Biden names Trump in protester-interrupted speech on democracy

President Joe Biden was interrupted by a protester as he encouraged the country to put politics aside to protect democracy and its public institutions.

Biden told the climate protester to “shush up” before promising to meet with him after his highly anticipated address.

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“Democracy is never easy, as we just demonstrated,” Biden said Thursday in Tempe, Arizona.

Biden mentioned former President Donald Trump by name and repeatedly referred to the so-called MAGA Republican extremist movement “banning books and burying history.” In particular, Biden cited Trump’s criticism of retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and NBC, though he simultaneously scrutinized Fox News.

“Extremists in Congress are more determined to shut down the government, to burn the place down, than do the people’s business,” Biden said.

“We should all remember: Democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle,” he added. “They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up or condemn threats to democracy. … The soul of America depends on the soul of all Americans.”

Biden also announced the creation of a library honoring the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, five years after McCain’s death to the same cancer that killed the president’s son Beau. The library, constructed with the McCain Institute and Arizona State University, in addition to American Rescue Plan funding, will provide education, work, and health programs in the state, according to the White House.

“In the end, John McCain thought about the beginning,” Biden said, who remembered introducing McCain to his widow.

Biden similarly recalled visiting McCain’s memorial in Hanoi, Vietnam, this month and thinking “how much America needed John right now.”

“I thought about what John stood for, what he fought for, and what he was willing to die for,” he said. “I thought about what we owe John, what I owe John, and what we owe each other.”

Biden has become increasingly critical of Trump and MAGA Republicans in the context of protecting democracy, Thursday’s address his fourth dedicated to the issue. The incumbent, too, has become increasingly focused on Trump as his predecessor solidifies his status as the 2024 Republican primary front-runner.

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy because they want to break down institutional structures,” he said during a Wednesday fundraiser in San Francisco.

Biden delivered his address the day after the second 2024 Republican primary debate and Trump’s rally in the suburbs of Detroit amid the United Auto Workers strike. But the president’s remarks coincided with the House Oversight Committee‘s first impeachment inquiry hearing into his family’s business dealings before a likely federal government shutdown on Oct. 1 as well.

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“There are 61 hours and 55 minutes until the government shuts down because of extreme House Republicans’ chaos and inability to govern,” White House spokeswoman Sharon Yang said. “The consequences for the American people will be very damaging, from lost jobs to troops working without pay to jeopardizing important efforts to fight fentanyl, deliver disaster relief, provide food assistance, and more. Nothing can distract from that.”

The Biden campaign is hoping to defend and expand the president’s 2020 electoral map, which included Arizona in the Democratic column for the first time since 1996, especially through outreach to minority voters.