After Trashing Trump for Contesting Election, Biden Tells America November Midterms 'Easily Could Be Illegitimate'
When are you allowed to say elections are illegitimate? When you’re a Democrat, of course!
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden held a news conference, which is a rare event in and of itself. The Biden administration, realizing its figurehead isn’t known for demonstrating intellectual stamina or steering clear of gaffes, doesn’t like him to be answerable to the media — particularly when the media ask questions of the president that don’t have to do with delicious, delicious ice cream.
In fact, Biden’s handlers have gone out of their way to make the president unavailable for questioning in all circumstances — including blaring music when an event is finished.
Disgruntled though they may be at not getting the answers they’d like, the establishment media still shy away from pointing this out. (The Western Journal doesn’t, and we’ve made it clear how obvious the lengths the administration will go to in order to avoid answering questions are. You can help us keep them honest by subscribing.)
There were several moments during Biden’s news conference that made it clear why he’s hosted fewer such briefings than any other president in recent history. One in particular, however, came when he insinuated the 2022 midterms might be “illegitimate” elections.
That blunder came when Biden was asked about the failure of the Democrats’ voting overhaul legislation. “If this isn’t passed, do you still believe the upcoming election will be fairly conducted and its results will be legitimate?” a reporter asked.
“Well, it all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” Biden replied.
“And it’s one thing – look, maybe I’m just being too much of an optimist,” he continued. “Remember how we thought not that many people were going to show up to vote in the middle of a pandemic? We had the highest voter turnout in the history of the United States of America.
“Well, I think if, in fact — no matter how hard they make it for minorities to vote, I think you’re going to see them willing to stand in line and — and defy the attempt to keep them from being able to vote. I think you’re going to see the people who they’re trying to keep from being able to show up, showing up and making the sacrifice that needs to make in order to change the law back to what it should be.”
Biden was given a chance to backtrack on this. He didn’t.
“I think it easily could be illegitimate,” the president said, citing the 2020 election. “I mean, imagine if those attempts to say that the count was not legit — ‘You have to recount it and we’re not going to count — we’re going to discard the following votes.'”
After the reporter steered him back to his claim about the November midterms, he said, “I’m not going to say it’s going to be legit. It’s — the increase and the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed.”
Psaki today: I talked to the Prez and he is not predicting that 2022 elections would be illegitimate
Biden yesterday: “I think it could easily be illegitimate” pic.twitter.com/5NngT2iQAT
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) January 20, 2022
Just so we’re clear, here’s what Biden said just two weeks ago during his Jan. 6 speech marking the first anniversary of the Capitol incursion:
Former President Donald Trump, he said, had “done what no president in American history, the history of this country, has ever, ever done. He refused to accept the results of an election and the will of the American people.
“While some courageous men and women in the Republican party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principle of that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else. They seem no longer to want to be the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes.”
The implication, of course, was that this refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election was a threat to our democracy and led directly to the Capitol riot.
Exactly two weeks later, Biden made the case that if the Senate doesn’t nuke the filibuster and pass the Democrats’ “voting rights” bills — both little more than cynical pieces of legislation designed to tip the scales in the Democrats’ favor — the elections this November might not be legitimate.
This naturally grabbed the media’s attention and forced Democrats to respond — except none of them seemed to be willing to disavow Biden’s words.
In fact, some openly endorsed the statement.
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina is the House majority whip, making him the third-most powerful Democrat in the lower chamber. He appeared on CNN on Thursday, where host Kasie Hunt pressed him on whether he agreed with Biden’s assessment.
“Do you agree with what he said in that press conference, are you concerned that without these voting rights bills the election results won’t be legitimate?” she asked.
“I’m absolutely concerned about that,” Clyburn said. “Let me remind the audience that in 1965 at the time of the advent of the Voting Rights Act, only 3 percent of African-Americans in Alabama were registered to vote. We come in with the 1965 Voting Rights Act and look what we have now.
“Nine years ago, the Supreme Court took direct aim at that act in Shelby v. Holder and got rid of preclearance.”
“Preclearance” was part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in which certain districts would be forced to gain approval from the federal government before implementing changes to voting law. According to Oyez, those districts were ones that had a voting test before Nov. 1, 1964, and where there was less than 50 percent turnout in the 1964 presidential election — making them overwhelmingly Southern.
In Shelby v. Holder, the Supreme Court found that section of the act to be unconstitutional since the conditions that led to it being put into law were almost a half-century old at the time of the decision in 2012 and no longer applied.
The Democrats want them reapplied because, while those districts were practical fiefdoms of their party in 1965, they’re now mostly Republican — and with 100 percent less Jim Crow involved, may I add.
For this, one of Congress’ top Democrats is willing to say outright that the 2022 midterms could be “illegitimate.” Apparently, he buys Biden’s “Big Lie.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, was vaguer when asked by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, but she seemed to echo the president’s statements more than she disowned them.
As she provided a description of the two bills to Guthrie, the “Today” host interjected to ask whether Biden thought the midterms would be illegitimate.
“If I may finish,” Harris said twice. “Let’s not conflate issues. So, what we’re looking at, and the topic of so much debate last night, was that we, as America, cannot afford to allow this blatant erosion of our democracy.”
Is President Biden really concerned that we may not have free and fair elections? –@SavannahGuthrie to @VP pic.twitter.com/pQmv6MLVb5
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 20, 2022
And then there was White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said Biden didn’t say what you think he was saying and that the elections would only be illegitimate if you did what Trump was saying.
He was explaining that the results would be illegitimate if states do what the former president asked them to do after the 2020 election: toss out ballots and overturn results after the fact. The Big Lie is putting our democracy at risk. We’re fighting to protect it.
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) January 20, 2022
War is peace, freedom is slavery, etc.
According to CBS News, Psaki was a bit more succinct when asked whether the president thought the results of the 2022 elections would be legitimate: “Yes.”
Except that’s not what he said.
But why should we be surprised? In three separate instances, we have prominent Democrats or White House officials refusing to disown the comments. Each took a different tack: Clyburn straight-up agreed the midterms could be illegitimate, Harris didn’t disagree but wrung her hands about the “erosion of democracy,” and Psaki denied the president said what he said.
For all three, questioning the legitimacy of elections is no big thing. Two weeks ago, it was potentially the ruination of our democracy.
The difference? The Democrats need to get their voting overhaul bills through Congress.
What a surprise.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
