Biden to Address 'Continued Battle for Soul' of Nation

President Biden will deliver a primetime address “on the continued battle for the soul of the nation” Thursday outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the White House announced Monday. Billed as a major address just over two months before the midterm elections, Biden, the White House said, will discuss how the nation's standing in the world and its democracy are at stake, the AP reports. “He will talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack," the White House said. "And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy.”

Biden has increasingly sought to portray the November elections as a choice for voters between “ultra-MAGA Republicans”—a reference to former President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan—and Democrats. He told supporters last week that they had “to vote to literally save democracy once again”—and labeled some Republican ideology as “semi-fascism." Biden is visiting the key swing state Tuesday, and in a speech at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre on that day he plans to call out Republicans for opposing his proposal to restore a ban on assault-style weapons, the AP reports.

(More President Biden stories.)