(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden gave a blistering campaign speech Friday near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, drawing a line in the campaign sand as he spoke of his opponent Donald Trump as a threat to democracy.
Was it the right message?
Journalist Geraldo Rivera and “The Young Turks” founder Cenk Uygur don’t particularly think so.
“Trump deserves all the criticism you could possibly mount over his dreadful, his despicable act. … I really believe, however, that this election will be about abortion, it will be about immigration, it won’t be about Jan. 6, though,” Rivera said Friday on “CUOMO.”
Speaking near where George Washington and the Continental Army spent a bleak winter nearly 250 years ago, Biden said that Jan. 6 marked a moment where “we nearly lost America — lost it all.” He said the presidential race — a likely rematch with Trump, the far and away GOP front-runner — is “all about” whether American democracy will survive.
The speech, the president’s first political event of the election year, was intended to clarify the expected choice for voters this fall. Biden, who reentered political life because he felt he was best capable of defeating Trump in 2020, believes focusing on defending democracy to be central to persuading voters to reject Trump once again.
“We all know who Donald Trump is,” Biden said. “The question we have to answer is who are we?”
While Uygur “loved” half the speech, he believes Biden failed to make the case about his own record in the other half.
“He says Trump says this election is about him and not about you, that’s true, but what is Biden saying? Biden is saying this election is also about Trump, that Trump is so bad you’re forced to vote for me,” Uygur said. “He hasn’t suggested one single policy that he would do in the next term. He hasn’t talked about how we would deliver for the American people.”
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Biden laid out Trump’s role in the Capitol attack as a mob of the Republican’s supporters overran the building while lawmakers were counting Electoral College votes that certified Biden’s win.
In response, Trump accused Biden of “fearmongering” at his own Sioux Center, Iowa event.
“Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure. Other than that he’s doing quite well,” Trump said, mocking Biden’s delivery of his speech. Biden has spoken publicly about how he overcame a stutter as a child.
Both Uygur and Rivera viewed Biden’s delivery as fine.
As Biden accuses his opponent of being authoritarian, political commentator George Will says the sitting president views the power of the office the same way Trump does.
“The Supreme Court had to swat (Biden) down when his CDC declared a national mortarium on evictions, they had to swat him down on the vaccine mandate, they had to swat him down again when he said I’m gonna spend $400 billion forgiving the loans of a privileged and largely affluent Democratic group that is recent college graduates,” Will said Friday on “On Balance With Leland Vittert.” “I have no brief for either these gentlemen assuming that because they’re president, the other two branches of government don’t matter.”
The Associated Press and The Hill contributed to this report.