President Biden kicked off his bid for re-election on Friday by deriding former President Donald Trump as a “loser” and calling his bid for a political comeback something of a “bad fairy tale” on Friday – prompting his predecessor to retort that the 80-year-old is “a threat true to democracy.”
Speaking near Washington’s 1777-1778 winter encampment at Valley Forge outside Philadelphia, Biden lashed out at both the Republican candidate and his allies in Congress, claiming the latter group had “abandoned democracy” after “we almost lost America” during the Capitol riots. January 6, 2021.
Valley Forge “tells the story of pain and suffering and the true patriotism it took to make America,” Biden, 81, began his first campaign speech in 2024. “Today, we gather in the new year, some 246 years later, just one day before the 6 January — a date that lives in our memory because that day we almost lost America, lost everything.”
President Biden mocked former President Trump as a “loser” and called his bid for a political comeback a “bad fairy tale” on Friday. AP
Backed by a cheering audience, Biden attacked Trump repeatedly during the roughly half-hour speech – accusing his predecessor of deliberately using the violence of the Capitol riots as a tactic to stay in power and even likening his rival – not for the first time – to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
The incumbent lashed out at his likely rival at the opening of last year’s campaign rally in Waco, Texas, with a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by a riotous prison choir Jan. 6.
“Trump’s attack on democracy is not just part of his past, it is what he promises for the future. He was frank. He didn’t hide the ball,” Biden said.
“His first rally for the 2024 campaign opened with a choir of January 6 rebels singing from prison on mobile phones while images of the January 6 riots played on a big screen behind him during his rally. Can you believe that? It’s like something out of a fairy tale — a bad fairy tale.”
Donald Trump speaks to supporters on January 6, 2021. AFP via Getty Images
Trump responded, telling Fox News Digital that “because of his gross incompetence, Joe Biden is a real threat to democracy.”
“This is not the time for us to have a mentally deranged president,” the former president said, adding that “the only insurgency is the insurgency at our borders where he allows millions of people from parts unknown to attack us. country on a much worse level than a military invasion.”
Trump continued to attack Biden during a campaign rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, mocking the president for “stuttering” and accusing him of “misusing George Washington’s legacy.”
“Biden’s record is an unbroken string of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure, other than that he’s doing pretty well, isn’t he? That’s a pretty bad list, isn’t it? That’s why Crooked Joe is holding a sad, fear-mongering campaign event in Pennsylvania today. Did you see him? He stammered through the whole thing, he said, ‘He’s a threat to Democracy,'” Trump said.
“They have armed the government and he says I am a threat to democracy.”
“The only reason Biden is at Valley Forge is to abuse George Washington’s legacy… [is because] he knows he can’t show his face on the Southwest border, or in East Palestine, Ohio,” Trump said.
Biden entered this election year with the lowest competitive approval ratings of any modern president, with Americans giving him collective credit for his handling of the economy, immigration and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. As of Friday, the incumbent trailed Trump by 2.2% in the popular vote, according to an average kept by RealClearPolitics.
Facing the prospect of an electoral disaster, Biden argued on Friday that his own candidacy would continue the American founding tradition established by Washington, including a peaceful exit from power after two terms as president.
Democrats also went to the well on January 6 to rally their party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Although critics saw Biden’s message as divisive, Democrats performed better than expected, expanding their Senate majority and limiting their losses in the House of Representatives.
“Let’s be clear about the 2020 election: Trump has exhausted every legal avenue available to him to overturn the decision — every single one. But the legal process just brought Trump back to the truth that I won the election and he was a loser,” Biden said to cheers and applause.
The president’s choice of the word “loser” may have been intentional, given its oft-reported impact on the image-conscious Trump, a former reality TV host and real estate developer.
Biden used the patriotic atmosphere to argue that his own candidacy would continue the tradition of the American establishment established by Washington. AP
“Well, knowing how his mind works, he has one action left, one desperate action available to him: violence on January 6,” Biden said, “and since that day, more than 1,200 people have been charged for their attack on the Capitol, nearly 900 of them have been convicted or pleaded guilty.”
For more cheers, he added, “Collectively to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison.”
No evidence has emerged that Trump had prior knowledge of plans for violence by some of his supporters during the congressional recount of the Electoral College results.
In other comments on Friday, Biden said Trump could lead the US into an era of dictatorship and that other leaders have told him “he can’t win” because “my country will be at risk.”
“Well, knowing how his mind works, he has one action left, one desperate action available to him: violence on January 6,” Biden said. Reuters
“He called those who opposed him ‘lice.’ He spoke of poisoned American blood, echoing the same language used in Nazi Germany. He proudly posted on social media the words that best describe his 2024 campaign, ‘revenge,’ ‘power’, ‘dictatorship.’ There is no confusion about who Trump is and what he wants to do,” Biden said.
“You can’t be pro-insurgency and pro-American,” the president added at one point – stressing that unlike Trump “our campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy.”
“The protection and preservation of American democracy will remain because it has been a central cause of my presidency,” Biden said before lashing out at Trump’s allies in Congress.
“As one Republican senator said, Trump’s behavior is a shame and an embarrassment to the country. Now the same senator and the same people have changed their tune,” Biden said
Biden delivered a speech to mark the third anniversary on January 6. Reuters
“As time goes on politics, fear, money have all intervened and now the voice of MAGA who knew the truth about Trump on January 6 has abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy. They made their choice, now the rest of us — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — have to make ours.
“I know mine and I believe I know America.”
Biden’s Justice Department, through special counsel Jack Smith, is suing Trump for his own actions to challenge the election, as well as for allegedly mishandling national security documents after leaving office.
Trump, who argued that the cases brought by Smith were anti-democratic, issued a prebuttal of Biden through his campaign, saying that Biden is someone who has acted against democratic norms, including by relying on social media companies to filter political views.
Democrats themselves are guilty of “arming the administrative state against a democratically elected president” by pursuing a “partisan-driven Russia investigation,” the Trump campaign said, referring to the probe that has consumed more than half of Trump’s presidency with a steady stream of leaks suggesting he colluded with the Kremlin. in 2016.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
