By Andrea Shalal and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s campaign launch video promises to protect Americans’ personal freedoms, seizing a theme often embraced by Republicans, as he attacked “MAGA extremists” for targeting women’s reproductive choice, Social Security and voting rights.
Closely watched for clues as to what shape Biden’s 2024 presidential re-election campaign will take, the video released on Tuesday suggests he will warn Republicans are threatening “bedrock freedoms.”
“Freedom – personal freedom – is fundamental to who we are as Americans,” Biden says in the three-minute video. He warns that Republicans will cut Social Security and taxes for the very rich, dictate women’s healthcare decisions and attack LGBTQ rights.
Previewing their own likely campaign messaging, Republicans responded with a video that offered a dystopian vision of what a second Biden term would entail, and asks “What if the weakest president we ever had was reelected?”
It shows realistic-looking, but fake, images of Taipei’s signature skyscraper collapsing as China “invades” Taiwan, lines of grey-haired people standing outdoors over a voiceover about hundreds of banks collapsing, and an overhead image of tens of thousands of “migrants” entering the country illegally.
The Republican National Committee’s “Beat Biden” video is presented as a fantasy newscast, one in which San Francisco is closed because of “escalating crime and fentanyl crisis.”
One thing it doesn’t include: a Republican candidate. The party has yet to choose its contender though Trump is an early favorite to win the nomination.
US politicians rely on launch videos to jump-start their campaigns, offering a bite-sized, emotionally-charged taste of their platform. If the spots are buzzy and eye-catching enough to be replayed, they become “free” advertising.
Biden’s video includes footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, and images of Biden as president, with first lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris visiting American workplaces and union halls.
“This is a not a time to be complacent,” Biden says in the video, which includes images of Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, another possible Republican contender, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s biggest “Make America Great Again” or MAGA backers.
Biden’s video also has some notable omissions given the current political climate.
He does not mention the word “abortion” in his message, though it is scrawled on a demonstrator’s sign at the start of the video. There is no mention of the gun violence that he has vowed to curb with an assault weapons ban, or climate change. Instead, it features scenes of Americans of all backgrounds and ages, in union halls, schools and community centers, on farms and in cities.
“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer,” Biden says.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)
