Trump, his loyalists
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two years after he defeated Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has some unfinished business he wants to to settle with the restive forces of Trumpism.
Biden planned to use a prime-time speech Thursday night at Independence Hall in Philadelphia to frame the November elections, less than 10 weeks away, as part of an ongoing battle for the “soul of the nation.” It's a reprise of his 2020 campaign theme that he is using now to cast the current stakes in as dire terms as those that sent him to the Oval Office two years ago.
Biden, who largely avoided even referring to “the former guy” by name during his first year in office, has grown increasingly vocal in calling out Trump personally. White House officials say that reflects the urgency with which he views the threat of Trump and his loyalists.
Feeling emboldened by a series of legislative wins, the president is sharpening his criticism of Republicans as the “ultra-MAGA” party — a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — that opposes his agenda, embraces conservative ideological proposals and spreads Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme ‘MAGA’ philosophy,” Biden told Democrats at a Maryland fundraiser last week. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”
In Philadelphia, White House officials said, Biden intends to hark back to the 2017 white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, which he says brought him out of political retirement to challenge Trump. Biden plans to argue that the country faces a similar crossroads in the coming months.
“The president thinks that there is an extremist threat to our democracy,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. “It's not stopping. It's continuing.”
Biden allies stressed that he was not rejecting the entirety of the GOP and would use his remarks to call on traditional Republicans to join him in condemning Trump and his followers. It's a balancing act, given that more than 74 million people voted for Trump in 2020.
“I respect conservative Republicans,” Biden said last week. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”
This year, election officials face not only the threat of foreign interference but also ransomware, politically motivated hackers and insider threats. Over the past year, security breaches have been reported at a small number of local election offices in which authorities are investigating whether office staff improperly accessed or provided improper access to sensitive voting technology.
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Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.