Tulsi Gabbard blasts Biden for labelling political opponents 'enemies'

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File

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Former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard put President Joe Biden on blast for the remarks he made during a speech, in which he vilified Americans as “enemies.”

The speech, which was widely panned as divisive and anti-American, became the subject of Gabbard’s criticism in a clip she shared on Twitter.

In the clip, Biden said the following lines:

I will defend the right to vote, our democracy against all enemies — foreign and, yes, domestic. … At consequential moments in history, they present a choice: Do you want to be the on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? This is the moment to decide to defend our elections, to defend our democracy.

In her response, Gabbard called Biden’s remarks “worse than former presidential candidate Hilary Clinton’s reference to conservatives as ‘deplorables.’”

“Hillary’s calling tens of millions of Americans deplorables was divisive & disgusting,” Gabbard wrote. “But Biden has gone further, calling those who disagree with his actions & policies domestic enemies, traitors, and racists. Biden promised to unite us, but he is doing all he can do divide us.”

Hillary’s calling tens of millions of Americans deplorables was divisive & disgusting. But Biden has gone further, calling those who disagree with his actions & policies domestic enemies, traitors, and racists. Biden promised to unite us, but he is doing all he can do divide us. pic.twitter.com/1XKS9rfZQT

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 13, 2022

Clinton, who was soundly defeated by then-Republican candidate Donald Trump, made her remarks at a 2016 fundraiser in New York City.

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Gabbard was not the only one to take affront with Biden’s speech.

Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed the president during a speech on Wednesday and called him out for his hypocrisy.

“Twelve months ago, a newly-inaugurated President Biden stood on the West Front of the Capitol and here’s what he had to say: ‘My whole soul is in this: bringing America together, uniting our people, and uniting our nation,’” McConnell said. “Yesterday, the very same man delivered a deliberately divisive speech that was designed to pull our country farther apart.”

“Twelve months ago, this president said we should ‘see each other not as adversaries, but as neighbors.’ Yesterday, he called millions of Americans his domestic ‘enemies,’” McConnell went on. “Twelve months ago, this president said that ‘disagreement must not lead to disunion.’ But, yesterday, he invoked the bloody disunion of the Civil War, the Civil War, to demonize Americans who disagree with him. He compared a bipartisan majority of Senators to literal traitors. How profoundly, profoundly unpresidential.”

McConnell said that he did not recognize Biden as he delivered his disastrous remarks to the American people on Wednesday.

“The president’s rant yesterday was, incoherent, incorrect, and beneath his office,” McConnell stated. “The president repeatedly invoked the January 6th riot while himself using irresponsible, delegitimizing rhetoric that undermines our democracy. The sitting president of the United States compared American states to ‘totalitarian states.’ He said our country will be an ‘autocracy’ if he does not get his way. The world saw our sitting Commander-in-Chief propagandize against his own country to a degree that would have made Pravda blush.”