Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Wednesday sharply rebuked President Joe Biden for a speech the day before in which the president urged the Senate to change its filibuster rules, lambasting the remarks as “profoundly unpresidential,” said CNN.
"How profoundly — profoundly — unpresidential," McConnell said while on Capitol Hill. "I've known, liked, and personally respected Joe Biden for many years. I did not recognize the man at the podium yesterday."
He went on to say that Biden gave a “rant” that was “incorrect” as well as “beneath his office,” and “unbecoming of a president of the United States.”
Biden said at one point in his speech: "At consequential moments in history, they present a choice. Do you want to be 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?"
McConnell blasted the president for these remarks in particular, saying: "You could not invent a better advertisement for the legislative filibuster than what we've just seen — a president abandoning rational persuasion for pure, pure, demagoguery. A president shouting that 52 senators and millions of Americans are racist unless he gets whatever he wants is proving exactly why the framers built the Senate to check his power.
"This whole display is the best possible argument for preserving ... the Senate rules that extend deliberation, force bipartisan compromise, and let cooler heads prevail," he continued. "It offers a perfect case study in why Sen. Biden was right about the filibuster and President Biden is wrong."