We do ourselves no favors to pretend otherwise. So tonight, I have come to this place where it all began, to speak as clearly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our hands to confront these threats and for the incredible future that lies ahead of us, if we so choose.” FULL SPEECH: Biden delivers speech outside Independence Hall on ‘extremist threat to democracy’ The president mentioned his predecessor in the Oval Office by name as he attacked Republicans who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election, defend those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 or want to take away abortion rights and other privacy concerns. “A lot of what is happening in our country today is not normal,” he said. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our democracy.” Biden drew a distinction between so-called MAGA Republicans and other conservatives, stating that “not every Republican embraces this extreme ideology.” “I know because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans,” he said. “But there is no doubt that the Republican party today is dominated, led and bullied by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans and that is a threat to this country.” Biden’s urgent rhetoric mirrors his 2020 message, in which he cast himself as a stark contrast to Trump and the race itself as a turning point for the nation. He made that comparison again Thursday, telling the crowd: “Now America must choose to go forward or go backward, to build a future obsessed with the past, to be a nation of hope, unity and optimism or a nation of fear . division and darkness”. Administration officials had teased Biden’s speech as an extension of his “soul of the nation” message, which first emerged in 2017 after white supremacists clashed with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, West Virginia — the incident that Biden said inspired him to run for president. Biden said Thursday that all Americans are called by “duty and conscience to stand up to extremists” and reject political violence. “We are still at our core a democracy, and yet history tells us that blind faith in a single leader and willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy,” he said. Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia is the second of his three stops in the battleground state of Pennsylvania this week alone. At Wilkes University, where he touted his administration’s plan for policing and crime prevention on Tuesday, Biden went after MAGA Republicans for their response to the Jan. 6 attack and the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s Mar- a-Lago. “For God’s sake, whose side are you on? Whose side are you on?” asked a fired-up Biden. The GOP preemptively pushed back against Biden’s remarks, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy speaking in Scranton (Biden’s hometown) just hours before the president took the stage in Philadelphia. McCarthy slammed Democrats on inflation, crime and the border before calling on Biden to “apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists” after the president previously described the ideology espoused by MAGA Republicans as “quasi-fascism” . “What Joe Biden doesn’t understand is that the soul of America is the tens of millions of hard-working people, loving families and law-abiding citizens he accused of simply wanting a stronger, safer and more prosperous country,” McCarthy said. he said. “The soul of America is not the ruling class in Washington, it’s the law-abiding, tax-paying American citizen,” McCarthy said. “The soul of America is our determination to get up and go to work every day, to provide for our families, to love our children, to participate in their education, and to ensure that this nation and its people always come first” .
PENNSYLVANIA IN THE LIGHT
Biden’s trip to Philadelphia is the second of three visits to Pennsylvania in less than a week. He made remarks in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday and will be in Pittsburgh on Labor Day. The Keystone State is home to a competitive governor’s race and a U.S. Senate contest that could help determine whether Democrats retain their majority in the chamber. Democrats believe Pennsylvania is their strongest chance to win a Senate seat currently held by Republicans. Meanwhile, the open governor’s race will give the winner power over how the 2024 presidential election is played out in a battleground state still reeling from Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats rigged his election. 2020. Former President Donald Trump will campaign for Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano at an event in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday. – ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Mary Bruce, Sarah Kolinovsky and Molly Nagle contributed to this report. Copyright © 2022 ABC News Internet Ventures.
