And when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said the Jan. 6 rioters would have been armed and successful if she had been leading the 2021 insurrection, Biden’s press secretary did not wait for reporters to ask about it before rebuking the comments as “dangerous” and “vile.”
The sharply worded responses, coming in the weeks since Democrats outperformed expectations in the November midterms, appear to signal an effort by Biden and the White House to respond faster and more forcefully to provocative comments by Trump and his supporters. As the president heads toward an expected reelection announcement early next year, some Democratic strategists see an advantage in pointedly — and frequently — drawing a contrast with Trump, the GOP and the Republicans poised to take over the House of Representatives.
The moves come in the wake of Trump’s announcement of a third presidential bid and a midterm election that will give the GOP a modest edge in the House. With their thin majority, House Republican leaders will have little room to distance themselves from any of their members, giving lawmakers with incendiary views outsize influence, said Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
“Every time some outrage erupts from that body, it will remind the American people of Donald Trump and that this is still the party of Donald Trump,” Riley said. “The noisy and unruly behavior in the House will be perpetual reminders that the party prefers to make noise rather than govern.”
Some GOP officials also have spoken out against Trump in recent weeks, and they accused the White House of piling on in an attempt to try to score political points on matters that should be above politics. Others have called out Democrats for their own controversial comments and actions in the past, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has pledged to remove some Democrats from their committees for allegedly inappropriate behavior.
Beyond that, Republicans argue that Biden’s stewardship of the economy has been inept — and have made the case that the chaos spawned by high inflation, crime, immigration and homelessness will motivate voters far more than any Democratic effort to paint all Republicans as extremists.
White House officials say Biden has long felt compelled to publicly reject political extremism and violent rhetoric, pointing to his repeated statements that he decided to run against Trump after seeing white supremacists rallying in Charlottesville in 2017. Biden used his first prime time presidential address in 2021 to condemn a rash of anti-Asian attacks that took place last year.
In the run-up to the November midterms, Biden gave two prime time addresses on the importance of defending democracy, speaking from Independence Hall in Philadelphia in September and from Capitol Hill last month.
“I believe the voices excusing or calling for violence and intimidation are a distinct minority in America, but they’re loud and they are determined,” Biden said on Nov. 3, days after a man trying to kidnap House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) assaulted her husband in the couple’s San Francisco home.
As Election Day approached, Biden and his allies singled out Republicans by name, not only criticizing their policies but in some cases describing them as a threat to the constitutional order. Advisers to the president, some of whom spoke on the condition of…
Read More: Responding sharply to Trump, Biden gears up for more clashes with GOP
