Biden decries ‘loser’ Trump and warns of damage to democracy in Jan. 6 anniversary speech

President Joe Biden marked the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 capitol riot with a lengthy speech focused on threats to democracy if former President Donald Trump makes it back to the White House.

Speaking in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a site symbolically chosen for its use as George Washington’s headquarters during the Revolutionary War, Biden warned that America is tilting dangerously close to dictatorship.

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“Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden said. “This is not 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.”

Standing before a backdrop of draped American flags during remarks that lasted for more than half an hour, Biden repeatedly evoked Washington, saying the first president stood for democracy and that his image on the Capitol walls should have given the Jan. 6 rioters pause but did not. The revolution, Biden said, was about refusing to bow down to a king.

Matt Rourke/AP

“George Washington was at the height of his power, having just defeated the most powerful empire on Earth. He could have held on to that power as long as he wanted,” Biden said, highlighting the first president’s choice to give up power in 1796. “But that wasn’t the America he and the American troops of Valley Forge had fought for.

“In America, our leaders don’t hold on to power relentlessly,” Biden continued. “Our leaders return power to the people — willingly. You do your duty. You serve your country. And ours is a country worthy of service. We are not perfect, but at our best, we face head-on the good, the bad, the truth of who we are. That’s what great nations do, and we are a great nation — the greatest of nations.”

Notably, Biden listed “mainstream Republicans” along with Democrats and independents as the voters who “have to make our choice” for what to do going forward.

“I know mine,” Biden said. “And I believe I know America’s.”

Biden mentioned Trump repeatedly by name, saying his “lies brought a mob to Washington” and calling him the “election denier in chief.”

“Let’s be clear about the 2020 election,” Biden said. “Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to him to overturn the election. Every one. But the legal options just took Trump back to the truth — that I’d won the election and he was a loser.”

Matt Rourke/AP

Trump then abandoned legal methods, Biden said, in favor of stoking the mob. Biden finished his remarks by making a “sacred pledge” that the defense, protection, and preservation of democracy will remain the central cause of his presidency.

“Democracy is on the ballot,” he said. “Your freedom is on the ballot.”

The speech marks Biden’s first major campaign event in 2024, the year he’ll hope to secure a second term that keeps him in the White House until January 2029 — when he will be 86 years old. He has been shifting away from the economic-focused “Bidenomics” messaging of the summer and fall of 2023 in favor of outwardly focused events focused on the threat presented by his opponents. On Monday, Biden will visit Charleston and the site of a racially motivated 2015 mass shooting.

Trump is trying to flip the script on Biden’s “threat to democracy” claims by saying that Biden himself is the threat, releasing a campaign ad to that effect on Friday morning.

The Donald is also working to soak up the spotlight with rallies today and throughout the weekend ahead of the Iowa caucus.

The speech was originally scheduled to take place Saturday, the anniversary of Jan. 6, but with a major storm expected in the Northeast, it was pushed up by a day.

Biden trails Trump by more than 2 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Republicans are hoping to shine the focus back on Biden and his performance in office, pointing to his low approval ratings, particularly on the economy and immigration, and accusing him of fearmongering rather than focusing on topics that voters care about.

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“The soul of America has been crushed under the weight of Joe Biden’s failures,” Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said. “While families can’t pay their bills, children are dying from fentanyl overdoses, terror suspects are crossing the open southern border, and Americans are still being held hostage by Hamas, Biden wants to further divide Americans with polarizing rhetoric to distract from his catastrophic policies. Biden has done enough damage — no one can take four more years.”

While the anniversary will come and go this weekend, the alleged threat Trump and his allies pose to democracy is likely to be a continuing theme of Biden’s reelection bid. Campaign officials told reporters earlier this week that in the coming weeks, the president and Vice President Kamala Harris will “lay out the stakes” of the general election in November.