Biden says lawmakers ‘shouldn’t be enemies’ at prayer breakfast
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President Joe Biden said lawmakers “shouldn’t be enemies” as he made his first public appearance with House Speaker Mike Johnson at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday. “We have very difficult, difficult disagreements,” Biden said. ‘We’re really going at each other. Remember, let’s remember, who the (expletive) we are who we are.”
The president and the speaker appeared together in public for the first time since Johnson replaced Kevin McCarthy in the top job in the House of Representatives. His conciliatory words come as Republicans and Democrats fight over the best way to secure the southern border.
The two men sat next to each other in the front row and both teared up as Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sang “Amazing Grace.” Both Johnson and Biden were seen wiping away a tear. The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual event where the president and elected officials gather to pray.
In his remarks, Biden offered prayers for the families of the three soldiers killed in Jordan this weekend, for those held hostage in Gaza and for the people of Ukraine.
But he also addressed moving words to lawmakers gathered in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. Both Democrats and Republicans attended the event. “This is a call to stand up against hatred,” he said, pointing to the hostility in politics and in the world.
“We cannot be enemies,” he noted. “I have long believed that even in our most challenging times, we should look to each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans.” “My prayer, I hope we continue to believe that our best days are ahead of us as a nation. We continue to believe in honesty, decency, dignity and respect. We do not see each other as enemies but as fellow human beings.’
At the end of breakfast, Biden reached out and shook Johnson’s hand. The two men have spoken on the phone, mainly as they try to come together on a plan to fund the government, send more money to Ukraine and protect the southern border.
The most moving part of the prayer breakfast was Bocelli’s singing. When the Italian signatory finished his last song, Biden rushed over to shake his hand. Speaker Johnson told Bocelli in his remarks that he was “sitting in the front row in tears.”
