Biden condemns Trump as a serious threat to democracy in a blistering speech

President Biden on Friday issued a fierce condemnation of Donald J. Trump, his likely 2024 opponent, warning in sharp language that the former president had led an insurrection and would seek to undo the country’s fundamental democracy if he returns to power power would come.

On the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters, Mr. Biden framed the 2024 election as a choice between a candidate committed to upholding the age-old ideals of America and a chaos agent. willing to throw them away for his personal benefit.

“There is no confusion about who Trump is or what he plans to do,” Biden warned in a speech at a community college not far from Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where George Washington commanded troops during the Revolutionary War. Urging his supporters to prepare to vote this fall, he said: “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question is: who are we?”

In an intensely personal speech — at one point Mr. Biden nearly cursed Mr. Trump by name — the president compared his rival to foreign autocrats who rule by fiat and lies. He said Trump had failed the fundamental test of American leaders, which is trusting the people to choose their elected officials and abide by their decisions.

“We have to be clear,” Mr. Biden said. “Democracy is at stake. Your freedom is on the ballot.”

The harshness of Biden’s attack on his rival illustrated both what his campaign sees as the stakes of the 2024 election and his dangerous political position. Faced with low approval ratings, poor head-to-head polling against Mr. Trump, concerns about his age and continued unease about the economy, Mr. Biden is increasingly turning to the figure who has proven to be Democrats’ best motivator.

The speech carried echoes of the 2020 campaign, when Mr. Biden presented himself as the caretaker of “the soul of America” against a Trump candidacy that he and Democratic supporters claimed was about to cause lasting damage to the country .

The 31-minute speech was Mr. Biden’s first public campaign event since he announced in April that he would seek re-election and was, in tone and substance, perhaps his strongest public condemnation of Mr. Trump since the two men became political rivals became. in 2019.

Biden’s appearance, intended as a kickoff to help define the 2024 campaign, was an early attempt to revive the politically sprawling anti-Trump coalition that propelled Democrats to key victories in recent elections. Mr. Biden’s job now is to convince those voters to see the 2024 battle as the same kind of national emergency as in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

He began with a lengthy account of Mr. Trump’s actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack. The country, Mr. Biden said, cannot afford for Mr. Trump and his supporters to present a whitewashed version of that day and spread falsehoods about the violent outcome of the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Upholding the country’s democracy, Mr. Biden said, is “the central cause of my presidency.”

Mr. Trump and his allies have spent the three years since the Capitol riot denying and deflecting responsibility, downplaying the severity of the bloodshed and even going so far as to suggest it was all a plot by Mr. Biden’s deep allies within the federal government to make Mr. Trump look bad.

“Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election,” Biden said. “It was on television. We saw it with our own eyes.”

Mr. Biden made no mention of the 91 charges the former president faces in four jurisdictions. He stuck to his promise to avoid his rival’s legal troubles and focused entirely on Mr. Trump’s actions rather than the potential consequences for them.

“Trump has exhausted all legal options available to him to overturn the 2020 election. The legal path brought him back to the truth, that I won the election and he was a loser,” Mr. Biden said. “He had one act left, one desperate act at his disposal: the violence of January 6.”