Washington: Joe Biden has cast Republicans as a threat to law and order after sections of the party called for the FBI to be defunded following the unprecedented raid of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
As he steps up campaigning for November’s midterm elections, the US president also lashed out at Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base for continuing to defend the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The rampage last year left several people dead, about 150 police officers injured and the nation shocked and divided.
US President Joe Biden calls out Republicans for supporting January 6 insurrection.Credit:AP
“For God’s sake: whose side are you on? The side of the mob, or the side of the police?” a fired-up Biden said during a speech in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania.
“You can’t be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection. You can’t be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6 ‘patriots’.
“Now it’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI – threatening the life of law enforcement agents and their families for simply carrying out the law and doing their job. I want to say as clear as I can: there is no place in this country – no place – for endangering the lives of law enforcement.”
The comments represent Biden’s sharpest attack on Republicans since the Mar-a-Lago raid this month, with the White House, until now, not wanting to be seen as playing politics with the Department of Justice investigation into the former US president.
While Republicans have traditionally out polled Democrats when it comes to law and order by painting them as soft on crime, the search of Trump’s property has complicated their message, after sections of the GOP responded to the event by calling for payback against law enforcement.
Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was among them, tweeting in the aftermath: “Defund the FBI.” Bruce Fenton, a senate candidate for New Hampshire was even more scathing, declaring that: “We should abolish the FBI and replace it with nothing.”
Some of Trump’s most ardent supporters also took to social media calling for a “civil war” and an “armed rebellion”, while in Ohio, a 42-year-old gunman died in a shootout after trying to get inside the FBI’s the Cincinnati office.
Rioters stand outside the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.Credit:AP
He, too, appeared to have called for agents to be killed and for “be ready for combat” in social media posts following the search on Trump’s home.
Speaking in the small city of Wilkes-Barre, in northeastern Pennsylvania, Biden also used his speech to talk up his own law and order credentials, promising to help police hire and train 100,000 new police officers and committing billions of dollars to clear court backlogs and invest in crime prevention.
He also renewed calls for a full ban on assault weapons in the wake of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde earlier this year, telling the audience: “We’re living in a country awash with weapons of war… What the hell’s the matter with us?”
Today’s speech marked the first of three visits that the president will make to Pennsylvania within a week, as the campaigning for the midterms heats up. He will return on Thursday for a prime-time speech in Philadelphia that will focus on the threat to democracy and “the continued battle for the soul of the nation.
Trump will also visit the state on Saturday to conduct his first rally since the search of classified documents at his Florida property.
Pennsylvania is critical because it’s regarded as the Democrats’ best chance of flipping a seat in the Senate – the all-important chamber that determines everything from future Supreme Court nominations to Biden’s first term policy agenda.
In what is shaping up to be one of the marquee races of the midterms, progressive Democrat John Fetterman is battling for a spot in the Senate against Republican candidate Mehmet Oz, a celebrity TV doctor endorsed by Trump.
Meanwhile, far-right state senator Doug Mastriano – one of the officials who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results and was at the US capitol on January 6 – is now the Republican candidate to be Pennsylvania governor.
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