© 2026 ABC News

Biden made a distinction between the so-called MAGA Republicans and other conservatives, stating \"not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology.\"

\"I know, because I've been able to work with these mainstream Republicans,\" he said. \"But there's no question that the Republican party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans and that is a threat to this country.\"

Biden's urgent rhetoric mirrors his 2020 messaging, in which he presented himself as a clear contrast to Trump and the race itself as an inflection point for the nation.

He made that comparison again Thursday, telling the crowd: \"Now America must choose to move forward or to move backward, to build a future obsessed about the past, to be a nation of hope, unity, and optimism or a nation of fear, division and of darkness.\"

Administration officials had teased Biden's speech as an extension of his \"soul of the nation\" message, which first emerged in 2017 after white nationalists clashed with counter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia -- the incident Biden said inspired him to run for president.

Biden on Thursday said all Americans are called by \"duty and conscience to confront extremists\" and to reject political violence.

\"We are still at our core a democracy, and yet, history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy,\" he said.

\"PHOTO:
Matt Slocum/AP
PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Sept. 1, 2022.
>

Pres. Biden: \"Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: Either they win, or they were cheated. And that's where the MAGA Republicans are today.\" https://t.co/ARxiYL3o54 pic.twitter.com/b417lzzwBp

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 2, 2022

Biden's appearance in Philadelphia is his second of three stops in the battleground state of Pennsylvania this week alone.

At Wilkes University, where made the case Tuesday for his administration's plan for policing and crime prevention, Biden went after MAGA Republicans for their response to the Jan. 6 attack and the FBI search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

\"For God's sake, whose side are you on? Whose side are you on?\" a fired-up Biden asked.

The GOP issued a preemptive rebuttal of Biden's remarks, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy speaking in Scranton (Biden's hometown) just hours before the president took the stage in Philadelphia.

McCarthy criticized Democrats on inflation, crime and the border before demanding Biden \"apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists\" after the president previously described the ideology being adopted by MAGA Republicans as \"semi-facism.\"

\"What Joe Biden doesn't understand is that the soul of America is the tens of millions of hard working people, loving families, and law-abiding citizens whom he vilified for simply wanting a stronger, safer, and more prosperous country,\" McCarthy said.

\"The soul of America is not the ruling class in Washington, it is the law-abiding, tax-paying American citizen,\" McCarthy said. \"The soul of America is our determination to get up and go to work everyday, provide for our families, to love our children, be involved in their education and ensure that this nation and its people always come first.\"

- ABC News' Justin Gomez, Mary Bruce, Sarah Kolinovsky and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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