Jan. 3 (UPI) — President Joe Biden will make campaign stops in Pennsylvania and South Carolina over the next week, including a Philadelphia speech on the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, in which he will slam former President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy.
The Biden campaign said the incumbent would use the somber anniversary to emphasize the critical stakes of the November ballot, as he and Trump appeared headed toward a rematch of the contentious 2020 election.
In a symbolic move, Biden will deliver the remarks near Valley Forge, outside Philadelphia, where George Washington helped rally a ragtag army to fight for America in the early days of the Revolutionary War, while aiming to draw a parallel to Biden’s efforts to “heal the soul of the nation” nearly 250 years later.
“There, the president will make the case directly that democracy and freedom — two powerful ideas that united the 13 colonies and that generations throughout our nation’s history have fought and died for a stone’s throw from where he’ll be Saturday — remains central to the fight we’re in today,” said Quentin Fulks, Biden’s deputy campaign manager.
On Monday, Biden plans to deliver remarks at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., where nine Black parishioners were gunned down by a white supremacist in 2015.
“Whether it is white supremacists descending on the historic American city of Charlottesville, the assault on our nation’s capital on Jan. 6 or a white supremacist murdering churchgoers at Mother Emanuel nearly nine years ago, America is worried about the rise in political violence and determined to stand against it,” Fulks said.
Biden’s stop in South Carolina will mark his fourth visit to the state since he took office.
During a briefing to announce the upcoming stops, Biden campaign officials expressed grave concerns about Trump’s potential to win a second term.
Biden communications director Michael Tyler asserted that the Republican candidate would leverage “all of his power to systematically dismantle and destroy our democracy.”
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez also emphasized the urgency of the upcoming vote, saying “We are running a campaign like the fate of our democracy depends on it. Because it does.”
She suggested that Trump had become more of a threat to democracy in the three years since he lost to Biden and following his failed efforts to overturn the results.
“The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire in the years since,” Chavez Rodriguez said.
Trump also has two campaign events scheduled for Saturday around the same time as Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia.
Campaign events for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were expected to ramp up with the 2024 primary season getting underway in less than two weeks.
Biden made numerous trips to Philadelphia throughout 2023 to highlight major policy actions and federal investments in the crucial battleground that Biden won more than three years ago.
Harris will visit Wisconsin on Jan. 22 as part of a national tour to promote abortion rights as Democrats seek to knuckle down on another key issue leading up to the November election.
