Tell us more about the President's message in this, his first campaign speech of 2024.

Yeah, Wolf, President Biden returned once again to the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania to launch the 2024 election year. The campaign chose a venue near the revolutionary warsite of Valley Forge, where the President invoked George Washington and his words, a sacred cause, to describe what he is fighting for as he now seeks a second term.

Today, we're here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America's sacred cause? It's what the 2024 election is all about.

In his inaugural campaign speech of the New Year, President Joe Biden, warning of the stark and urgent stakes of the upcoming presidential election. The President repeatedly excoriating Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's campaign is about him, not America, not you.

As the Biden campaign gears up for another potential matchup against the former President come November.

We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is, who are we? That's what's at stake. Who are we? In the year ahead, as you talk to your family and friends, cast your ballots, the power is in your hands. I refuse to believe that in 2024, we Americans will choose to walk away from what's made us the greatest nation in history of the world. Freedom, liberty. Democracy is still a sacred cause.

The President's speech coming on the eve of the third anniversary of the January sixth storming of the Capitol, a deadly riot that Trump encouraged at the time. If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. And has refused to denounce since.

You can't be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American.

Biden, warning of the chaos that could ensue if Trump were reelected to a second term.

He went on to say he'd be a dictator on day one.

And if Trump were defeated in November.

Once again, he's saying he won't honor the results of the election if he loses.

Biden has previously invoked the bloody insurrection of 2021 in multiple speeches.

One year ago today, in this sacred place, democracy democracy was attacked.

Pointing to the shocking events of that day as a reminder of the fragility of American democracy that must be actively protected.

For a long time, we've told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it's not.

The Biden campaign preparing to ramp up the President's campaign travels in the new year. On Monday, the President headed to South Carolina to deliver a speech at the Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, where a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black worshippers in 2015. Next week's trip, marking a return to a state that Biden credits for propelling him to his party's nomination in 2020 and delivering him the presidency.

Thank you, South Carolina. We just won, and we've won big because of you.

And Wolf, to give you a sense of how much the Biden campaign is leaning into this theme of protecting democracy, the tomorrow on January sixth, we'll be launching a new ad that paints Donald Trump and some Republicans as promoting political violence. We are also set to see Vice President Kamala Harris travel to South Carolina, where she will be delivering a speech there and is also expected to address the dark events of January sixth from three years ago. Wolf?

I'm Jay Lee at the White House. Thank you very much. I want to bring in our political experts for some serious analysis. And David Chalian, I'll start with you. As you heard, President Biden accused what he called MAGA Republicans of having, Abandon our democracy. This is his first speech of the 2024 campaign. What does that tell you about how he sees this upcoming election?

Well, he sees this as a fundamental choice for the American people, not just between two candidates, but between a way of life in America under American democracy versus a country that could lean towards autocratic rule in some of the ways that Donald Trump has quite plainly said he would govern if he's reelected. But I think what you saw from the President today, Wolf, was a guy who wanted to grab the country by the lapels and say, Wake up, it's time to start focusing on this election year. A lot of their targeted voters have not dialed into this election yet, and he is kicking off the campaign by saying, You got to wake up, you got to focus, because this is very serious. He wanted to set the stakes as he sees them heading into the year.

It was very, very powerful what he had to say about the Republicans specifically going directly after Trump as well, which was very important. Kate, do you worry that voters have already heard this message, though, in the past from President Biden, and that they might not necessarily be all that receptive to it this time?

Well, I don't for two reasons. First of all, because the threat persists. I mean, Donald Trump has continued to double down, triple down, quadruple down on his support for what happened on January sixth. He's doing things like singing songs, lending his voice to songs that January sixth participants are creating online. He has made no bones about the fact that he celebrates what happened on January sixth and would want to see it carried forward. So the threat persists. And then, secondly, we've seen that this democracy argument is impactful in elections as recently as the midterms in 2022. I mean, this wasn't just an argument that is hypothetical. We've seen people turn out and go to the ballot box, in part motivated by this belief that they need to vote for Democrats in order to protect their freedoms and protect democracy. So I think there's evidence that this has been a really powerful and successful message. And as you heard the President say, I expect we'll hear a lot from him about it.

I assume we will. Kevin Madden, you've been watching all this very closely. Biden repeated candidly called out Trump by name today, specifically going after Trump, and even at one point calling him a loser and comparing his rhetoric to Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany.

Yeah, it's tough rhetoric. But I think for the President, his goal here is to really raise the stakes of this election. I also think to David's point, President Biden wants voters out there to really enter into a level of self-reflection about what direction the country is going and the contrast between a choice for President Biden or a choice for a former President Trump in November. And he believes that that contrast works in his favor. I think the other thing, that part of this, and this goes to some of what Kate said, one of the most important constituencies here is the most active, progressive Democrats who right now aren't really enthusiastic about voting for Joe Biden, and they need to be enthusiastic for voting for Joe Biden by November. So this is a starter pistol, if you will, for getting those voters energized about what's at stake for this election. It also is probably a message that works well with your most persuadable voters, those voters in the suburbs. And there's a reason that he was in Pennsylvania today, because Pennsylvania is going to be one of those states where suburban voters in areas around Harrisburg and Philadelphia are going to make or break whether or not that state goes for Joe Biden.

So it seems very, very carefully calculated strategy here by the White House.

Yeah, I totally agree. David, what do you expect that Trump will directly respond to Biden and these very strong words coming today from the President?

Well, he's been speaking in Iowa at his first event there since the Christmas holiday. He certainly went after the former President on things like his stutter and what have you. He also, as you know, has every time Joe Biden makes this democracy argument, Trump tries to flip it on Joe Biden in this I'm rubber, you're glue, what you say bounces off of me and sticks to you schoolyard situation. And we've seen that effective for Donald Trump in communicating with his supporters and his voters and galvanizing Republicans around that. We've seen that work. And so I think you're going to see this constant, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it until enough people on his side of the equation believe it is the goal of his response to Biden on the democracy piece.

It's interesting. And Kate, I want to get your thoughts on this because the Biden's speech today came on the same day that we heard from Ron DeSantis suggest, and he actually suggested this. He's looking at various ways of removing Biden from the ballot in Florida. Listen to this.

You could make a case, and I'm actually looking at this in Florida now, could we make a credible case that Biden, because of the invasion of eight million? And again, I don't think that's the right way to do it.

What do you make of that?

I think this is a losing argument. I think this is an argument that certainly appeals, I would imagine, to the Republican base. I think there's a faction of the Democratic base that is very excited about what's happening to Donald Trump in the courts in Colorado Maine. But I think for the most part, for general election voters, for swing voters, I think this is probably an argument that feels... It feels petty, it feels small, it doesn't speak to their concerns. To me, as somebody who is watching Ron DeSantis desperately try to have a last gasp of relevancy potentially here before the Iowa caucuses, this doesn't feel like a convincing and serious argument. I think it's a little dangerous. I do think that as As we start to the idea that we're just going to tit for tat in this way, I do think it's dangerous, but I think it's not an argument that appeals to moderate voters, swing voters, and so I'm just not sure that it's going to get a lot of traction.

Kevin, you think comments like this from DeSantis and obviously comments from Trump bolster Biden's democracy argument right now that democracy in America, the US Constitution, are literally at stake.

I don't know if I would interpret it that That broadly. I do think this is a reflection of our politics now, where it's like the left hits the right, and then the right decides to hit back even harder. I think this is probably an impetus for why the Supreme Court has decided to act very quickly and to listen to this case, because they know all of these type of political shenanigans are going to continue to fester unless they more definitively answer the legal questions that are undergirding all of this.

The decision from the Supreme Court doesn't only affect Colorado. It doesn't affect Maine. It affects states all over the country. So the stakes clearly are enormous. Guys, thank you very, very much.