The seeds of Biden’s democracy speech sprouted long before Mar-a-Lago search

Source: Politico | September 3, 2022 | Sam Stein, Eugene Daniels and Jonathan Lemire

The seeds of Biden’s democracy speech sprouted long before the Mar-a-Lago search

But the actions of Trump and his supporters, along with threats of violence, sped up Biden’s need to address the nation.

President Joe Biden’s speech warning about an assault against American democracy — by Donald Trump and his core followers — was an election-season call to arms unlike anything in modern American history.

It also was months in the making.

Aides said that Biden had been planning to give a version of Thursday night’s address since this past June, relaying he wanted to speak on what he saw as increasingly grave threats to the nation’s democracy. But events continued to get in the way of its delivery. Pressure built over the past few weeks, they said, amid a number of developments.

GOP primary victories of a number of 2020 election-denying candidates in state and federal contests, combined with the consolidation of support around Trump, jolted the White House. Biden told associates that he barely recognized the Republican Party with which he could once work, seeing a personality cult instead.

Threats made against federal agents in the aftermath of the FBI’s search in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home also outraged the president. Biden saw echoes of what happened 18 months ago, when officers lost their lives defending the U.S. Capitol. The actual writing of the speech started about three weeks ago, with Jon Meacham, the historian who has had a hand in a number of Biden’s most sweeping speeches, helping the framing.

When a number of Republican lawmakers warned of violence should Trump be indicted, it only added to the urgency. There was, as one senior administration official put it, “a rising degree of concern that this movement, rather than dissipating, is going stronger.”

Biden’s speech landed hard. Within a relatively brisk 25 minutes, he declared that “equality and democracy are under assault,” that it did the country “no favor to pretend otherwise,” and that “too much of what is happening in our country today is not normal.” His defenders lauded him for speaking blunt truths. His critics accused him of stoking the very divisions he was decrying.

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But the belief inside the White House is that the address was simply unavoidable. Multiple aides and allies said it would have been “a dereliction of duty” had Biden not spoken up as major developments threatened the bedrock of the country.

They don’t deny that there was a political benefit to the speech. The former president has become so toxic, White House aides believe, that any day in which he dominates the discourse is a good day. They have grown to take delight in watching Republican congressional candidates face questions about Trump’s legal and political imbroglios.

But Biden’s team also rolled its eyes at the media coverage of his address, which fixated on the dramatic red backdrop and the pair of U.S. Marines positioned behind the president. They found the substantive criticisms unpersuasive, too.

“Standing up for democracy has only recently become a contrast issue and it’s a very sad commentary that it can be seen that way,” said one senior administration official. “The premise of the speech was that every American can unite around the principle of living in democracy and that it’s worth defending… That’s not a divisive issue 10 years ago.”

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White House aides say Biden’s interest never actually waned. They point to his speeches in Tulsa, Okla., last year to observe the 100th anniversary of a massive racial attack and on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. In early August, Biden convened a meeting with historians, scholars and journalists to discuss threats to the nation’s democracy. And after Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) lost her primary bid last month, Biden called her the next day to express his gratitude for her commitment to investigating the Jan. 6 attacks and her warnings about democratic backsliding.

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