Joe Biden warned that Donald Trump and his “extremist” movement are a threat to American democracy during a speech in Arizona, in one of his most scathing attacks on the Republicans.
Celebrating a new library being built to honour SenatorJohn McCain, the US president branded the Make American Great Again movement as an existential threat to the US political system.
The 80-year-old declared on Thursday that the former US president is more interested in personal power than upholding the nation’s core values and suggested even mainstream Republicans are complicit.
“The silence is deafening,” Mr Biden told the crowd, adding: “There’s something dangerous happening in America right now.
“We should all remember, democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle.
“They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up or condemn threats to democracy, when people are willing to give away that which is most precious to them because they feel frustrated, disillusioned, tired, alienated.”
The 2024 presidential election is just over a year away, and the president’s speech was his fourth in a series of addresses on what he sees as challenges to democracy, a topic that is a cornerstone for him as he tries to remain in office.
On the first anniversary of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, Mr Biden visited the Capitol and accused Mr Trump of continuing to hold a “dagger” to democracy’s throat.
“Our task, our sacred task of our time, is to make sure that they change not for the worst but for the better, that democracy survives and thrives, not be smashed by a movement more interested in power than a principle,” Mr Biden said on Thursday.
“It’s up to us, the American people.”
Mr Biden said that “there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists”.
He pointed to Mr Trump’s recent suggestion that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is stepping down from his post on Friday, should be executed for allegedly treasonous betrayal of him.
“Although I don’t believe even a majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening,” Mr Biden added.
He also noted that Mr Trump has previously questioned those who serve in the US military calling service members “suckers and losers. Was John a sucker?” Mr Biden asked, referring to McCain, who survived long imprisonment in Vietnam.
Then he got even more personal adding: “Was my son, Beau – who lived next to a burn pit for a year and came home and died – was he a sucker for volunteering to serve his country?”
Republicans competing with Mr Trump for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination have largely avoided challenging his election falsehoods, and the president said that voters can’t let them get away with it.
“Democracy is not a partisan issue,” he said. “It’s An American issue.”
In the midterms, voters up and down the ballot rejected Republican candidates who repeatedly denied the results of the 2020 election.
