Biden urges Congress to come together at annual National Prayer Breakfast: ‘How do we unite us again?’

By Kate Sullivan, CNN

President Joe Biden on Thursday stressed the importance of unifying the country at a “moment of great division,” as he delivered remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast at the US Capitol.

“As I stand in this citadel of democracy that was attacked one year ago, the issue is, for us, is unity. How do we unite us again?” Biden said. “Unity is elusive, but it’s really actually necessary.”

“Unity doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything, but unity is where enough of us, enough of us believe in a core of basic things: The common good, the general welfare, of faith in the United States of America,” Biden said, speaking from the Capitol Visitors Center for the 70th annual National Prayer Breakfast.

The President said the division in the country “has become so palpable,” and that there is “so much at stake.”

The President said: “One of the things I pray for, and I mean it, is that we sorta get back to the place — it’s so busy, I think things have changed so much — but that we get to really know each other. It’s hard to really dislike someone when you know what they’re going through the same thing you’re going through.”

The President, addressing members of Congress in the crowd, said he believed lawmakers don’t spend as much time with one another as they used to. He noted lawmakers of both parties would eat lunch together more often when he first started in the Senate decades ago.

The annual multi-faith prayer breakfast is meant to bring bipartisan political leaders and their religious counterparts together to meet, pray and build relationships. Because of Covid-19, this year’s event has been pared down and the number of guests is limited.

The event is typically held on the first Thursday of February each year and was first organized in 1953. Every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has headlined the event.

Biden spoke at the event last year in the wake of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and in the midst of that year’s winter wave of Covid-19 cases. During that speech, he called for unity and faith during what he described as a “dark, dark time” for many Americans.

Those remarks stood in contrast to former President Donald Trump’s remarks at the annual breakfast hosted by the nonprofit Fellowship Foundation. In 2020, Trump, who had been acquitted in his first impeachment trial the day before, took veiled shots at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Mitt Romney, the only Republican who voted to convict him. At his first appearance in 2017, Trump asked the room full of lawmakers, foreign dignitaries and religious leaders to “pray for Arnold” Schwarzenegger so that ratings of his show — NBC’s “The Apprentice” — would go up.

The President will then head to New York to discuss his administration’s strategy to combat gun violence. Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland will join Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul for a “Gun Violence Strategies Partnership” meeting, the White House says. The group will also visit a New York public school to discuss community violence intervention programs with local leaders.

The President is scheduled to address the nation later Thursday morning after announcing US Special Forces killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in a counterterrorism mission in northwest Syria Wednesday evening.

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