On Thursday (September 1), in a prebuttal speech aimed at remarks President Joe Biden made last week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA.) called for the President to issue an apology.
The remarks that caught McCarthy’s attention are those made by Biden during a fundraising speech that compared “extreme MAGA philosophy” to “semi-fascism.”
Speaking in Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, hours before Biden would be speaking in Philadelphia, McCarthy stated: “President Biden has chosen to divide, demean and disparage his fellow Americans. Why? Simply because they disagree with his policies. That is not leadership.”
He then demanded an apology from the President.
“When the President speaks tonight at Independence Hall, the first lines out of his mouth [should] be to apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists,” McCarthy told the crowd.
Biden didn’t make any apologies to Trump and his supporters during his prime-time speech on Thursday; instead, he doubled down on his criticism of Trump.
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden stated in his rally-style speech.
He continued, “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.”
Biden also accused “MAGA forces” of being “determined to take this country backward.”
Biden also alluded to Trump supporters repeating the January 6 Capitol attack in the midterms and 2024.
McCarthy also brought up the midterms in his speech, framing them as a way to reverse total control of Democrats in Congress.
He mentioned how Democrats control every Congressional committee, “every federal agency responsible for law enforcement, for drug enforcement, for Homeland Security, for our border security,” questioning, “Are you better off? What has two years of one-party Democrat rule in Washington given us?”
