The White House declined Thursday to specifically identify who President Joe Biden was referring to in his speech about “MAGA Republicans” threatening democracy by refusing to recognize this year’s election results.
Biden said that MAGA Republicans were only a minority of the party, but his critique goes beyond former President Donald Trump.
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“We are seeing mega MAGA Republican officials who don’t accept the rule of law,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “They fan the flames of political violence through what they praise.”
“And as the president said last night in his speech many times: Before you can love your country, you can’t love your country only when you win,” she continued. “That is not how this works. That is not how democracy works.”
Biden said this remained a problem in the midterm elections.
“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America — for governor, Congress, attorney general, secretary of state — who won’t commit — they will not commit to accepting the results of elections that they’re running in,” Biden said near the Capitol Wednesday night.
The president mentioned Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election and his supporters subsequently storming the Capitol as Congress was voting to certify the results.
But Republicans are favored to win many of Tuesday’s races. Biden cautioned that mail-in ballots will keep some of these contests from being decided that night. The swing toward the Democrats as these ballots were counted in 2020 was a major driver of Republican protests about that election.
The White House also declined to comment on Democrats boosting some Republicans who sowed doubt about the 2020 election during their primaries, citing Hatch Act concerns. Democratic operatives had concluded that many of these GOP candidates would be easier to beat in a general election.
Jean-Pierre did at one point appear to reference Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake when she said GOP politicians were making jokes about the attack on Paul Pelosi, though she did not use any names.
“And let’s not forget, political violence — we have seen political violence, in particular in the wake of the attack of targeting Speaker Pelosi’s husband, who was seriously injured,” she said. “And we should be seeing Republican leaders willing to step up and call it out. Instead, they’re making jokes about it.”
Biden’s top spokeswoman again defended the strategy of sending him to blue states on the cusp of the midterm elections, as Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress hang in the balance.
She made the comments in a gaggle on Air Force One en route to New Mexico, to be followed by a trip to California.
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Jean-Pierre said that no matter where the president speaks, it is widely covered and his words are heard nationally. Biden has the “bully pulpit,” she added.
Biden will be appearing with former President Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, which features one of the country’s closest Senate races.
