Biden Asks Voters to Spurn Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ After Pelosi Attack

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden asked voters to consider the future of democracy when they vote in next week’s midterm elections, urging them to reject Donald Trump’s “big lie” denying his 2020 defeat that’s fueled political extremism and violence.

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“I appeal to all Americans, regardless of party, to meet this moment of national and generational importance. We must vote, knowing what’s at stake,” Biden said in a speech from Union Station in Washington, not far from the site of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.

“The issue couldn’t be clearer in my view: we the people must decide whether we will have fair and free elections,” Biden added.

He said more than 300 people who deny the result of the 2020 election are on ballots across the country and urged voters to reject them.

“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 the elections that they’re running in,” Biden said. “That’s the path to chaos in America. It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it is un-American.”

Biden also drew a line from Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 vote and the attack on the Capitol to the assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Biden said Paul Pelosi’s attacker used “a hammer to smash Paul’s skull.”

“It’s hard to even say, after the assailant entered the home asking, ‘Where’s Nancy, where’s Nancy.’ Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on January 6,” he said.

“It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy by a president repeating over and over again the big lie that the election of 2020 had been stolen. It’s a lie that fueled the dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years,” he added.

Biden spoke six days before Nov. 8 midterms in which polls show voters poised to hand control of one or both chambers of Congress to Republicans. That result would set up a pugnacious back-half to Biden’s first term, defined by congressional gridlock and investigations of his administration or even impeachment proceedings.

While surveys have shown concern among US voters about GOP election deniers and the state of democracy, they have consistently rated inflation and the economy as their top issue.

Biden is looking to buck historically punishing trends for presidents in midterm elections, and as recently as this week predicted Democrats would make gains in the Senate, which is currently divided 50-50.

The president has repeatedly made the case ahead of the election that democracy in the US is under threat from far-right extremism and followers of former President Trump. Wednesday’s speech echoed remarks two months ago in Philadelphia, in which he sounded the alarm that many Republicans continued to reject the 2020 results and have sought to sow doubt about this year’s vote.

Biden on Wednesday said Trump had “abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before the loyalty to the Constitution.”

Earlier: Biden Urges Voters to Reject Trump, Warning Democracy at Risk

Biden cast the midterm election Wednesday as a “struggle for democracy, a struggle for decency and dignity, a struggle for prosperity and progress.”

“We don’t settle our differences in America with a riot or a mob or a bullet or a hammer, we settle them peaceably,” he said.

Biden’s in the middle of his final campaign stretch before the midterms. On Tuesday, he visited Florida, where he appeared with gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist and Senate hopeful Val Demings. The president has further visits planned to Pennsylvania, New Mexico, California and Maryland.

Biden has said he plans to seek re-election in 2024, but has not made a final decision.

(Updates with additional quotes, details from 12th paragraph)

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