Biden attacks Trump as grave threat to democracy in rousing 2024 speech
On eve of January 6 anniversary, US president condemns likely rival and warns voters ‘democracy is on the ballot’ in November
A day before the third anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Joe Biden delivered a pointed speech to warn voters against re-electing Donald Trump, criticizing the likely Republican presidential nominee as a fundamental threat to democracy in an attempt to shape the dynamics of the 2024 election.
“Today we’re here to answer the most important of questions: is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said. “Today, I make this sacred pledge to you: the defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.
“America, as we began this election year, we must be clear: democracy is on the ballot.”
Biden accuses Trump of ‘assault on democracy’ and says ‘it’s what he’s promising for the future’ – as it happened
Sharply contrasting himself with his opponent, Biden accused Trump of attempting to undermine America’s system of government, painting the Republican leader as a would-be autocrat hellbent on revenge. Biden noted that Trump had vowed “retribution” against his political enemies if he is elected, and had indicated he would act as a dictator on the first day of his second term.
“Donald Trump’s campaign is about him – not America, not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future,” Biden said. “Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past. It’s what he’s promising for the future.”
The speech came a day before the anniversary of the January 6 attack in 2021, when a group of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in a violent effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. A bipartisan Senate report found that seven people died as a result of the insurrection, and Trump now faces four felony counts over his role in the attack and his broader campaign to overturn the election results.
But Trump has continued to defend those who carried out the attack as “patriots”, promising to issue pardons to them if he is elected.
“In trying to rewrite the facts of January 6, Trump was trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election. But we knew the truth because we saw with our own eyes,” Biden said.
“Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists, not patriots. They weren’t there to uphold the constitution. They were there to destroy the constitution.”
Trump, who spoke to hundreds of supporters in Iowa Friday night in his first campaign visit of 2024, shot back at Biden’s speech, painting a dark portrait of the US. He called it a “failing” nation, beset by “terrorists” and immigrants from “mental asylums” pouring over the US-Mexico border.
Biden highlighted the setting of his speech, which took place roughly 10 miles from Valley Forge national historical park in Pennsylvania, to underscore the high stakes of the presidential race. During America’s fight for independence in the revolutionary war, George Washington and his Continental army troops camped at Valley Forge during a difficult winter.
“After all we’ve been through in our history – from independence to civil war to two world wars to a pandemic to insurrection – I refuse to believe that in 2024 we Americans would choose to walk away from what’s made us the greatest nation in the history of the world: freedom, liberty,” Biden said.
The speech came at a particularly vulnerable moment for Biden. Polls show Biden’s approval rating mired in the high 30s with Americans expressing concerns about the state of the economy, despite strong job creation and the easing of inflation. A Gallup poll conducted last month found that only 22% of Americans view economic conditions as “good” or “excellent”, while 78% consider current conditions to be “fair” or “poor”. National polls show Biden and Trump running neck and neck in a hypothetical general election.
Biden is holding a series of events to reframe the 2024 election as a fight for democracy and fundamental freedoms. In addition to the Valley Forge speech, Biden will speak on Monday at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine African Americans were fatally shot by a white supremacist in 2015.
Biden’s campaign has said the president will also hold events later this month to commemorate the anniversary of Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a federal right to abortion access. That ruling was overturned by the conservative-leaning supreme court in 2022, resulting in abortion bans in more than a dozen states.
“When Joe Biden ran for president four years ago, he said, ‘We are in the battle for the soul of America,’” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on Tuesday. “As we look towards November 2024, we still are. The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire in the years since.”
Despite that grim outlook, Biden expressed his trademark optimism as he spoke to supporters in Pennsylvania, reiterating his message of American exceptionalism and urging voters to embrace hope.
“None of you believe America is failing. We know America is winning. That’s American patriotism,” Biden said. “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is: who are we?”
TRUMP !
US President Joe Biden (left) and his predecessor Donald Trump.Credit: Reuters File Photos Hours after President Joe Biden attacked former President Donald Trump as an anti-democratic threat to America’s founding ideals, Trump responded
In response to President Joe Biden’s first 2024 campaign speech, Donald Trump accused him of “fearmongering and claimed that Biden was attacking him on the democracy issue because he couldn’t run on other matters, The Hill reported.
Biden described Trump as a clear threat to democracy who could not be trusted with a second term, it added.
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Trump, while addressing his remarks to supporters in Sioux Centre, Iowa, characterized Biden’s speech in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a “pathetic fearmongering campaign event” and said that Biden was only attacking him on the issue of democracy because he could not run on other issues.
“Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure. Other than that, he’s doing quite well,” Trump said, mocking Biden’s delivery of his speech.
“Biden, if you take a look at what he’s doing on the border or inflation, or our military, that horrible day in Afghanistan, you look at what he’s done with energy,” Trump added. “All throughout the world, we’re an embarrassment as a country. We’ve become an embarrassment as a country.”
Trump at one point cast doubt on the election results in 2020, suggesting the roughly 75 million votes cast for him were inaccurate and the total was actually higher. Numerous court challenges brought by Trump allies in 2020 seeking to challenge the results were rejected or dismissed by various judges across the country, reported The Hill.
Trump, the front-runner to win the GOP presidential nomination, was speaking at the first of several scheduled events in Iowa this weekend.
The former president is hoping that his supporters lift him to a dominant victory and squash any potential momentum for former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
Meanwhile, for his first campaign event of 2024, Biden travelled to Valley Forge on Friday, a historically significant location in the American Revolution. The president laid out the stakes of November’s election, arguing that “democracy is on the ballot.”
In his speech, Biden spoke widely about the riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when throngs of Trump supporters violently clashed with law enforcement and stormed the building to try and stop the certification of the 2020 election results, according to The Hill.
Biden connected Trump’s rhetoric directly to the violence of that day, and he warned that the former president threatened the foundations of American democracy.
“Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said. “This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about.”
Polling in recent weeks has found more voters say they trust Trump over Biden on the economy, immigration and the Israel-Hamas war. Biden’s approval rating has sagged to record lows in recent weeks, even as his aides point to job numbers and GDP to argue the economy is in strong shape.
Reportedly, Biden underscored that his potential opponent, Donald Trump, is ready to jeopardise democracy by prioritising his own power, according to The Hill.
He also criticized Trump’s campaign for being fixated on the past rather than focusing on the future.
Delivering a furious attack on former President Trump, Biden issued a stark warning that Trump’s reelection would pose a threat to American democracy.
“Donald Trump’s campaign is about him, not America. Not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy and put himself in power,” Biden said while striking an impassioned political attack on his opponent, Trump.
