US President Joe Biden, who is campaigning for the Democratic Party ahead of November’s general election, said on Thursday that the most staunch Republicans have a “semi-fascist” ideology, AFP reports.

Speaking at a charity event at a luxury private residence, the 79-year-old Democrat criticized the most extreme wings of the conservative camp and its “extreme MAGA philosophy.”

The acronym MAGA refers to former President Donald Trump’s iconic slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

“Today we are witnessing either the birth or the death of the extremist MAGA philosophy. It’s not just Trump, it’s a whole philosophy (…). It’s a kind of semi-fascism,” he told reporters at an event in the suburbs near Washington.

“This is not the Republican Party that our parents knew. This is something else,” he said.

“We must win,” the Democratic leader said.

Mid-term parliamentary elections, which will be held in November, are traditionally difficult for the party of the current US president.

The Democratic camp and Joe Biden, whose prospects have been further hurt by rising inflation, have nonetheless regained momentum in recent polls.

In particular, most commentators believe that the very conservative Supreme Court’s repeal of the constitutional right to abortion in late June alienated a number of Republican voters.