Biden calls for unity in Christmas message after a year of 'fueling division': Sean Duffy
'The Five' panelists react to President Biden's Christmas address calling for unity after previously smearing the GOP as a 'threat to democracy' earlier in the year.
President Biden's holiday message was heavy on the theme of unity and putting "poison[ous]" politics aside, which led some critics to claim he was being heavily hypocritical – comparing the dichotomy to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's high-profile legal spat.
In his address, Biden said he hopes the holidays will "drain the poison that has infected our politics and set us against one another," adding he hopes people realize the many unifying attributes of being an American.
On "The Five" Friday, the panel of co-hosts was quick to point out several instances of Biden himself intentionally dividing Americans along political and other lines, including his Philadelphia speech when he dubbed "MAGA Republicans" "semi-fascist."
In a montage, the panel showed how Biden called the Republicans' "ultra-MAGA" political agenda "extreme, as most MAGA things are," and claimed "MAGA Republicans" supportive of Donald Trump are "a threat to our very democracy."
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Joe Biden (Fox News)
Panelist Jimmy Failla remarked Biden's holiday message of unity therefore falls flat.
"This is who Biden is," he said. "Biden is the Tony Clifton of politics. There was an old Andy Kaufman character [who would] come on stage as his alter ego and he'd be like, ‘All right, folks, this is a no smoking club’ before the show starts. Then he would light a cigar and do his act, and everybody was like ‘the nerve of this guy,’ -- and that's Biden."
Failla added Biden preaches unity but then also will openly – and falsely – claim mounted Border Patrol agents had been whipping Haitian migrants in Texas earlier this year, or divide people by previously claiming the later stages of the coronavirus to be a "pandemic of the unvaccinated." He also pointed out the president compared Georgia's state election security law to 20th century Democrats' Jim Crow segregationist laws.
"And that's the thing -- Joe Biden lecturing us on unity is like Johnny Depp and Amber Heard lecturing us on civility," he said.
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Donald Trump (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
"No one is buying it, even if they promise to forgive the loan down the road. No way."
Depp won a $10.35 million judgment against Heard in June after a six-week trial that featured allegations of physical and sexual abuse — as both stars took turns on the witness stand.
The jury found that the "Aquaman" actress had defamed her ex-husband by penning a 2018 op-ed in which she identified herself as "a public figure representing domestic abuse."
The jury awarded Heard a $2 million judgment in her countersuit that accused the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star of defaming her through his lawyer.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard (Getty Images)
Host Judge Jeanine Pirro echoed many of Failla's points.
"[Biden] talks about draining the poison. He's the one who sets us against each other. He's the one who's doing this. And he says fellow human beings need to be treated with dignity. Well, how about you treat us with dignity?" she asked.
"It's just too rich."
Fox News' Rebecca Rosenberg contributed to this report.
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