VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — President Joe Biden warned Friday that Donald Trump’s efforts to retake the White House in 2024 pose a grave threat to the country, the day before the third anniversary of the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol by then-President Trump’s supporters aiming to keep him in power.
Speaking near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where George Washington and the Continental Army spent a bleak winter nearly 250 years ago, Biden said that Jan. 6 2021, marked a moment where “we nearly lost America — lost it all.” He said the presidential race — a likely rematch with Trump, who is the far and away GOP frontrunner — is “all about” whether American democracy will survive.
The speech, the president’s first political event of the election year, was intended to clarify the expected choice for voters this fall. Biden, who reentered political life because he felt he was best capable of defeating Trump in 2020, believes focusing on defending democracy to be central for persuading voters to reject Trump once again.
“We all know who Donald Trump is,” Biden said. “The question we have to answer is who are we?”
Biden, laid out Trump’s role in the Capitol attack, as a mob of the Republican’s supporters overran the building while lawmakers were counting Electoral College votes that certified Democrat Biden’s win. More than 100 police officers were bloodied, beaten and attacked by the rioters who overwhelmed authorities to break into the building.
“What’s Trump done? He’s called these insurrectionists ‘patriots,’” Biden said, “and he promised to pardon them if he returns to office.”
He excoriated Trump for “glorifying” rather than condemning political violence
At least nine people who were at the Capitol that day died during or after the rioting, including several officers who died of suicide, a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber, and three other Trump supporters who authorities said suffered medical emergencies.
Biden said that by “trying to rewrite the facts of Jan. 6, Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election.”
Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his loss to Biden and three other felony cases, argues that Biden and top Democrats are themselves seeking to undermine democracy by using the legal system to thwart the campaign of his chief rival. The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether Trump could be kept off the ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Speaking in Iowa Friday, Trump accused Biden of “abusing George Washington’s legacy” to attack him and his supporters, adding his own dire warning about the stakes in the campaign, saying, “This election is your last chance to save America.”
Biden, in his remarks, seized on Trump’s grievances and his pledges to get retribution on his political enemies.
“Donald Trump’s campaign is about him,” Biden said. “Not America. Not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.”
He added: “There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do.”
Before his remarks, Biden, joined by his wife Jill, participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Valley Forge National Arch, which honors the troops who camped there from December 1777 to June 1778. He also toured the home that served as Washington’s headquarters.
Biden invoked Washington’s decision to resign his commission as the leader of the Continental Army after American independence was won — and the painting commemorating that moment that resides in the Capitol Rotunda — to cast Trump as unworthy of Washington’s legacy.
“He could have held onto that power as long as he wanted,” Biden said of Washington. “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. Our leaders return power to the people – willingly.”
Although the chaos of Jan. 6 came down on members of both political parties, it is being remembered in a largely polarized fashion now, like other aspects of political life in a divided country.
In the days after the attack, 52% of U.S. adults said Trump bore a lot of responsibility for Jan. 6, according to the Pew Research Center.