President Biden commits 'deplorables moment'
Former Bush adviser Karl Rove blasts commander-in-chief on 'Jesse Watters Primetime' after dig at Trumpism.
President Biden came under fire Thursday following remarks at a Democratic National Committee event in suburban Washington where he declared former President Donald Trump's political philosophy to be "semi-fascism."
Critics called out the president for what they saw as disparagement of 74 million Americans who agree with Trump's platform and voted for him in 2020.
"What we're seeing now is the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It's not just Trump, it's the entire philosophy that underpins the — I'm going to say something — it's like semi-fascism," Biden said at the Rockville, Maryland, event.
On "Jesse Watters Primetime," former George W. Bush deputy chief of staff Karl Rove said Biden effectively took his Inauguration Day unity pledge and "threw it in the trash can" with those comments.
President Biden said he had no notice of the FBI's raid on former President Trump's private residence. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images | Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Jesse Watters called it Biden's "Deplorables Moment" in reference to how Hillary Clinton similarly told a 2015 Democratic Party event in New York City that half of Trump supporters belong in a "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic" "basket of Deplorables."
"He came out and called the entire MAGA movement fascists," Watters said.
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Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks. (Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency via Getty)
Rove agreed, adding Trump's civilian supporters don't support fascism but instead chose to vote for the real estate mogul due to his economic and sociopolitical stances including energy independence, limited government and fair-trade policies.
"After eight years of the Obama-Biden administration, he believed in secure borders and building the wall. He believed in law and order when our cities were in flames and he appointed conservative judges," Rove said. "And that's a semi-fascist philosophy?"
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Former President Donald Trump. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Rove added he, like many Republicans, have disagreements with Trump, citing the former president's response to the January 6 riots and election fraud claims in his case.
"But the idea that his successor would come in and denounce him and denounce the ideas that he stands for a semi-fascist is just beyond the pale," he said.
"He went to Montgomery County: to a Democratic National Committee fundraiser and basically said everything against what he had said in his inauguration address; the pledge that he made to unite the country — he threw it in the trash bin."
"And why did he do that? Because he wants to win in this election and he is willing to say and do anything in order to achieve his purpose. So let's take 72,216,000 Americans and denounce them as believing in a fascist movement — he ought to be ashamed."
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