A furious Joe Biden called Donald Trump ‘sick’ and a ‘loser’ in his first campaign speech of 2024 saying ‘we nearly lost America’ on January 6.
The president, 80, launched an incensed attack on his predecessor and potential 2024 general election rival at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where George Washington organized an army to fight the British in 1777.
Biden condemned the Republican frontrunner for his ‘lies’ and for making his White House campaign about ‘himself’ in the remarks marking the third anniversary of the Capitol Riot.
At his first public event since a Caribbean vacation, Biden said ‘democracy is on the ballot’ as states around the country launch bids to kick Trump off.
He said Trump invoked Nazi Germany when he referred to his enemies as ‘vermin’ and compared him to a dictator who could destroy the U.S. if re-elected in November.
A furious Joe Biden called Donald Trump ‘sick’ and a ‘loser’ in his first campaign speech of 2024 saying ‘we nearly lost America’ on January 6
And Biden said Trump was gunning for an ‘all out war,’ speaking at an event timed to the third anniversary of the attack on the Capitol.
The ‘competing forces between solidarity and division is perennial, but this time, it’s so different,’ he said.
‘You can’t have a contest … if you see politics as an all-out war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences,’ Biden said. ‘All-out war is what Trump wants.’
In recalling the events of January 6, 2021, he said Trump ‘watched TV’ while rioters ransacked the Capitol.
He also brought up a key phrase from Trump’s own January 6 speech – words that featured in his second impeachment and in a criminal indictment he faces in Washington, D.C.
‘He told the crowd to fight like hell. And all hell was unleashed,’ Biden said. ‘Then as usual he left the dirty work to others. He retreated to the White House.’
Referring to his comments about being ‘a dictator on day one’, Biden said they were ‘not in jest and mocked his ‘love letters’ to Kim Jong-un.
He branded Trump a threat to the United States and pledged to make ‘saving’ democracy a central platform of his 2024 campaign.
He also condemned Trump’s own vow to seek ‘revenge and retribution’ on his political enemies if he regains the White House.
‘How dare he? Who in God’s name does he think he is?’ Biden asked in his trademark whisper.
Biden mentioned Trump by name dozens of times in the speech in his most direct attack since the start of the campaign.
The Democrat is trailing his adversary in multiple nationwide polls and is still facing questions about whether he should still run for a second term.
But a defiant Biden went scorched earth at his 77-year-old rival for his ‘admiration’ for Vladimir Putin.
‘Trump is trying to steal history, the same way he tried to steal the election. But we knew the truth,’ he said.
‘I refuse to believe that in 2024, Americans will walk away from what made us great: Liberty and freedom’.
The president called him ‘sick’ for laughing about Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul being attacked by a hammer, an event that forced his hospitalization and a long recovery. It was just one event during a period of threats to public officials. AG Merrick Garland warned Friday that there had been a string of threats against judges, lawmakers, and presidential candidates in recent weeks.
Biden pointed to the suspect asking ‘where’s Nancy’ when he broke into her San Francisco home, like some of the rioters on January 6.
The president, 80, launched an incensed attack on his predecessor and potential 2024 general election rival at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania , where George Washington organized an the army to fight the British in 1777
Biden condemned the Republican frontrunner for his ‘lies’ and for making his White House campaign about ‘himself’ in the remarks marking the third anniversary of January 6
Referring to Trump’s comments about being ‘a dictator on day one’ were ‘not in jest and mocked his ‘love letters’ to Kim Jong-un
Joe and Jill Biden walk around George Washington’s headquarters at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania before his speech
‘Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to him to overturn the election. Every one.
‘But the legal path just took Trump back to the truth: that I won the election and he was a loser.’
‘Donald Trump’s campaign is about him. It’s not about America. It’s not about you.
‘Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power. Our campaign is different.’
The president said that on January 6, America nearly ‘lost everything’.
He recalled how gallows were put up outside the Capitol while the crowd chanted ‘hang Mike Pence.’
Biden opened the speech with a story of the bleak winter of 1777 when George Washington organized the Continental Army.
America vowed that we would never ‘bow down to the King’.
Biden’s attacks come as he is facing calls from within his own party to go at Trump more directly, after his repeated trips pointing to infrastructure legislation and the Inflation Reduction act, coupled with improving inflation and job gains have failed to boost his own political polling.
His furious focus on democracy and the threat he says Trump poses to it came at the expense of policy issues, which he didn’t mention.
Biden’s slams focused on his most likely general election rival come as Trump holds a dominating lead over his Republican primary rivals. His distant challengers have refrained from full-throated attacks as they seek to peel off elements of Trump’s base, with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley saying Trump would bring ‘chaos.’
Biden’s chosen venue was about more than appealing to the nation’s Revolutionary War spirit at a time of public skepticism of his handling of foreign policy and Israel’s war on Hamas.
Pennsylvania is one of the key battlegrounds that Biden pried away from Trump in 2020, and it is critical to his reelection map.
Swing state polls already show Trump running in an improved position in battlegrounds Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Pennsylvania has been among Biden’s most visited states. Friday’s was his 31st trip to the state. It also is close to his home in Wilmington, where Biden has traveled repeatedly on weekends and where he had plans to hunker down Friday night.
Biden’s even had originally been scheduled for January 6 on the exact date of the anniversary. Instead, he spoke at a community college in nearby Blue Bell, Pennsylvania amid a rainy weekend weather forecast. That came after he toured the historic site where George Washington’s troops had to hunker down during the cold winter of 1777 and early 1889.
‘Democracy is on the ballot, your freedom is on the ballot,’ he said.
He called it a contest of democracy and dictatorship. ‘That is what the soldiers at Valley Forge understood we have to understand this as well. We have been blessed so long with a strong stable democracy. It is easy to forget why so many before us risk their lives and strengthen democracy.’