Trump mocks Biden over Abrams absence from voting rights speech

Former President Trump ridiculed President Biden on Tuesday over Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams’s absence from his voting rights speech in Atlanta, pointing to her nonattendance as a sign that she “wants nothing to do” with the president.

“Stacey Abrams helped Biden steal the 2020 Election in Georgia but now she won’t even share a stage with Joe,” Trump said in a statement, repeating his false claim that the 2020 presidential election in Georgia was marred by widespread voter fraud.

“Stacey knows that Biden actually lost BIG in Georgia, and in the 2020 Presidential Election as a whole, and he’s been so terrible she now wants nothing to do with him,” Trump added. “Even the woke, radical left realizes that Joe Biden’s Administration is an embarrassment!”

Abrams, who’s running for Georgia governor, was notably missing from Biden’s voting rights speech on Tuesday afternoon, with both Democrats blaming an unspecified scheduling conflict for the absence. 

“I spoke to Stacey this morning. We have a great relationship,” Biden told reporters as he left the White House for Georgia. “We got our scheduling mixed up.”

Abrams also welcomed Biden to Georgia in a tweet ahead of his visit on Tuesday, thanking him for his voting rights push and “for refusing to relent until the work is finished.”

Still, Abrams’s absence from the event raised speculation about why one of the country’s most prominent voting rights advocates was not present for Biden’s most aggressive push to date for Congress to pass sweeping voting laws that Republicans have repeatedly blocked.

In his speech on Tuesday, Biden threw his support behind changing Senate rules to allow voting rights legislation to pass with a simple majority instead of the 60-vote threshold currently required. In endorsing the move, Biden joined voting rights activists who have been pushing for such a change for months.