President Biden may have tripped again while boarding Air Force One, but his speech in Selma on Sunday to commemorate the 58th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” was flawless. Most of his remarks centered on voting rights and the ongoing voter suppression. “The right to vote, to have your vote counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty,” he said.
Biden addressed the crowd near the Edmund Pettus Bridge where marchers were assaulted by state troopers on March 1, 1965, an attack that highlighted the beating of civil rights icon John Lewis. Lewis, who died three years ago, was invoked by Biden when he said, “We know that we must get the votes of Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Amendment Act, and the Freedom to Vote Act. I’ve made it clear I will not let a filibuster obstruct the sacred right to vote.”
The president noted that “this fundamental right remains under assault. [A] conservative Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act over the years. Since the 2020 election, a wave of states (has passed) dozens, dozens of anti-voting laws fueled by the big lie,” alluding to the false claim that his presidential victory was fraudulent.
While Biden was recounting facts, Trump was still fulminating in a shower of lies at CPAC over the weekend. None of his falsifications were as obviously wrong as his announcement that “you couldn’t get into the building” to witness his speech. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie mocked Trump’s failure to fill the conference hall. “You saw the scenes at CPAC,” Christie, once a Trump ally, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “That room was half-full.”
What the room was full of after Trump’s keynote address were lies and gross exaggerations, according to several reports. He claimed to have “saved Minneapolis” after the murder of George Floyd, saying he was ready to send the National Guard to Seattle, then troubled with demonstrations. “The thing is, we’re not supposed to do that because it’s up to the governor, the Democrat governor. They never want any help. They don’t mind—it’s almost like they don’t mind having their cities and states destroyed. There’s something wrong with these people,” Trump said.
Trump glossed over the fact that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz sent in the Guard in 2020, more than seven hours before Trump threatened to do so, according to CNN. These comments fly in the face of his failure to get the National Guard to Capitol Hill before the January 6 insurrection, an upheaval he provoked that led to four deaths and countless injuries.