Biden slams GOP voting restrictions as “simply un-American”

Anderson Cooper 360

CNN

News

3.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

President Joe Biden announced Vice President Kamala Harris will lead his administration’s efforts on voting rights. Biden condemned the efforts by Republican-led state legislatures to pass restrictive laws that the President called “simply un-American.” Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar tells Anderson Cooper she agrees with Biden that these restrictions are an “unprecedented assault on our democracy.” Plus, while Biden was in Tulsa, he seemed to call out two moderate Democratic senators “who vote more with my Republican friends,” likely referring to West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema. Both vote more with the Democrats than the Republicans but aren’t always aligned with the Democratic caucus on some key parts of the President’s agenda. CNN Senior Political Correspondent Abby Phillip was with Biden in Tulsa, Oklahoma and joins AC360 to discuss his comments. Airdate: June 1, 2021 Guests: Sen. Amy Klobuchar Abby Phillip To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And good evening. We begin tonight with what President Biden is calling a threat to American
0:05.4	democracy. Yesterday, the president said democracy itself is in peril. And today, in Tulsa,
0:10.6	Oklahoma, marking the 100th anniversary of the Greenwood race massacre, he spoke out
0:15.8	against the state by state effort by Republicans across the country to enact restrictive voting
0:20.4	laws.
0:21.4	This sacred right is under assault with incredible intensity. Like I've never seen, even though
0:27.2	I got started as a public defender in a civil rights lawyer. With an intensity of
0:31.9	aggressiveness, we've not seen a long, long time. It's simply un-American. It's not
0:40.2	however sadly unprecedented.
0:45.1	The new laws they're pushing are based on the election lies still being told by the former
0:48.8	president. And today, we got word that the man in Mar-a-Lago is predicting he'll soon
0:52.9	be returned to office. Sena and political analysts in New York Times, Washington, Corp.
0:57.1	Maggie Haberman tweeting today, Trump has been telling a number of people he's in contact
1:01.6	with that he expects he'll get reinstated by August. I'm keeping him honest, there's
1:06.6	no such thing as a former president getting reinstated. And even if there was, he won't
1:10.8	be. The image of a one-term former president milling around in his Florida club, talking
1:16.3	endlessly to anyone who'll still sit there long enough to listen about phony election
1:20.1	results and imaginary ballots is certainly rather sad and pathetic, but it's more than
1:25.2	that. It has real world consequences. Republican politicians in Congress and state legislatures
1:30.8	across the country, hoping to be noticed perhaps by the former president are trying to enact
1:35.0	laws based on his lies, limiting voting, curtailing the investigation into the insurrection.
1:41.4	Some followers of the president like retired three-star general and former national security
	...

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