BLUE BELL, Pa. — President Joe Biden kicked off the election year on Friday by setting his focus squarely on what he sees as the threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump — a return to his “home base,” advisers say, that demonstrates the urgency his campaign sees in addressing his likely general election opponent.
His speech marked one of his most forceful public rebukes of the former president yet, at times crescendoing to a shout as he laid into his rival's "assault on democracy" and threats to American institutions.
"I'll say what Donald Trump won't: Political violence is never, ever acceptable in the United States," Biden said, flanked by nearly a dozen American flags and red, white and blue lights.
"It has no place in democracy," he added. "None."
The crux of the speech focused directly on Trump, arguing that his opponent would upend democratic norms, centering his argument around the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The president argued that Trump's actions on Jan. 6 were "among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history."
"Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future," Biden said earlier in the speech. "He's willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power."
The president was met by chants of “four more years” as he took the stage, and the roughly 30-minute speech received a standing ovation.
It was Biden's first campaign speech of the year — at only the third public campaign event since he announced his re-election bid in April — near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where George Washington and the Continental Army endured a brutal winter during the fight for American independence.
Biden stopped at Valley Forge National Historic Park on the way to his speech, taking a tour of the house where Washington lived during the 1777 to 1778 winter.
Invoking Washington’s words about the sacrifices Colonial soldiers were making, Biden said the continued fight for democracy remained a “sacred cause.”
"Whether democracy is still America's sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time," the president said during his remarks. "That's what the 2024 election is all about."
The speech was intended to mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. It was originally scheduled to take place on Saturday, but was moved to Friday because of an impending winter storm.
"When the attack on January 6th happened, there was no doubt about the truth," Biden said. "At the time, even Republican members of Congress and Fox News commentators publicly and privately condemned the attack. As one Republican Senator said, Trump’s behavior was embarrassing and humiliating for the country. But now that same senator and those same people have changed their tune."
"Now these MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump on January 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy. They made their choice. Now the rest of us — Democrats, Independents, mainstream Republicans — we have to make our choice," he added later.
Biden aides believe he can rally Americans on the issue of democracy.
“When there are major events that happen in this country’s history, the next national election becomes a moment when the people of that country render a judgment about it. We believe that in 2024, [Jan. 6] will be that moment,” said the adviser, who was granted anonymity to preview Biden’s remarks. “Trump had tried to exploit the weakness of American democracy on Jan. 6. Biden saw real strength — he saw a democracy that held.”
During the president's remarks, he said the stakes of the 2024 election are the preservation of democracy and freedom. Biden walked through a string of controversial Trump comments, including the former president's praise for dictators, comments about his opposition being "vermin," and the blood of Americans being poisoned, referring to Trump's remarks about migrants and comparing the language to Nazi rhetoric.
"Today I make this sacred pledge to you: The defense, protection and preservation of American democracy would remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency," Biden said.
The president laid out a sharp contrast of the future under a second Biden term versus a second Trump term, arguing the Biden campaign is about "the future we're going to continue to build together, and our campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy."
"Trump's assault on democracy isn't just part of his past. It's what he's promising for the future," Biden said later. "He's being straightforward. He's not hiding the ball."
The Trump campaign released excerpts of the former president's prepared remarks that he is set to deliver later on Friday, hitting back at Biden's attack.
"The only reason Biden is at Valley Forge abusing George Washington’s legacy to slander 75 million Americans is that he knows he can’t show his face at the Southwest border, or in East Palestine, Ohio, or at the autoworkers’ factories in Michigan where he is destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs," the speech excerpt said.
Biden launched his 2020 campaign focused on Trump, casting the race as a battle for the “soul of the nation.” But as he has lagged Trump in polls in the run-up to 2024, Democrats have increasingly fretted that he is spending too much time trying to make a failed economic pitch instead of focusing on Trump and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Biden invoked Washington not just for his leadership at Valley Forge, but also for the example he set. The adviser noted that Washington voluntarily surrendered his military commission before he became president and chose not to seek a third term to ensure America’s fledgling democracy continued.
“You don’t use any means possible to hold on to power. And in America, power resides with the people,” the adviser said.
Biden’s advisers say that the speech is an “opening salvo” for 2024 and that his focus on Trump is “a sharpening, not a shift,” in strategy after months in which paid advertising and public events have otherwise been focused on economic messaging.
Even as close Biden allies have suggested that a stronger approach to Trump should be a more regular part of his public messaging, the campaign believes swing voters are likely to be turned off by aggressive anti-Trump messaging this early in the race.
But Friday’s speech is the kind of moment the campaign appears to be saving its fire for — marking the anniversary of the day a mob of Trump supporters overwhelmed the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers were engaged in the final procedural step to formalize Biden’s victory.
“Our campaign believes that it is a moral obligation that we paint the picture of the threat that Donald Trump and the Republican Party pose to America,” deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Wednesday on MSNBC.
Trump’s overwhelming lead in the Republican primary campaign is another factor driving the timing of Biden’s speech, according to Biden campaign officials, with the first nominating contest just days away. More voters are now tuning in to the race, another Biden adviser said, making it the right time for the president to return to a message that was part of his kickoff video in April, which included images of the Jan. 6 attack.
The senior adviser noted that Biden faced criticism for a pair of major speeches about democracy and political violence he delivered before the 2022 midterms but said the results showed that it can be a motivating issue. And other campaign officials have said Republican-leaning voters — even some who backed Trump four years ago — are open to voting for Biden this year if and when Trump becomes the nominee.
The second Biden adviser said, “The president fundamentally believes that the vast majority of Americans do still believe that the sacred cause of this country is democracy, and that is true without respect to party affiliation overall.”
The speech had been under consideration for months, with Mike Donilon, Biden’s chief strategist, taking the lead in crafting it. Biden has had no public events since he returned from a holiday vacation in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands to fine-tune and rehearse the speech, underscoring its importance in setting the tone for the year ahead, according to an official familiar with the planning.
