'What Was More Pro-USA Than this Speech?'
Pundits react to Biden's primetime address
Commentators and others, across the political spectrum, appeared to agree that President Biden gave a forceful and important speech Thursday night about the threat of authoritarianism and “MAGA Republicans” in the United States.
Biden traveled to Philadelphia to deliver a rare primetime address during his administration, specifically on the rise of violence — and threats of violence — being stirred up by his predecessor, Donald Trump, and other so-called “MAGA Republicans.”
Those threats and violence have only been growing in the weeks since the FBI executed a fully lawful search warrant on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to search for — and retrieve — boxes of illegally stored national security materials which the former president took with him after leaving the White House.
“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,” Biden said. “They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows. You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Pundits and cable TV hosts mostly agreed that Biden delivered a remarkable and important speech.
“It is unprecedented to hear the president of the United States call his predecessor a threat to this country,” CNN host Victor Blackwell said following the remarks.
Biden wasn't wrong to call out MAGA Republicans as “semi-fascist,” according to “Never Trumper” conservative and CNN contributor, SE Cupp.
“Look, he is not wrong in his diagnosis of the problem. I wish he’d leave the punditry to us, frankly. But, listen, Hillary took some heat for deplorables,” Cupp said, referring to Democrat Hillary Clinton's moment in 2016 when she referred to Trump's supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” “He’ll take heat for calling members of a political party semi-fascists. But he isn’t wrong. And I don’t think he should back down from diagnosing problems and calling threats what they are.
“But it’s good that he clarified he wasn’t talking about an entire party. I have to do that, too, when I say, listen, the Republican Party or Trump followers, it’s not everyone,” Cupp added. “But, listen, this party is led by Donald Trump still, and it’s definitely led by Trumpism. And so it’s parsing to really try and contort your way into identifying the — you know, the whole party is this right now.”
The speech also contained potential political payoffs for Biden and his fellow Democrats, said Eva McKend, national politics reporter for CNN.
“And something else that really stuck out to me is that he almost seemed to be reclaiming patriotism. Often you hear Republicans argue that they are the pro America party. The Democrats are not patriotic enough. But what was more pro-USA than this speech? And I think this is exactly what Democratic voters wanted to hear,” McKend said on-camera. “We honor the will of the people, right? A nod to our democracy but also a nod to preserving reproductive rights. He is the president of all America. You mentioned before too much of what is happening is not normal in this country.
“We are still at our core a democracy. I mean all of these things, it was a very, very patriotic speech and I think that that is a lot of what democratic voters across the country, they want to be patriotic too. They want to be part of the American story too. I think he spoke to that,” she added.
Over on Fox News, host Bret Baier called Biden's speech “so aggressive.”
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