the president has wanted to make this speech, we understand, for some time. he s talked about the battle for the soul of the nation since he launched his campaign right there in 2019. so why is he choosing to make this speech now? reporter: well, john, quite simply because the midterm elections are nine weeks away, 68 days from today. so this is why there is some urgency in his message. he s been watching primary elections throughout the last several months, watching election deniers be elected for secretary of state positions, for gubernatorial candidates, and he is worried about this threat to democracy. but first and foremost, john, it is political. they are trying to sort of turn the criticism and focus away from the democratic party, concerns about the economy, inflation, gas prices, to focus on the former president and what he has done in his view to this republican party. john, it is all about setting up the stark contrast for the midterm elections. yes, we are here in front o
track, if it s a referendum on inflation, the border or crime, then it s going to be a great night for republicans. it s clear why he s making this campaign speech tonight. it has to be about trump. if it s about any policy issue that s in the top five for americans and for independent voters, republicans have a chance to do very well. so i see why they re doing it but i think it s a little disingenuous to say it s not about trump, it is. and his voters, which were about 74 million of them are going to take this fascism and extremism remarks pretty hard. i don t think it s convincing for them at all. the house minority leader kevin mccarthy has picked up on that, eva. i want to play a little bit of what he said just a short while ago tonight. when the president speaks tonight at independence hall, the first lines out of his mouth should be to appologize for slandering tens of millions of americans as fascists. what joe biden doesn t
realized that this actually was a voting machine when they posted it on its website. to the untrained eye, this kind of just looks like a big computer screen. of course lots of security concerns here. but, poppy, you ll never know just what you ll find at a good will or on ebay. once again your reporting has my jaw on the floor. thank you very much for that. thanks to everyone for joining us. president biden about to speak in ten minutes live in philadelphia. ac 360 starts now. speaking from the birth place of american democracy, president biden tonight will issue a warning about the state of that democracy as he sees it and what american can say do about it. john berman here in for anderson. you re looking at live pictures of independence hall in philadelphia where the president is expected to begin his remarks just after the top of the hour. we have some early passages from this speech and will talk about them shortly. first, though, take a look. this is new polling from
did not. 18 trump administration officials, including two former trump chiefs of staff, said that is essentially ludicrous to say that he could make an assertion i m shocked her next statement is about executive privilege. let s talk about the facts. there s a lot of facts to go through. kristina bobb representing the former president. she s the one who critically signed that june 3rd letter saying, all right, you know, doj, you have all the classified stuff. that appears to be false. there s a question that doj did lay out in their filing as to whether or not classified documents were moved out before they surveyed it. did she know what she signed was false? does she need her own lawyer? she needs to lawyer up. here is the thing about donald. what he did with her i m sure, because i have seen him do it 100 times. he tells you, there s nothing there. i sent everything back. i just need a lawyer to sign
tiny sliver of extremists, these insurrectionists and the rest. as far as i can tell, this is the first official primetime presidential address in 40 years that breaks no news. it s just attention, america, the president has an opinion. i agree with his opinion. but we have heard nothing from the white house all day, nothing in the excerpts at all that there s news to be made. let s let the president make the news or not make the news. van, i want to ask you about significant developments about ginni thomas, the wife of thomas thomas, and efforts to help overturn biden s victory. there are emails that cnn has that show she reached out to republican law makers in wisconsin two days after the election and called for biden she said, please stand strong in the face of political pressure and media pressure. reflect on the awesome authority granted to you and take action to ensure that a clean slate of