Just moments after President Biden concluded his unhinged screed Tuesday afternoon in which he compared Republican voting reform bills in states across the country to the Civil War, MSNBC anchor Ayman Mohyeldin hailed the nasty tirade as a“stirring speech” and an “emotional gut punch to the country.” His fellow liberal colleagues agreed, hoping the extreme rhetoric would help Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections.
“We were just listening to a stirring speech there from President Biden, talking about the moment this country finds itself in, in what he is describing, ‘an outright assault on democracy, the right to vote, and liberty,’” Mohyeldin swooned in 3:00 p.m. ET hour as Biden wrapped up his partisan broadside against Republicans. The host then eagerly piled on the fearmongering:
Some strong words there from the President, talking about the threatening situation. Drawing a direct line between this country’s long history of voter disenfranchisement up until what we’re seeing play out on the streets today in America, from Arizona elsewhere....what he says are an assault on voting rights taking place in states like Georgia and elsewhere. The President talking about the need to forge a coalition of all Americans who are concerned about not only voter suppression but what also he described as the subversion of American elections....certainly a very strong emotional gut punch to the country to try and get people’s attention that was is happening right now is very dangerous for the sake of our democracy.
Reporting live from the event in Philadelphia, NBC News White House correspondent and professional Biden fanboy Mike Memoli cheered the President “outlining the very threats he sees as the biggest threat to our election integrity, as he put it, since the Civil War, he said, speaking to the intended audience of the speech, ‘I say these things no to the alarm you, but because you should be alarmed,’ as he put it.”
The so-called “journalist” touted the effort by Biden to bully companies and religious leaders into backing the Democratic Party’s attempt to rig elections ahead of the 2022 midterms:
A discussion beyond folks who are typically engaged in politics. You heard him single them out, business leaders, faith leaders, community activists, and the like, who need to be involved in this to really bring about the kind of political pressure that ultimately will breakthrough so that they can do things like pass HR-1, the For the People Act, which you heard him give his enthusiastic support for, and then invoking often the name of John Lewis, a civil rights icon, in trying to renew and extend the Voting Rights Act as well....you heard the President say 2022, to the midterm elections, to try to make sure this is a front and center voting issue itself, the right to vote.
Turning to NBC News national political reporter Sahil Kapur, Mohyeldin gushed: “Yeah, and to Mike’s point, Sahil, ‘democracy held,’ is what the President said, his exact words, ‘democracy held.’” Kapur fretted: “Right, and democracy held in 2020, Ayman, but the fear among President Biden and many Democrats here is that it may not in 2022 and 2024 unless major federal voting rights legislation is enacted.”
It’s funny how the left-wing media only claim “democracy held” when Democrats win elections. If voters elect Republicans, reporters automatically assume that the system must have failed.
Conveniently, not one attempt was made during the celebratory coverage to fact-check any of Biden’s wild claims comparing reasonable voting reform legislation to the Civil War, the Jim Crow south, or KKK terrorism.
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Here is a transcript of the July 13 segment:
3:11 PM ET
AYMAN MOHYELDIN: We were just listening to a stirring speech there from President Biden, talking about the moment this country finds itself in, in what he is describing, “an outright assault on democracy, the right to vote, and liberty.” Some strong words there from the President, talking about the threatening situation. Drawing a direct line between this country’s long history of voter disenfranchisement up until what we’re seeing play out on the streets today in America, from Arizona elsewhere.
The President also talking about the need for not only legislation, but more importantly, that his administration, through the Department of Justice and the civil rights division to challenge all of what he says are an assault on voting rights taking place in states like Georgia and elsewhere. The President talking about the need to forge a coalition of all Americans who are concerned about not only voter suppression but what also he described as the subversion of American elections, saying we will be tested once again in the year 2022.
We have comprehensive coverage of this very important speech. Joining me now, NBC News White House correspondent Mike Memoli, who’s in Philadelphia with the President for us, and NBC News national political reporter Sahil Kapur. Mike, I’ll begin with you, as I mentioned, this was quite a stirring speech. The President – and I had seen some the coverage in terms of what we were anticipating – but certainly a very strong emotional gut punch to the country to try and get people’s attention that was is happening right now is very dangerous for the sake of our democracy.
MIKE MEMOLI: Yeah, that’s right, Ayman. We’ve been talking in the run up to this speech about the pressure that this president, this White House, has been under from members of his own party who feel that he hasn’t been doing enough to use the presidential bully pulpit to match the urgency of this moment, with voting rights, they believe, under threat across this country, particularly in Republican-led states.
This is a speech that the White House believes should answer those critics, that he did raise the stakes in a very significant way. But more importantly, I think there was a line in the speech that really captures what the goal here was on the part of the President. After outlining the very threats he sees as the biggest threat to our election integrity, as he put it, since the Civil War, he said, speaking to the intended audience of the speech, “I say these things no to the alarm you, but because you should be alarmed,” as he put it.
We have been focused on our air, in Washington, on this debate over the filibuster, on specific pieces of legislation, but it’s a debate that the White House really believes is not one that has been engaged in fully by the majority of the public. Yes, partisan actors on both sides are speaking quite a bit about it, but he was attempting in this speech to elevate this issue so that there is a much broader discussion. A discussion beyond folks who are typically engaged in politics. You heard him single them out, business leaders, faith leaders, community activists, and the like, who need to be involved in this to really bring about the kind of political pressure that ultimately will breakthrough so that they can do things like pass HR-1, the For the People Act, which you heard him give his enthusiastic support for, and then invoking often the name of John Lewis, a civil rights icon, in trying to renew and extend the Voting Rights Act as well.
And Ayman, it was also quite striking to hear the way the President began his remarks. We know how reluctant he has been to invoke his predecessor, “the former guy,” as he is known to be called by this president. But he did so, if not by name, but clearly by specter of what did he in challenging and attempting to undercut and undermine the election last fall, calling it not statesmanship but selfishness on the part of the president – the former president – and really hailing the democracy and the test that it faced in 2020, but the resilience of the American people in coming out to vote in 2020 despite all those challenges.
And that’s where the White House is now looking ahead to, you heard the President say 2022, to the midterm elections, to try to make sure this is a front and center voting issue itself, the right to vote. And it’ll be interesting now to see whether he has truly answered those critics who wanted to see him speak more about issues like the filibuster and like the legislation which you heard the President speak about, Ayman.
MOHYELDIN: Yeah, and to Mike’s point, Sahil, “democracy held,” is what the President said, his exact words, “democracy held.” In large part, he thanked that the judges, the election officials, the Capitol Police on that day on January 6th, when there was that insurrection to try and stop or perhaps even overturn the outcome of the election.
But now we enter into a new phase, according to the President, as he said, there is not only going to be the challenges by the Department of Justice, but there is going to be the need for legislation to pass. How likely are we going to see, as Mike was talking about there, this bipartisan effort to try and meet some of the challenges, meet the moment that the President just outlined? Will we see that happen on Capitol Hill, from your reporting, Sahil?
SAHIL KAPUR: Right, and democracy held in 2020, Ayman, but the fear among President Biden and many Democrats here is that it may not in 2022 and 2024 unless major federal voting rights legislation is enacted. They of course point to the For the People Act, the Democrats’ sweeping election legislation that would make Election Day a federal holiday, it would guarantee universal access to mail-in voting, 15 days of early voting in all 50 states around the country, set that standard.
But Ayman, the reality, the harsh reality here is it that Democrats do not have a path to making that legislation law, to sending that to President Biden’s desk, as long as the Senate’s 60 vote threshold, that filibuster that Mike was just talking about, remains in place. Now, Democrats have broad agreement on the prognosis here, they have quite a lot of agreement on the prescription even, where they disagree is the process, the procedures, specifically two Democrats, Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Krysten Sinema. Both of whom support major new federal laws on voting rights, do not support abolishing or nuking the 60-vote threshold. And this project is at a dead stop in Congress unless that 60-vote threshold is either carved out for something like voting rights, to be able to get that through, or it is eliminated entirely.
And progressive activists have been hoping for President Biden to use his bully pulpit to twist arms, to try to get those two senators to move on the filibuster. But the truth is, President Biden’s own position on the filibuster may not be enough, if it becomes a reality in the Senate, to get these voting provisions through. Because simply forcing senators to hold the floor and talk, which the President has called for, probably won’t be enough to get Republicans to back down, given how determined they are, led by Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican Leader, to scuttle these Democratic election bills, Ayman.
MOHYELDIN: Mike, as the President said, this is not an anomaly, what we’re seeing play out right now. In fact, as I mentioned, he kind of drew this long line of American history of voter disenfranchisement from the enslavement of African-Americans who were not allowed to vote up until the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, to women’s rights, to ultimately the KKK, Jim Crow, even talking about the 2013 Supreme Court decision and even recent decisions by the Supreme Court that undermined voting rights in this country.
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