“What I want to do is I’m trying to bring the country together, and I don’t want the debate to only be about whether or not we have a filibuster or exceptions to the filibuster or going back to the way the filibuster had to be used before,” Biden told CNN’s Don Lemon at a CNN town hall in Cincinnati.
The President said: “There’s no reason to protect it other than you’re going to throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done. Nothing at all will get done. And there’s a lot at stake. The most important one is the right to vote, that’s the single most important one.”
“Never before has there been an attempt by state legislatures to take over the ability to determine who won. Not count the votes, determine who won,” he said.
The President said: “This is Jim Crow on steroids, what we’re talking about.”
Biden said he wants to “make sure we bring along not just all the Democrats, we bring along Republicans who I know know better. They know better than this.”
Biden has faced increasing pressure from Black leaders to take a strong stance on Congress eliminating the filibuster in order to pass federal legislation to protect voters.
“I’ve been saying for a long, long time the abuse of the filibuster is pretty overwhelming,” Biden said Wednesday night. He said that when he had first joined the Senate there were fewer filibusters because it was a talking filibuster, which required a senator who wants to block legislation to hold the floor without taking a break.
More News
Aid Starts Entering Gaza Through U.S.-Built Pier, but Officials Say It Isn’t Enough
Biden’s China Tariffs Are the End of an Era for Cheap Chinese Goods
A Would-be Assassin Stirs Europe’s Violent Ghosts