Biden hits the stump as Team Trump floods Iowa in unofficial 2024 kickoff

(CNN) — The Iowa caucuses are still 10 days away, but the first split-screen of the general election is set for Friday, when President Joe Biden touches down in Pennsylvania to warn Americans about the perils of a second Trump presidency and former President Donald Trump ramps up his pre-caucus blitz with a pair of get-out-the-vote rallies in northern Iowa.

Biden’s first proper foray into the 2024 campaign fray had initially been scheduled for Saturday, the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, US Capitol insurrection, but got bumped up, his camp said, because of weather concerns. The speech, to be delivered near the historic Revolutionary War site of Valley Forge, is expected to register as a stark warning about empowering Trump, whom Biden’s campaign views as the most likely GOP nominee – and an existential threat to US democracy.

Trump’s Iowa events are more of the nuts-and-bolts variety of campaigning. He is seeking to shore up his support in the Hawkeye State ahead of the January 15 caucuses. Polls show the former president leading the GOP field by a wide margin, but his campaign is determined to avoid a repeat of 2016, when a poor ground game allowed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to outperform expectations and nick the state.

Both Biden and Trump have been charting unusual paths so far on their way to a potential rematch in November. Most of Biden’s travels over the past year have mostly come in his official capacity, at events touting an increasingly robust economy and investments tied to his signature spending bills. Trump has been largely missing from the Republican primary trail, behaving like an incumbent, as he tries to assert his primacy over struggling challengers.

The words and symbolism of George Washington, who commanded his troops during a long winter in Valley Forge, are expected to play a central role in Biden’s speech, according to a senior Biden aide who previewed the remarks.

Biden is expected to speak to the sacrifices made to build the country and seek to frame the 2024 presidential election as a “sacred cause” to preserve democracy and freedom, drawing from a phrase Washington used to describe the resolve and mission of his troops during the winter they spent at Valley Forge.

“The fundamental question that the president is going to pose,” the aide explained, “is this: Is Democracy still a sacred cause in America? And his answer to that is yes. And he believes that America’s answer to that is yes, but he also believes that the election in 2024 is fundamentally about that question.”

Biden also will highlight how Washington willingly gave up power after two terms as president, the aide said, setting up a contrast with Trump, who would not accept the results of the 2020 election. And he’s expected to speak in stark terms about political violence and the January 6 insurrection, which the aide argued will set up a “foundational point” of Biden’s reelection argument.

“The president will say fundamentally, democracy is on the ballot,” the aide said. “In describing January 6, the president’s going to be very straightforward about what happened, the truth of what happened and the role that Trump played in that.”

“It was political violence on display in the country in a way that really unsettled the country, and really one of the fundamental questions in the 2024 election is going to be: Can the candidate for president, without equivocation, denounce political violence in America?” the aide said. “If you can’t answer that question, we think that’s a real problem for you.”

Biden’s decision to jumpstart his 2024 campaign push around the anniversary of January 6, which his team believes remains a potent political issue, comes as the campaign is eager to ramp up its contrasts with the former president, who is working to secure the GOP nomination.

Trump has routinely downplayed the violence on January 6 during his third presidential bid. The former president has expressed sympathy and support for the January 6 rioters, and not only promised to issue pardons and a government apology to some of those being prosecuted if he were to be reelected, but also fundraised on their behalf.

Last spring, Trump recorded the back track for a single released by a choir of men in prison for their participation in the attack on the US Capitol. The former president’s participation came at the request of a group that supports the families of those incarcerated for their actions that day.

Trump in Iowa

Trump, who has been in and out of the courtroom, begins this election year facing 91 felony counts across multiple jurisdictions in connection to everything from alleged hush money payments to his efforts – at the state and federal level – to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

What they share, at this stage, is broad disapproval among American voters, who in poll after poll have said they dread a rematch of the last campaign. Operatives from both parties are confident those numbers will even out as the election draws nearer and the stakes become clearer. But neither candidate plans to sit still and hope.

Trump is particularly eager to wrap up the GOP nomination, his third in a row, as soon as possible – ideally, for him, before his presence in various courtrooms becomes a theme of the spring. That means notching a landslide in Iowa, now flooded with his surrogates, on the way to effectively clinching the contest by mid-March, after Super Tuesday.

Though the first primary votes are yet to be cast, Trump’s speeches in early voting states have appeared to be a preview of his general election message, with the former president at times hitting Biden with more vigor than he dedicates to his GOP rivals.

The Trump team believes that hammering home his message early and often – particularly attacks on Biden’s handling of the economy and immigration, is critical to garnering support from voters who may have been weighed down by Trump fatigue in the 2020 but are now dissatisfied with Biden.

The Trump campaign started airing a new TV ad in Iowa on Friday contrasting his economic record against Biden’s. The 30-second ad focuses on gas prices, mortgage rates and retirement investments as the narrator argues, “Everywhere you look, Trump beats Biden on the economy.”

“Under Biden, your investments fell, along with other things,” the narrator says over a video of Biden tripping up the stairs as he boards Air Force One. The Trump campaign has frequently used footage of Biden tripping in its ads.

Trump has also made mocking Biden and questioning his mental fitness for office a core part of his campaign speeches – even as he experienced his own recent series of gaffes and verbal slips.

“He’s always looking around, where do I go?” Trump said as he did an exaggerated impersonation of Biden walking around the stage looking confused at a campaign stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last month.

Weeks later, Trump took the stage in Sioux City, Iowa, and mistakenly thanked supporters for coming out to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, before an Iowa state senator tried to discreetly correct him — a moment that was caught on a hot mic. Biden has ignored the taunts, but, in trying to take the edge off the issue, is more frequently joking about his own age.

Biden on the trail

In his speech on Friday in Pennsylvania, the president is expected to begin to lay the groundwork for a central focus of his 2024 messaging, making the case that Trump poses a threat to democracy that transcends partisan differences.

On Monday, Biden will deliver remarks at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine Black parishioners were killed in a mass shooting. Biden’s trip there comes ahead of the state’s Democratic primary on February 3, which will serve as an early test of Biden’s enthusiasm with Black voters amid some signs of strain with the group that is a key part of his coalition.

Biden has made democracy a centerpiece of his campaign arguments dating back to his 2020 bid for the White House when he framed the race as a “battle for the soul” of America. He often cites how Trump’s response to the violence clashes in Charlottesville in 2017 served as the impetus for his own run for president.

Biden in the past has turned to the symbolism of historical sites to deliver remarks outlining his vision for the country, including major speeches in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Warm Springs, Georgia, the site of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s personal retreat. He marked the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection with remarks at the US Capitol.

Biden warned of threats to democracy posed by Trump and “MAGA extremism” ahead of the 2022 midterms in a speech outside of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He recently repeated those warnings in a speech honoring the late Sen. John McCain in Arizona last year.

The campaign drew from that speech for 60-second television ad released this week marking three years since the insurrection at the US Capitol. Biden’s campaign believes January 6 continues to resonate with voters in an impactful way with senior campaign officials noting the issue comes up in nearly every focus group across demographics.

“There’s something dangerous happening in America – there’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy,” Biden says in the ad, which will air in key markets in battleground states that will be critical to Biden’s electoral map in November: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The campaign has invited elected officials who were directly impacted by election denialism and the events of January 6 to attend the president’s Friday speech, a Biden adviser said. Grassroots supporters, young people who were motivated to become politically engaged after January 6, voter protection volunteers from 2020 and members of organized labor will also be on hand.

Ahead of the speech, Biden met with a group of scholars and historians over lunch at the White House on Wednesday to “discuss the ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions both here in America and around the world, as well was the opportunities we face as a nation,” a White House official said.

Attendees included Beverly Gage of Yale, Eddie Glaude Jr. and Sean Wilentz of Princeton, Annette Gordon-Reed of Harvard, Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College and presidential biographer Jon Meacham, who Biden has frequently consulted for speeches, a source familiar with the meeting said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Betsy Klein and Kristen Holmes contributed to this story.

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