Biden ‘perhaps went a little too far’ in elections overhaul speech, says liberal senator and ally Dick Durbin

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) admitted that President Biden perhaps went “too far” in his racially charged Tuesday speech linking Republicans opposed to his party’s voting rights bill with prominent segregationists like Bull Connor and George Wallace.

“Perhaps the President went a little too far in his rhetoric,” Durbin told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday. “Some of us do, but the fundamental principles and values at stake are very similar.”

“Perhaps the President went a little too far in his rhetoric… But the fundamental principles and values at stake are very, very similar,” Sen. Dick Durbin says about Biden’s remarks on voting rights in which he referenced Jefferson Davis and Bull Connor. https://t.co/PQIos3OHA0 pic.twitter.com/UBwrSjFQwt

— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) January 12, 2022

Tapper was asking Durbin about a controversial speech made by the president on Wednesday in Atlanta, Georgia, in which he attacked Republicans by accusing them of being the same as Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Alabama politician Bull Connor, and Alabama Governor George Wallace, all of whom were Democrats.

“So I ask every elected official in America, how do you want to be remembered?” Biden said during remarks from the Atlanta University Center Consortium, on the campus of Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College. “Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”- READ MORE