Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy criticized President Joe Biden’s speech for having a divisive and cynical message on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning.
The Louisiana senator said the president had a “missed opportunity” in the speech to address the issues directly impacting the American people. The president attacked former President Donald Trump and “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) Republicans for their alleged “extremism.”
“I’d make three points. Number one, after listening to the president’s speech, I really understand why it’s an unassailable fact that age does not guarantee wisdom,” Kennedy began. “Number two … Biden, we saw last night, was really every inch ‘Joe Biden the Politician.’ His speech was a very cynical attempt to fill our heads with stupid.
“And number three, I thought to myself, what a missed opportunity,” the senator continued. “To talk to the American people straight up about the reasons [for] when they lie down and sleep at night, they can’t. He could’ve talked about crime; inflation; learning loss by our children; the mountains of fentanyl coming across the border, killing our teenagers. Instead, he chose to say to the American people, if you don’t agree with me about higher taxes, more government; if you don’t agree with me that moms are ‘birthing people;’ if you don’t agree with me that government has a constitutional right to talk to your 5-year-old about sexuality, you’re a bad person, and you’re not even an American.”
The president said former President Donald Trump and “Make America Great Again” Republicans “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He added they do not believe the rule of law or respect the Constitution by refusing to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and opposing abortion, contraception and gay marriage. (RELATED: Reporter Asks Jean-Pierre If It’s ‘Hypocritical’ To Call Trump Candidates ‘Extreme’ After Dems Meddled In Their Primaries)
Kennedy said the “MAGA Republicans” the president referred to simply do not agree with Biden’s agenda.
“That sounds like a long winded description and definition of what Secretary [Hillary] Clinton called ‘deplorables.’ The people that President Biden is talking about, some of whom supported President Trump, some didn’t, are the people who get up everyday, go to work, obey the law, pay their taxes, try to teach their kids morals … they are proud of America, they do want to make America great again. They just don’t agree with President Biden’s neo-socialist, woke agenda.
“They don’t believe in bigger government, they don’t believe in higher taxes, they don’t believe in more spending, they don’t believe in more regulation, they don’t believe in more debt, they don’t believe that we ought to turn our cops into social workers,” Kennedy continued. “They don’t believe that stuff and I think it’s…I’m very disappointed that the president would call people who disagree with him those kind of names. I just think he’s made a political mistake but it says something about his administration.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly doubled down on calling “MAGA Republicans” extremists, threats to democracy and comparing their philosophy to “semi-fascism.” She said during a press briefing Thursday that those who disagree with the “majority of Americans” are “extreme.”
“And again, we see [a] majority of Americans who disagree, and so when you are not with where a majority of Americans are, then that is extreme, that is an extreme way of thinking,” Jean-Pierre said.