Biden’s MAGA Hypocrisy by Marc A. Thiessen

Political Crossfire Biden’s MAGA Hypocrisy

By Marc A. Thiessen

In his prime-time address from outside Independence Hall last week, President Biden warned that “MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” If Biden really believes that, then why is the Democratic Party he leads spending tens of millions of dollars to help MAGA Republicans win GOP primaries?

The same week that Biden delivered his hyperbolic address, the Senate Majority PAC of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was buying TV ads in New Hampshire attacking mainstream Republican Chuck Morse as the choice of “Mitch McConnell’s Washington establishment” in an effort to boost a pro-Trump candidate, retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc – because Democrats think Bolduc will be an easier general-election opponent for vulnerable Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. But polls show that Hassan leads Bolduc by only four points – which means he is in striking distance of winning on Election Day.

Democrats are doing the same thing in races across the country. In Maryland, the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) spent nearly $2 million on ads to boost Dan Cox, the Trumpbacked candidate for governor, in an effort to block a more centrist candidate backed by outgoing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, a Trump critic. Cox – who urged Donald Trump to seize voting machines in 2020 and tweeted that then-Vice President Mike Pence was a “traitor” – won the primary with the DGA’s help. In Illinois, the DGA and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker spent a whopping $35 million on ads to boost Trump-backed Illinois state Sen. Darren Bailey over centrist Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin – helping Bailey win the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro spent $840,000 on TV ads boosting MAGA Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano in the GOP gubernatorial primary, calling him one of “Trump’s strongest supporters” and highlighting his 2020 election denial. Democrats spent more than double on ads promoting Mastriano than the MAGA Republican spent himself. (“I’m going to have to send him Meijer, R-Mich., who voted to impeach Trump last year – labeling Gibbs as “too conservative” for Michigan. In California’s 22nd Congressional District, a toss-up district, the House Majority PAC spent more than $110,000 on ads to elevate election denier Chris Mathys over Republican Rep. David Valad-

ao, who also voted to impeach Trump. “David Valadao claims he’s Republican – yet David Valadao voted to impeach President Trump,” the Democratic ad declares. If they really believe that the MAGA movement represents a threat “to the very soul of this country,” as Biden claims, why would House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the Democratic Party’s official campaign arm help MAGA candidates defeat Republicans who voted impeach Trump for his role in Jan. 6?

Democrats spent more than double on ads promoting Mastriano than the MAGA Republican spent himself.

a thank-you card,” Mastriano said.) A recent Emerson College poll shows Mastriano within three points of Shapiro in the gubernatorial general election.

Democrats have also tried to help election deniers defeat Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In Michigan, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spent $425,000 on ads boosting Trump-endorsed John Gibbs over Rep. Peter

That’s not all. In Colorado, Democrats spent more than $4 million to boost election denier Rep. Ron Hanks – who attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the U.S. Capitol riot – in an effort to stop his more mainstream opponent Joe O’Dea from winning the nomination for the U.S. Senate. Despite millions in Democratic-funded ads, O’Dea won the GOP primary by nine percentage points. Pelosi’s House Majority PAC and other Democratic PACs also spent nearly $300,000 to boost MAGA Republican Lori Saine in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District in a failed effort to stop more moderate front-runner Barbara Kirkmeyer, a state senator. In all, the Colorado Sun reports, Democrats spent nearly $7 million to elevate MAGA Republican candidates for House, Senate and governor’s races – about $4 million more than Republicans spent on their own primaries.

This is sheer hypocrisy. In his speech, Biden ominously warned that MAGA Republicans are “working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to…election deniers to undermine democracy itself.” Yet he failed to mention that, in state after state, Democrats are working to boost them as well. How can Biden tell us with a straight face that MAGA Republicans pose a “threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country” while his party spends tens of millions to help them win primaries – and thus, potentially, elected office?

Biden’s strategy of labeling the GOP as “extremists” is a cynical ploy to distract Americans from his serial failures in office. The lesson is clear: Biden and the Democrats don’t care about protecting democracy; they only care about protecting their hold on political power.