In that speech last week, Biden tested the message he is expected to aggressively address to Democrats this fall. It also shows how his attacks on Trump and the Republicans loyal to him have clearly grown sharper as the midterm elections in November approach.
“What we’re seeing now is the beginning or the death knell of a radical MAGA philosophy,” Biden told a group of Democratic donors at a private home in Maryland before the rally.
“It’s not just Trump, it’s underpinning the whole philosophy — I’m going to say one thing: It’s almost quasi-fascism.”
In a speech in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, Biden will also drive home a familiar criticism of Trump and those around him: that he can’t pretend to support law enforcement while threatening the FBI and those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. , 2021, a senior executive told CNN.
Biden will spend a significant portion of his speech in Wilkes-Barre pushing for an assault weapons ban, calling it a “defining” and “powerful issue with broad bipartisan support,” the official said.
Labeling Trump’s views a form of anti-fascism marked an escalation in Biden’s condemnation of his predecessor, and laid the groundwork for an interim political message designed to portray his opponents as too extreme for most voters.
Biden said throughout the 2020 campaign that he was running to restore “the soul of the nation,” and he and his White House have repeatedly returned to that statement in his first years.
Vice President Kamala Harris also went on the campaign trail Saturday and issued a stark warning about threats to democracy during a DNC fundraiser in California.
“I was in Washington, D.C., right after the election, on January 6th, when we won — I was still a senator and vice president — a direct, decisive attack on our democracy. Harris told supporters. “When we talk about what’s at stake, when we talk about who represents what, we need to understand that this is a challenging time for everyone running for office to say where they stand to protect and defend our democracy.”
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
