Former Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard slammed Democrat President Joe Biden on Wednesday for remarks that he made during a speech this week that were widely panned as divisive and anti-American by critics.
Gabbard tweeted out a video clip of Biden where the president uttered the following lines:
I will defend the right to vote, our democracy against all enemies — foreign and, yes, domestic. … At consequential moments in history, they present a choice: Do you want to be the on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? This is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.
“Hillary’s calling tens of millions of Americans deplorables was divisive & disgusting,” Gabbard responded. “But Biden has gone further, calling those who disagree with his actions & policies domestic enemies, traitors, and racists. Biden promised to unite us, but he is doing all he can do divide us.”
Hillary’s calling tens of millions of Americans deplorables was divisive & disgusting. But Biden has gone further, calling those who disagree with his actions & policies domestic enemies, traitors, and racists. Biden promised to unite us, but he is doing all he can do divide us. pic.twitter.com/1XKS9rfZQT
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 13, 2022
Gabbard was referring to a remark that twice failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made during a 2016 speech at a fundraiser in New York City.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
Biden took heat from Republicans over his remarks, which culminated in a brutal rebuttal from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday during a speech on the Senate floor.
“Twelve months ago, a newly-inaugurated President Biden stood on the West Front of the Capitol and here’s what he had to say: ‘My whole soul is in this: bringing America together, uniting our people, and uniting our nation,’” McConnell said. “Yesterday, the very same man delivered a deliberately divisive speech that was designed to pull our country farther apart.”
“Twelve months ago, this President said we should ‘see each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors.’ Yesterday, he called millions of Americans his domestic ‘enemies,’” McConnell continued. “Twelve months ago, this President said that ‘disagreement must not lead to disunion.’ But, yesterday, he invoked the bloody disunion of the Civil War, the Civil War, to demonize Americans who disagree with him. He compared a bipartisan majority of Senators to literal traitors. How profoundly, profoundly unpresidential.”
McConnell said that as Biden gave the speech, he “did not recognize the man at the podium yesterday.”
“The President’s rant yesterday was, incoherent, incorrect, and beneath his office,” McConnell said. “The President repeatedly invoked the January 6th riot while himself using irresponsible, delegitimizing rhetoric that undermines our democracy. The sitting President of the United States compared American states to ‘totalitarian states.’ He said our country will be an ‘autocracy’ if he does not get his way. The world saw our sitting Commander-in-Chief propagandize against his own country to a degree that would have made Pravda blush.”