President Joe Biden on Tuesday delivered a major speech on voting rights in Philadelphia, slamming his predecessor’s “Big Lie” claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
“It’s clear, for those who challenge the results or question the integrity of the election, no other election has ever been held under such scrutiny or such high standards. The ‘Big Lie’ is just that: a big lie,” Biden said at the National Constitution Center, just steps away from Independence Hall.
The speech comes as his administration faces growing pressure from civil rights activists and other Democrats to do more to combat attacks on voting rights, an issue that Biden called “the most significant test” of American democracy since the Civil War.
Biden blasted former President Donald Trump’s claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the 2020 election, a claim that has pushed GOP leaders to enact a flurry of new voting laws in key states, including Florida and Georgia. Critics argue the new laws are discriminatory and restrict access to the ballot.
The president directly denounced these efforts by GOP-controlled legislatures as a “Jim Crow assault” and compared them to behaviors seen in autocracies around the world.
