President Biden: MAGA Republicans Are a Threat To This Country

BIDEN: 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, 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’s 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 a president of red America or blue America, but of all America. And I believe it’s 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 sould of this country.
Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t be pro insurrectionist and pro American. They’re incompatible. We can’t allow violence to be normalized in this country. It’s wrong. We each have to reject political violence 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 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. 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 the MAGA Republicans are today. They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows. You can’t love your country only when you win.
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 let the will of the American people be overturned by wild conspiracy theories and baseless evidence of 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.