of course whether or not they take that distinction remains to be seen. a very political speech by president biden as this basically full frontal attack on what the white house has branded maga republicans. an attack on maga republicans, evan, and a defense as he put it of democracy. he literally framed this as a battle between light and darkness. yeah, look, it s clear this is a speech joe biden has wanted to give for a very long time. for the last 18 months he has needed to legislate. he s needed to operate within the boundaries of what washington would permit. but there has been a growing sense in his mind that actually the threat is much graver than just a political problem. as he said tonight, a really memorable moment was too much of what s happening in this country is not normal. he s appealing to what he believes what a lot of americans feel with playing footsie with political violence or throwing out a free and fair election. he said i know i m drawing lines here but i thi
night. he didn t say vote for any republicans. well, which republican would he vote for? should he vote for the guy in pennsylvania who s saying that the election was stolen? should he vote for the people in georgia who are saying that? what republicans should he say? he tries to make a distinction in the speech between the maga republicans he hates and the republicans he claims he could work with, but the core point of the speech is you shouldn t be voting for any republicans. so how can you go out and say i want to work with some republicans and not others. did you hear him say don t vote for any republicans? z . i heard him say don t did he say don t vote for any republicans. i heard him say voting democrat is what you have to do to save the democracy. that s the point i took away from it. i m telling you no republican is going to be persuaded by that. and i think having a uni party state doesn t sound like much of a democracy. i just think everything you just said app
and framed the whole speech around that. eva, you hear this talk about this being a political speech, and i don t think you could ignore any of the references to maga republicans there. but for supporters of joe biden, for some of the voters that you ve been speaking to out on the trail there, if you do believe that democracy, small d, democracy is at stake, is this the type of defense that they have been wanting to hear? absolutely without a doubt. and something else that really stuck out to me is that he almost seemed to be reclaiming patriotism. often you hear republicans argue that they are the pro america party. the democrats are not patriotic enough. but what was more pro usa than this speech? and i think this is exactly what democratic voters wanted to hear. we honor the will of the people, right? a nod to our democracy but also a nod to preserving reproductive rights. he is the president of all america. you mentioned before too much of what is happening is not normal
kaitlin collins first to you. this was a combative speech and not at all subtle. a very political speech. i think with the exception of the speech that he gave on the anniversary of january 6th at the capitol, this might be the most political, most forceful speech in that sense that he has given since taking office. it s a bit of a surprise, because we had spoken to white house officials earlier. we asked, he is someone who strayed from naming trump very many times during his first year in office. he often stayed away from that. so as a white house reporter to hear him come out so quickly and name drop him so fast and talk about basically the brand of extremism that he thinks trump has founded within the republican party and clearly he thinks is thriving not in the sense that he wants it to, he came out very quickly and said trump and said maga time and time again. it was a very political attack against those republicans. he tried very hard to draw a distinction between republicans a
bye. victor blackwell, vicky lawrence. thank you, everyone for joining us. this is don lemon tonight. president joe biden in a major prime time speech, did you see it? saying he is battling for the soul of america. that is the former president is battling america s institutions in court, and we just heard from president biden speaking in philadelphia in a fiery 24 minute speech calling out donald trump by name and warning that what he calls maga republicans are a threat to america, while making it clear that when he says maga republicans, he doesn t mean all republicans. too much of what s happening in our country today is not normal. donald trump and the maga republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. now, i want to be very clear [ applause ] very clear upfront. not every republican, not even a majority of republicans are maga