President Joe Biden speaks in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, Jan 5, 2024. (PHOTO / AP)
VALLEY FORGE, Pennsylvania/SIOUX CENTER, Iowa – US President Joe Biden on Friday accused Republican Donald Trump, his likely 2024 election opponent, of instigating the Jan 6 attacks and plotting revenge on those seeking to punish him, as the president put the future of US democracy at the center of his bid for re-election.
"He told the crowd to fight like hell. And all hell was unleashed," Biden said of the 2021 attack. "Then as usual he left the dirty work to others. He retreated to the White House."
Biden marked three years since the Jan 6, 2021, attacks with his first major campaign speech of the year, applying the heat on Trump as he pushes against questions about his handling of the US economy and his age, 81. Trump is 77.
Whether Biden's Friday speech will make an impact 10 months before Election Day – in a politically polarized country where voters get news and information from wildly different sources – remains to be seen.
READ MORE: Biden says 'no question' Trump backed insurrection
But it set the tone and laid out the stakes of what is likely to be a bitter battle. Biden characterized Trump and his followers as dangerous outliers and asked Democrats, independents and "mainstream Republicans" who cherish US democracy to back him.
"Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot," he said.
...Those MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump and January 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned our democracy.
Joe Biden, US President
Biden said Trump's re-election bid is based on trying to seek "revenge and retribution" against his political enemies. He reminded Americans that Trump has called his opponents "vermin," the "same exact language used in Nazi Germany."
"How dare he? Who in God's name does he think he is?" said Biden, lowering his voice to a whisper.
Trump, president from 2017 to 2021, who is leading the field for the Republican nomination for president, contested his defeat in the 2020 election, prompting thousands of his supporters to attack the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. The failed bid to stop formal certification of the result resulted in the deaths of five people and injured dozens of police officers.
Biden also criticized Republicans for changing their tone on Trump, saying that when the attacks of Jan 6 on the US Capitol took place, "there was no doubt about the truth" and that some Republican members of Congress and Fox News commentators had publicly and privately condemned the uprising.
“But now as time has gone on — politics, fear, money – have all intervened. And those MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump and January 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned our democracy," Biden said.
Republicans challenging Trump in the 2024 nominating contest have mostly steered clear of criticizing Trump's actions on that day, as opinion polls show Republican voters are less likely to blame Trump for his actions on Jan. 6 than they were three years ago.
Before his speech at a community college in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, Biden took a tour of the Valley Forge site of George Washington's Revolutionary War-era winter headquarters in the bitterly cold months of late 1777 and early 1778.
In his speech, Biden contrasted Trump's bid to hang on to power to the example set by Washington, who stepped down willingly after two terms as he first US president.
ALSO READ: Pence says history will hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan 6
Biden returned again and again to Jan 6, including a vivid description of what transpired that day, including protestors calling for the hanging of then-Vice President Mike Pence. People died because Trump's lies "brought a mob to Washington," he said.
As president, Biden has warned about the future of US democracy before, including on the first anniversary of Jan 6, and in a fiery Sept 2022 speech where he called Trump and his Republican followers extremists who threatened to take the country backward.
Former US president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Terrace View Event Center in Sioux Center, Iowa, Jan 5, 2024. (PHOTO / AP)
Trump hits back
On the same day, Trump used his first visit to Iowa this year to attack Republican competitor Nikki Haley and to hit back against President Biden.
Speaking to a crowd of several hundred supporters just 10 days before the crucial Iowa caucus – the first round of the Republican nominating contest – the former president presented a dark portrait of the United States.
He called it a "failing" nation, beset by "terrorists" and immigrants from "mental asylums" pouring over the US-Mexico border.
"Not one thing has gotten better under crooked Joe Biden. Everything's a mess," Trump said to several hundred cheering supporters at the rally in the state's rural northwest.
Trump only briefly addressed the events of Jan 6, repeating unfounded claims that the 2020 contest was marred by widespread voter fraud.
READ MORE: Colorado top court bars Trump from ballot for role in Capitol attack
He also directed his fire toward Haley, who served as US ambassador to the UN for two years during his term. While Haley trails Trump by over 30 points in Iowa, she is much closer in New Hampshire, which holds the second contest of the Republican nomination process, and she has been rising in opinion polls in recent months.
"Nikki Haley has been in the pocket of the open borders establishment donors her entire career," Trump said. "She's a globalist."
