Juan Williams said Sunday that President Joe Biden has ushered in the unity he promised, it just isn’t apparent in Congress.
Williams argued during a panel discussion on “Fox News Sunday” that because a few things that had barely passed along party lines in Congress were actually supported by some Republican voters, they were effectively bipartisan. (RELATED: ‘I Guess I Would Shoot’: Juan Williams Says Cops Should Have Fired A Warning Shot Before Shooting Ma’Khia Bryant)
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“The president and Democrats rammed through $1.9 trillion in COVID relief on a straight party line vote,” anchor Chris Wallace began. “They are now talking about, I guess when you’re all added up, more than $3 trillion in infrastructure and social spending and I think the default position is they are going to do the same thing again through reconciliation and a straight party line vote. Is that bipartisanship?”
“I think you have to make a distinction here, Chris, between Republicans in Congress and Republican voters,” Williams replied, arguing that Republican voters had been supportive of the coronavirus relief package even if Republicans in Congress had not. He said the same was true of the president’s proposed infrastructure plan.
“If you look at immigration reform, Republicans support it. They want it to happen,” Williams continued. “So even as Republican voters support much of President Biden’s plan, he has unified voters across political lines, but what he has not unified has been Republicans in Congress.”
Williams went on to accuse Republicans in Congress of going back to the “kind of obstruction tactics that they used against Clinton when he was trying to save the economy back in ‘93, against Obama in ‘09 when he was facing the economic collapse,” repeating that he believed it was important to draw a distinction between congressional Republicans and Republican voters across the board.
“I think that’s why in a time of extreme polarization, Biden’s numbers are pretty good, 52, 54% approval,” Williams concluded.