Biden to Speak on Democracy, Political Violence from Capitol Hill

Washington: U.S. President Joe Biden will address terrible political violence in discourse from Capitol Hill on Wednesday, White House advisers said, as the issue poses large before midterm elections next week.

“You can expect to hear from him this evening – similar to what he’s been saying over the last several months – that there is a lot at stake [in the midterms], including democracy,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon said.

The speech comes against the backdrop of the dangerous Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol last year and the weekend attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Democrat, senior White House adviser Anita Dunn said.

“He’ll be making the speech from Capitol Hill … because on Jan. 6 we saw violence veering towards subverting democratic processes,” Dunn said.

“The threat of political violence which most Americans find abhorrent, the idea that you would use violence to further your political aims, it’s something that unites almost all Americans and that we can all be united against. We’ve seen horrible things happen quite recently.”

Pelosi’s alleged attacker hoped to hold Speaker Pelosi hostage and threatened to break her kneecaps, prosecutors said. Biden, who will attend a 7 p.m./2300 GMT Democratic National Committee event on Capitol Hill, is confident his fellow Democrats will hold control of Congress in the midterm elections next week, O’Malley Dillon said.

That optimism is as opposed to most midterm estimates, which foresee Republicans are almost certain to take control of the House and show the Senate is a toss-up. Looking ahead to 2024, Dunn said Biden intends to run for re-election, as he has said already. However, a formal declaration is yet to come, “we are engaged in some planning,” she said. Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, has openly hinted he would make another run for the White House.

Trump’s allies stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, trying to stop the official certification of Biden’s victory in the November 2020 election. While reviews by dozens of courts, state authorities, and members of Trump’s administration have disavowed his bogus claims that his election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, he has kept airing them since leaving office.

A significant number of Americans appear to accept the false claims. A poll that concluded on Monday found that 49% of Americans think that electoral misrepresentation is a widespread problem, with 34% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans having that perspective. Some 44% said they are worried that the U.S. election is manipulated, including 28% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans.

Regardless of those convictions, 67% of respondents said they were confident their ballots would be accurately counted, including broad majorities of Democrats and Republicans.