President Biden To Deliver Unscheduled Speech On "Democracy" Today

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O'Malley has announced that President Joe Biden will deliver a speech today on "preserving and protecting our democracy" at a DNC event in Washington, DC at 19:00 ET 23:00 GMT.

• Democrat strategists will hope Biden can clarify muddled Democrat midterm messaging which has vacillated between abortion and the "GOP threat," but failed to counter a highly effective and well funded Republican campaign linking inflation, economic fears, and energy prices to Biden administration policy.
• Last week, Biden said his first action of the new Congress would be codifying Roe vs Wade, despite polling suggesting the political impact of the SCOTUS “Dobbs” decision was receding.
• This week, Biden was on the road warning that the GOP intends to gut Social Security and Medicare - a claim disputed by GOP leadership.
• WaPo's Glenn Kessler wrote in September in a “fact-checking” piece that “Mediscare” tactics, often rooted in misinformation, have consistently failed to win votes for Democrats in previous campaigns and are easy for Republican lawmakers to deflect.
• Today's speech is likely to lean heavily on Democrat assertions that the GOP is a threat to the electoral process and Democratic institutions but that message has so far failed to resonate with voters preoccupied with the economy.