President Joe Biden’s broadsides against “MAGA” Republicans are aimed solely at elected officials, the White House said, as questions continue over the president’s fiery tone in the countdown to the midterm elections.
Biden’s press secretary defended the president’s barbed rhetoric after he criticized MAGA Republicans during Labor Day remarks in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on Monday, days after targeting former President Donald Trump’s ardent supporters in a major address.
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“He’s been very clear he’s talking about officeholders,” Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “He’s talking about elected officials who have these MAGA, ultra-MAGA Republican agendas, and he’s been very clear about that.”
On Monday, Biden reprised his attack against Trump supporters, warning that these Trump-faithful Republicans “are coming for your Social Security.”
“Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican. Not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology,” Biden said in Wisconsin. “But the extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate, and division … the extreme Right, the Trumpies, these MAGA Republicans in Congress are coming for your Social Security as well.”
He added: “You might think I’m making some of this stuff up, it’s so outrageous.”
Responding to questions last week, Biden insisted he wasn’t targeting Trump’s voters.
“I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country,” Biden said Friday.
The president stoked controversy during an address at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall last week when he warned that democracy was at stake in the upcoming election and called on voters to unite against “Make America Great Again” Republicans.
Biden’s partisanship drew the Washington Post editorial board’s rebuke. “You don’t persuade people by scolding or demeaning them, but that’s how the president’s speech landed for many conservatives of goodwill,” the board wrote.
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Still, Jean-Pierre insisted over the weekend that Biden’s tone was in line with past speeches.
“This is not the first time [Biden] has given a ‘Soul of the Nation’ speech,” Jean-Pierre told MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart.
