WASHINGTON (Fwrd Axis) — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) slammed President Joe Biden’s voting rights speech on Wednesday, calling it “profoundly unpresidential.”
Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell called Biden’s speech on changing the filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation a “rant” that was “incoherent, incorrect, and beneath his office.”
“I have known, liked, and personally respected Joe Biden for many years,” McConnell said. “I did not recognize the man at the podium yesterday.”
Biden’s speech was long-awaited as Democrats have privately been pushing Biden to come out with more force the issue as he did with his bipartisan infrastructure bill. Biden pounded his fist and said he has been having quiet conversations with senators for months over the two bills.
The President said Tuesday that Senate Republicans lack the “courage to stand up to a defeated president to protect the right to vote.”
“Unfortunately, President Biden has rejected the better angels of our nature. So it is the Senate’s responsibility to protect the country,” McConnell said.
Biden was at the Capitol on Wednesday to pay his respects to former Senate leader Harry Reid, who lay in state in the Rotunda. As he was leaving, reporters asked the President about McConnell’s remarks earlier in the day.
“I like Mitch McConnell. He’s a friend,” Biden answered.
McConnell said Biden stopped by his office as he departed the Capitol but the two “didn’t connect” because the Minority Leader was not in his office.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to McConnell and the Republican criticism of Biden’s speech at Wednesday’s press briefing.
“I know there has been a lot of claims of the offensive nature of the speech yesterday, which is hilarious on many levels, given how many people set silently over the last four years for the former president,” she said.
