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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell lampooned Joe Biden for characterizing Republicans as “domestic enemies” in a recent speech, calling the remarks “profoundly, profoundly unpresidential.”
Speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday, McConnell explained how Biden’s “divisive” and “incoherent” remarks only divided the country even more, the opposite of what he promised during his 2020 campaign.
“Yesterday that very same man delivered a deliberately divisive speech that was designed to pull our country further apart,” McConnell said. “Twelve months ago this president said we should see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors. Yesterday he called millions of Americans his domestic enemies. Twelve months ago the president called on Americans to join forces, stop the shouting. Lower the temperature.”
.@LeaderMcConnell: Biden “delivered a deliberately divisive speech that was designed to pull our country further apart…He compared…a bipartisan majority of senators to literal traitors. How profoundly, profoundly unpresidential…I did not recognize the man at the podium[.]” pic.twitter.com/UnzXDWBFyr
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 12, 2022
“Look I’ve known, liked and personally respected Joe Biden for many years. I did not recognize the man at the podium yesterday. The president’s rant, rant, yesterday was incoherent, incorrect and beneath his office,” McConnell said.
McConnell noted that Biden’s central core campaign promise was to bridge the divide in America, but he “failed his own test.”
.@LeaderMcConnell: “[V]oters did not give President Biden a mandate for very much…bridge a divided country, lower the temperature, dial down the perpetual ere of crisis…Biden has chosen to fail his own test. [His] rant…was incoherent, incorrect, & beneath his office” pic.twitter.com/hYaNCrrgB8
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 12, 2022
The Kentucky senator went on to explain how a demagoguing president determined to change the Senate rules to impose unpopular policies is a perfect illustration of why the filibuster exists.
“A president shouting that 52 senators and millions of Americans are racist unless he gets whatever he wants is proving exactly why the Framers built the Senate to check his power,” McConnell said.
McConnell: “In less than a year, restoring the soul of America has become this: Agree with me or you’re a bigot…From lowering the temperature to invoking totalitarian states and the civil war…You could not invent a better advertisement for the legislative filibuster[.]” pic.twitter.com/pqLB9AB4LT
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 12, 2022
“This whole display is the best possible argument for preserving the Senate rules that extend deliberation, force bipartisan compromise, and let cooler heads prevail.”
McConnell condemned Biden for “abandoning rational persuasion for pure demagoguery.”
“Yesterday, with the world’s largest megaphone he invoked the literal civil war and said we are on the doorstep of autocracy? Talked about domestic enemies. Rhetoric unbecoming of a president of the United States,” he said.
Watch McConnell’s full speech: