President Biden stepped to the podium playing the role of swaggering evangelist for American technological exceptionalism supported by robust government investment to create not just jobs but a future dominated by American innovation — in everything from clean energy tech to sophisticated chip manufacturing. Was he convincing?
The President called out two entities he perceives as threats to that American-led future — the first is China and the second is MAGA Republicans, as he characterizes it. Biden asserts that the two — China and MAGA — are working together toward the same undesirable goal: a technology future in which China dominates.
I will not let MAGA Republicans undo the progress we’ve made. Not on my watch. pic.twitter.com/OYvhfUVnbY
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 6, 2023
[Note: Recent GOP actions including Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s Lower Energy Costs Act passing in the House isn’t the only reason Biden holds his view, though it’s notable that McCarthy’s bill included nixing a $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to boost clean energy that had been in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.]
Also notable is that China had been until recently a target for some level of bipartisan agreement among American lawmakers. The recent congressional TikTok hearings — coupled with winter’s Chinese spy balloon spectacle — had shown that if bipartisan agreement might be reached, that accord might well center on the dangers presented by China — both military and economic.
Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress lambasted TikTok as a threat to American security for its powerful data collection and for its parent company’s deep ties with the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
And the disagreement over the downing of the spy balloon was mainly about how soon to shoot it down, not if to shoot it down — on that, again, Republicans and Democrats were in broad agreement.
But President Biden — in what sounds like campaign-style positioning — asserts that that’s where agreement on China between his administration and “MAGA Republicans” ends.
In the short video above, Biden castigates and taunts his “MAGA Republican friends” — a group Biden says is working to help China win the future.
Biden accuses MAGA congressional operators of wanting to cut the CHIPS and Science Act, “stripping our investments for the next generation of science and technology from biomanufacturing to quantum computing” and “ceding the future of innovation and technology to China.”
Biden strikes a tough guy stance on the issue with his taunt, saying “I’ve got news for my MAGA Republican friends. Not on my watch. Not on my watch.”
Biden says Republicans want to “cede the clean energy future to China, make us dependent on overseas supply chains, export jobs overseas, and weaken our energy security.” He implies but does not overtly say to MAGA: “that doesn’t sound like Making American Great Again to me.”
