Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley inaccurately asserted on Saturday that President Joe Biden labels those who oppose him as “fascists.” Haley attempted to draw parallels between Biden and former President Donald Trump, who in a previous speech vowed to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”
Speaking to reporters in South Carolina, Haley said, “Think about it. Of the two main candidates that you’re talking about, Joe Biden refers to anyone who doesn’t support him as fascist. Donald Trump refers to anybody that doesn’t support him as vermin. I call everybody who supports me or doesn’t support me Americans. And that’s where we have to get back to again.”
However, Haley’s claim about Biden is incorrect. The President has never publicly referred to those who oppose him or all of Trump’s supporters as fascists. While Biden has criticized Trump and his “make America great again” followers as extremists threatening the rule of law, he has not labeled them as “fascists”. Instead, he has repeatedly clarified that his criticism does not extend to what he refers to as “mainstream” or “conservative” Republicans.
Biden did once describe the “philosophy” behind Trump’s movement as “almost like semi-fascism,” but he did not label the philosophy or any American who doesn’t support him as fascist. Haley’s assertion about Trump is somewhat defensible. Although Trump did not explicitly label anyone who doesn’t support him as “vermin,” he did use the term to describe a wide array of his opponents without specifying any exclusions.
Most of Biden’s references to “fascist,” “fascists” or “fascism” have been in the context of America’s World War II adversaries, according to the Factba.se database of Biden’s public remarks. In 2021, Biden accurately referred to the presence of “fascists” at a notorious 2017 gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, involving neo-Nazis and other white nationalists.
In a 2022 speech, Biden criticized Trump and his movement, stating that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” However, he did not use the term “fascist” or its variants in that speech, and he explicitly noted he was not talking about all of his opponents.
Later on Saturday, Haley refined her claim after media outlets projected that Trump had won the South Carolina Republican primary. She avoided stating that Biden labels anyone who doesn’t support him or all Trump supporters as fascist. Instead, she said, “Does anyone seriously think Joe Biden or Donald Trump will unite our country to solve our problems? One of them calls his fellow Americans fascists. The other calls his fellow Americans vermin.”
When asked about Haley’s remarks, campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas responded by emphasizing Haley’s more nuanced claim that Biden “calls his fellow Americans fascist.” To support this claim, Perez-Cubas referred to news articles mentioning the 2022 speech in which Biden stated that the philosophy underpinning the MAGA movement is “almost like semi-fascism.” However, this is weak evidence for the claim that Biden “calls his fellow Americans fascist,” and it provides no support for Haley’s broader comments made earlier on Saturday and on Wednesday.