After Tuesday’s flawed speech on Georgia election reform, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), reacted to President Biden’s speech. The GOP leader said that the speech “undermines democracy.” McConnell spits on the president from the Senate’s floor Wednesday and ripped into Biden over the widely discredited speech. He called it “deliberately divisive” as well as one that “aimed to bring our country closer apart.”
Biden, the top Senate Republican, said that millions of Americans were his domestic enemies in the speech. He also “shouted to us that if we disagree with him you’re George Wallace.” “George Wallace?” McConnell added. McConnell continued: “If you don’t pass the laws he wishes, you’re Bull Connor. And if you oppose giving Democrats untrammeled one-party control over the country, you’re Jefferson Davis.”
McConnell also attacked Biden for using the Civil War to “demonize Americans who disagree” with him and pointed out the president had compared “a bipartisan majority in senators to literal traitors.” McConnell stated, “How profoundly and profoundly unpresidential.” “Look, Joe Biden has been a friend, a person I have always respected and loved for many years. Yesterday, I didn’t recognize the man on the podium.”
McConnell added that a president shouting at 52 senators and millions of Americans is racist, unless he gets what he wants, was proving precisely why the Framers created the Senate to limit his power.
Biden’s speech was also called a “rant” by the Republican leader. He said that the speech was “incoherent and incorrect” and said Tuesday’s speech was the “perfect example” of how Sen. Biden was correct about the filibuster. Biden’s speech was not only criticized by Republicans, but progressives also reacted negatively to his speech.
Al Sharpton, an MSNBC commentator, also attacked Biden’s speech. He called it a “you’re going to hell” speech and not one that would win voters’ support.
Sharpton, who is a liberal activist and also hosts MSNBC’s weekend programming, was present for Biden’s Atlanta address. The president stated that either you were with hated figures such as the segregationist Governor. George Wallace, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., whose name one of the Democratic voting bills are named for, respectively.