Impeach Biden? Here Are 5 Times Biden Has Directly Urged Violence Against Political Opponents
The Senate will soon vote on whether to convict former President Donald Trump after Democrats blamed him for inciting the Jan. 6 incursion into the Capitol, but using their standard for what counts as incitement, President Joe Biden should also face impeachment.
ABC News reported Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the lead impeachment manager, asked on Thursday, “If a president did invite a violent insurrection against our government, would that be a high crime and misdemeanor? Can we all agree, at least on that?”
Democrats have specifically focused on Trump’s Jan. 6 use of the phrase “fight like hell” in a speech prior to the incursion into the Capitol. Trump’s defense team is currently making its case that Trump was not responsible for the actions of those who breached the doors of the Capitol last month.
But using Raskin’s own words as a metric, one could argue Biden himself has invited violence against elected officials and even public property.
Biden has a long history of challenging people to physical altercations and encouraging others to do so while dismissing the actions of those who have caused real-world harm. It would only seem appropriate, with that in mind, for the Democrat to answer for such high crimes and misdemeanors.
Examples of Biden’s inciting words abound, but here are five times the new president embraced the idea of violence against people he viewed as his opponents in the political arena.
1. Biden said he wanted to “beat the hell” out of Trump.
In March 2018, Biden fantasized about assaulting Trump before a crowd of people at the University of Miami in Florida, ABC News reported. In a reference to the notorious 2016 “Access Hollywood” tape, Biden resorted to violent rhetoric.
“When a guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, ‘I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it,'” Biden said. “They asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said ‘no.’ I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.'”
Biden was given a pass from the establishment media for telling the crowd he’d like to assault the former president, but it wasn’t the first time the Democrat fantasized about violence with regard to Trump.
Biden was later made to apologize for inappropriately touching scores of women and girls, and the Democrat was outright accused of sexual assault by a former Senate staffer. He denied that accusation.
2. Biden said he wanted to take Trump “behind the gym.”
In October 2016, Biden was campaigning for then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania when he inferred again he’d like to assault Trump, Buzzfeed News reported.
“The press always ask me, don’t I wish I were debating him,” Biden said. “No, I wish we were in high school, I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish.”
3. Biden asked a Michigan autoworker to “go outside” with him.
In March 2020, Biden was campaigning at a Fiat Chrysler assembly plant in Michigan when he got into it with an autoworker over the man’s concerns about gun control.
After referring to the AR-15 rifle as an “Ar-14,” Biden got testy and threatened the man.
“I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge. My sons hunt. Guess what? You’re not allowed to own any weapon. I’m not taking your gun away, at all,” Biden said. After the man objected to Biden putting his finger in the autoworker’s face, Biden got angry.
“Don’t tell me that pal or I’ll have to go outside with you,” he said. “Give me a break, man. Don’t be such a horse’s a–.”
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers will find offensive.
4. Biden wanted to give GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer a pain “threshold.”
Biden was apparently very invested in the outcome of former Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota’s race in 2018, as he stated that her Republican opponent, now-Sen. Kevin Cramer, needed to have his pain threshold tested after Cramer commented on commodities prices.
When it looked like Cramer was doing far better than his opponent in the polls, it was to Biden’s lament. Biden accused Cramer of attacking farmers over soybeans and toughness. Cramer had stated, “There are people, particularly Democrats, who want to pour fuel on the fire of hysteria,” according to state Democrats. “That’s neither helpful to the markets or helpful to the farmers. And it’s certainly not helpful to the country.”
Regarding that “hysteria,” Biden said, “I’d like to give him a high threshold of pain.”
Joe Biden AGAIN threatens to hurt GOP Senate candidate Kevin Cramer, exclaims “I’d like to give him a high threshold of pain.” https://t.co/CGl2TpugMt pic.twitter.com/olS4StYAzl
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 2, 2018
Cramer went on to defeat Heitkamp and was unharmed.
5. Biden encouraged an attack against Sen. Kevin Cramer.
Then again, when campaigning for Heitkamp in 2018, Biden encouraged a trade union president to harm Heitkamp’s opponent, Cramer, according to Townhall.
“As my brother, who loves to use lines from movies, a John Wayne movie, there’s a good line in a movie, a John Wayne movie where the Indian chief turns to John Wayne and says ‘this is a lying dog-faced pony soldier,'” Biden said.
After some other comments relating to state politics, he stated of Heitkamp’s opponent: “Well, I get that president of the trade union is up here and he’ll show [Cramer] a threshold of pain.”
Hat tip to The Federalist for unearthing some of these comments.
The point of these and other examples of Biden advocating for political violence is not that he is directly responsible for the actions of others, or inspired any attacks. The point is that the Democrats’ case for impeaching Trump, in effect, is that words from high-profile political leaders carry power, and Trump’s must be forever stripped.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was not held accountable when one of his supporters in 2017 opened fire at a practice for the annual congressional baseball game. GOP Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana is lucky to be alive, as are other lawmakers. Still, Sanders was never held to account for his campaign rhetoric the year before about a revolution.
Trump told a crowd of people on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” and to do it “peacefully and patriotically,” which even a transcript of his comments from left-wing NPR confirms. Democrats have been hesitant to repeat the “peacefully and patriotically” line in the speech, while also refusing to hold one another accountable for their incendiary rhetoric.
Raskin, for example, himself used the phrase “fight like hell” very recently.
“The GOP rush to replace Justice Ginsburg is all about destroying the Affordable Care Act, women’s health care and reproductive freedom, and the voting rights and civil rights of the people. We must fight like hell to stop this assault on health care and the Constitution,” Raskin tweeted in September.
The GOP rush to replace Justice Ginsburg is all about destroying the Affordable Care Act, women’s health care and reproductive freedom, and the voting rights and civil rights of the people. We must fight like hell to stop this assault on health care and the Constitution. https://t.co/WBSRAG40wz
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) September 23, 2020
If the standard being used in Trump’s impeachment spectacle is applicable across the board, Biden has earned himself an impeachment, and deserves a swift conviction in the Senate in the name of national unity.
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