Biden takes on Trump as he brings reelection pitch to Pennsylvania in his first post-SOTU speech
By Michael Williams, CNN
Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden on Friday took his pitch for a second term to the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, contrasting himself with his predecessor in what was effectively his first rally of the 2024 general election campaign.
Biden’s speech in the Philadelphia suburbs was essentially an abridged version of the State of the Union address he gave the previous night — though there were some notable differences. Biden on Friday didn’t hesitate to refer to his predecessor and likely 2024 rival by name, something he avoided during his State of the Union.
“Donald Trump with the MAGA Republicans are trying to take away our freedoms,” Biden told the crowd on Friday. “That’s not an exaggeration.”
“Well, guess what?” the president added. “We will not let him.”
Biden repeatedly referred to the former president by name during his Friday remarks, lambasting Trump’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade, the $2 trillion tax cut he signed while he was in office and his recent comments that he would encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to do what he wants to NATO member countries who don’t fulfill funding obligations.
“He thinks Putin is a strong — basically, he’s a decent guy,” Biden said of Trump.
He also referenced Trump’s meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Friday with Hungary’s strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“You know who he’s meeting with today, down in Mar-a-Lago?” Biden said. “Orbán of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works — he’s looking for dictatorship.”
“That’s who he’s meeting with,” Biden added. “I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it.”
Interspersed in his remarks were references to Thursday night’s State of the Union. Toward the beginning of his speech, Biden referenced the raucous exchange he had the previous night with GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“If you’re tired, you probably watched my address last night,” Biden told the crowd. “I got my usual warm reception from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
The Georgia Republican pushed Biden to say the name of Laken Riley, a nursing student allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant, as Greene and other Republicans have blamed Biden’s border policies for Riley’s death. Biden responded by holding up a pin with Riley’s name that Greene had given him as he walked through the House Chamber.
He said Riley’s name — though he appeared to flub her first name — and referenced his own personal experiences with grief, having experienced the deaths of two of his own children.
Throughout his remarks on Friday, a fired-up Biden sought to cast the 2024 election as a battle between “those of us who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move it to the future.”
“My lifetime has taught me to embrace the future. I mean it sincerely, freedom, democracy, a future based on the core values that have defined America: honesty, decency, fairness, equality,” he said. “No, I really mean it, we don’t always live up to it, but that’s the American creed. Donald Trump sees the story differently. He sees a story of resentment, revenge, retribution.”
Biden also said he was up until 2 a.m. watching the coverage and reaction to his State of the Union from the White House.
Though Biden was widely applauded by Democrats for his address to the country on Thursday, he also made some remarks — and omitted others — that rankled some in his own party. He referred to the suspect accused of killing Riley as “an illegal,” and did not mention the word “abortion.”
Speaking to reporters before departing for Pennsylvania on Friday, Biden defended his use of the word “illegal” to describe the man arrested for Riley’s killing.
“Well, I probably — I don’t regret — technically, he’s not supposed to be here,” he said.
He also joked about a hot-mic moment captured after his speech while Biden was speaking with a lawmaker about getting more humanitarian aid into Gaza, during which he said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the two would have a “come to Jesus meeting.”
Asked on Friday if he’d viewed GOP Sen. Katie Britt’s response to his speech, Biden said he’d seen clips.
“I just saw a little bit on television,” he said. “I thought she was a very talented woman. I didn’t quite understand the connections she was making.”
CNN’s Donald Judd and MJ Lee contributed.
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