House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy urged President Joe Biden to apologize for comparing the “Make America Great Again” philosophy espoused by former President Donald Trump and his supporters to “semifascism” on Thursday.
The California Republican made his request for the apology during remarks he gave ahead of Biden’s “soul of the nation” speech in Philadelphia on Thursday night. McCarthy, who was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, accused Biden of attacking the public and making the United States a worse place to live, according to Fox News.
“President Biden has chosen to divide, demean, and disparage his fellow Americans. Why? simply because they disagree with his policies,” McCarthy said. “That is not leadership. 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 said.
WATCH: KEVIN MCCARTHY SAYS JOE BIDEN ‘DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE SOUL OF AMERICA’
McCarthy was in Pennsylvania to support Jim Bognet, a Republican nominee running against Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) this November. The minority leader, who could become the next speaker of the House if Republicans win back the majority in the 2022 midterm elections, claimed the U.S. could “flourish again” and could do so with the GOP in charge.
During a fundraiser in Bethesda, Maryland, on Aug. 25, Biden told the guests in attendance that “what we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy.”
“It’s not just Trump; it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semifascism,” Biden said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reaffirmed Biden’s statement on Friday, claiming the president “called it what it is.”
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New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), who has been critical of Trump, called Biden’s statement “insulting” and suggested the president should apologize for his comment, while Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, a former Republican, came to Biden’s defense, stating that the president had to “express what he feels in his heart and his soul.”
