By Jeff Mason
TEMPE, Arizona (Reuters) – President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that Republican Donald Trump and his allies pose a dangerous threat to American democracy, reviving a previous message ahead of the 2024 election that is likely to be another face-off between the two men.
“There is something dangerous happening in America now,” Biden said, as he detailed recent Trump threats against U.S. officials.
Biden honored the legacy of the late Republican U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, who died in 2018. Biden and McCain remained friends despite deep political differences.
In remarks at the Tempe Center for the Arts, Biden said McCain’s courage is missed in the United States and needed now because “history has brought us to a new time of testing.”
“There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy,” he said. “The MAGA Movement.”
Biden said he does not think all Republicans ascribe to the “MAGA” agenda, a reference to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. But he said, “there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists.”
He outlined a variety of steps Trump had sought to take to undermine democracy, such as trying to fire large numbers of civil servants and replace them with political cronies.
Biden’s speech came days before a likely government shutdown, a situation forced by Republicans loyal to Trump in the House of Representatives.
Biden’s quest for a second four-year term comes amid concerns about his advanced age – he will turn 81 in November – and economic worries in the U.S. He has stepped up his warnings about the potential threat to democracy posed by Trump as exemplified by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump faces multiple indictments, including for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack. He has suggested in recent weeks that the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff deserves to be killed, and the Department of Justice should be defunded.
Biden announced funding from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to build the McCain Library in partnership with the McCain Institute and Arizona State University.
“We’d argue like two brothers … then we’d go to lunch together,” said Biden, who visited a memorial to McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, in Hanoi earlier this month.
Biden’s speech follows the second 2024 Republican presidential debate held on Wednesday in California, which often devolved into cacophony, petty fights and bizarre comments by the seven candidates.
Trump, who again skipped the debate, was labeled “missing in action” by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, while former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie mocked him as “Donald Duck.”
Trump instead gave a speech in Detroit to autoworkers, where he attacked Biden’s support for electric vehicles.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Michael Perry, Heather Timmons, Nick Zieminski and Jonathan Oatis)
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