Biden will deliver a rare primetime address on threats to American democracy
Good evening, and welcome to the Guardian’s US politics liveblog, primetime edition.
We’ll be bringing you live updates and analysis tonight, as Joe Biden addresses the country. The president is expected to speak about threats to American democracy, and “the power we have in our own hands to meet those threats”, according to excerpts from his speech that the White House has shared with the media.
In recent weeks, Biden has unleashed an uncharacteristically energetic, aggressive line of attack against Republicans allied with Donald Trump, and the party’s willingness to erode democratic rights and personal freedoms.
As my colleague Lauren Gambino reports, Biden is expected to evoke a battle for the “soul of the nation”, reviving a theme from his presidential campaign, and build on public backlash against the supreme court’s decision to end the constitutional right to abortion.
Here’s our main report on the night ahead:
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We’ll be bringing you live updates and analysis tonight, as Joe Biden addresses the country. The president is expected to speak about threats to American democracy, and “the power we have in our own hands to meet those threats”, according to excerpts of his speech that the White House has shared with the media.
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In recent weeks, Biden has unleashed an uncharacteristically energetic, aggressive line of attack against Republicans allied with Donald Trump, and the party’s willingness to erode democratic rights and personal freedoms.
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As my colleague Lauren Gambino reports, Biden is expected to evoke a battle for the “soul of the nation”, reviving a theme from his presidential campaign, and build on public backlash against the supreme court’s decision to end the constitutional right to abortion.
“,”elementId”:”20dddc04-d159-4dd3-ab9d-995b2e071994″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
Here’s our main report on the night ahead:
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Key events
Lauren Gambino
Biden will be delivering his speech from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – where American democracy was born.
Thursday’s primetime speech is the second of three visits by the president in less than a week to battleground Pennsylvania, home to several consequential races this election season.
In the US Senate race, Mehmet Oz, the Trump-backed heart surgeon turned celebrity doctor, is squaring off against the state’s lieutenant governor, Democrat John Fetterman, in a contest that could determine which party controls the chamber, evenly divided at present.
Meanwhile, Democrats have warned about the risks of Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican nominee for governor, a leading figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania who helped shuttle people on 6 January to Trump’s Washington DC rally that preceded the attack on the US capitol.
In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, giving the next governor enormous sway over how the 2024 presidential election is conducted in the state. Mastriano faces Democrat Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general.
In a speech not far from Biden’s birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, the US president lashed out at “Maga Republicans in Congress” over their attacks on the FBI after agents seized boxes of classified documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month. The remarks were designed to counter Republican attacks on Democrats as “soft on crime”, with Biden casting his opponents’ rhetoric as a threat to law enforcement and the rule of law.
“The idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, ‘If such and such happens there’ll be blood on the street’?” he said in Wilkes-Barre. “Where the hell are we?”
Biden will deliver a rare primetime address on threats to American democracy
Good evening, and welcome to the Guardian’s US politics liveblog, primetime edition.
We’ll be bringing you live updates and analysis tonight, as Joe Biden addresses the country. The president is expected to speak about threats to American democracy, and “the power we have in our own hands to meet those threats”, according to excerpts from his speech that the White House has shared with the media.
In recent weeks, Biden has unleashed an uncharacteristically energetic, aggressive line of attack against Republicans allied with Donald Trump, and the party’s willingness to erode democratic rights and personal freedoms.
As my colleague Lauren Gambino reports, Biden is expected to evoke a battle for the “soul of the nation”, reviving a theme from his presidential campaign, and build on public backlash against the supreme court’s decision to end the constitutional right to abortion.
Here’s our main report on the night ahead:
www.theguardian.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism