President Joe Biden discussed Donald Trump in a new Pro Publica interview.
JOHN HARWOOD: Since you gave your democracy speech in Philadelphia a year ago. We’ve had orderly midterm elections, no violence, and the beginning of legal accountability for former President Trump and other January 6 defendants. No civil unrest. Could the threat to democracy be smaller than you think?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, I think the opposite thing’s happening, John. I think that this is sort of the last gasp, or maybe the first big gasp of the MAGA Republicans.
And I think Trump has concluded that he has to win. And they’ll pull out all the stops! I mean, the quotes he uses are just — I never thought I’d hear a president say some of the stuff he says!
And so I think that — and you see what’s happening in terms of what the MAGA Republicans are doing in the House. They don’t make up a majority in the House, but they’re bringing everything to a screeching halt.
JOHN HARWOOD: As you think about the threat to democracy. Do you think of it specifically as the refusal to accept election defeats and peaceful transfer of power, or is it more broadly encompassing some of the longstanding features of democracy like the Electoral College, the nature of the Senate, the gerrymandering process that sometimes thwart the will of the majority?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We should never condone violence in a democracy. But I think it’s well beyond that. For example, the idea — when I talk about democracy, democracy is sort of the, what surrounds the underpinning of democracy, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, all those things that provide for the certainty that everybody gets a shot. And so, you know, we the people is, I know it sounds corny, but that’s what we’re talking about. And everything that’s happening now is designed to prevent that from happening, from the people’s voice. For example, he wants to change the way the civil service works for — He wants a whole new category that is not answerable, not answerable to the civil service rules, but only answerable to the president, those kinds of things.
