President Biden now is facing heat after he stated during a rare press conference this week that the 2022 midterms might be “illegitimate.”
After more than a year of fighting claims by former President Trump and his supporters that the 2020 presidential election was stolen because of rampant irregularities and fraud, Biden stirred up new controversy with his response to a journalist asking him to restate his characterization that Republican heavy states making changes to their election measure poses a threat to democracy.
“Oh, yeah, I believe it could easily be illegitimate,” Joe Biden said, stumbling through this response.
The president then went off on a tangent to speculate about what would have happened after the 2020 election if VP Pence submitted to the pressure of Trump and his supporters to block the electoral votes on the day of the Capitol protest.
When the journalist, RealClearPoltics’s Philip Wegmann, told Joe Biden he meant only the 2022 election, the president didn’t back down from his assertion that there could be issues with the midterms. Biden then focused on the bid by Dems in the U.S. Senate to pass two partisan election overhaul bills that faces bad odds with opposition to altering filibuster rules.
“The prospect of it being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us getting these reforms, but I do not think … you will see the Democratic Party give up on returning,” Joe Biden said.
Political foes slammed Joe Biden for his comments saying there might be problems with the midterms without voting rights laws getting passed by the federal government.
“Joe Biden dangerously says the results of the 2022 elections will be illegitimate unless the U.S. Congress passes his election control bill” tweeted Senator Josh Hawley, a GOP member from Missouri who objected to the electoral votes in the previous election.
“Is he only confused or is he saying elections are not legitimate? Asking for one of my friend,” tweeted Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a GOP member from South Carolina. “Furthermore, how do you say the next election could not be ‘legitimate’ after spending a whole year tearing down anybody (not me) who said the same thing about the last one?” she said before ending her tweet with an upside-down smiley face.