By PETER BAKER NYTimes News Service
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TEMPE, Ariz. — President Joe Biden issued a broad and blistering attack against former President Donald Trump on Thursday, accusing his predecessor and would-be successor of inciting violence, seeking unfettered power and plotting to undermine the Constitution if he returns to office in next year’s elections.

In his most direct condemnation of his leading Republican challenger in many months, Biden portrayed Trump as a budding autocrat with no fidelity to the tenets of American democracy and who is motivated by hatred and a desire for retribution. While he usually avoids referring to Trump by name, Biden this time held nothing back as he offered a dire warning about the consequences of a new Trump term.

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“This is a dangerous notion, this president is above the law, no limits on power,” Biden said in a speech in Tempe. “Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, the right to do whatever he wants as president, end of quote. I never heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.”

Biden cited recent comments by Trump vowing “retribution” against his foes, accusing NBC News of “treason” and suggesting that the outgoing chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, might deserve to be put to death. The president also decried plans being developed by Trump’s allies to erode the independence of major agencies, wipe out much of the top ranks of civil service and make senior government officials personally loyal to him.

“Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep Americans safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans,” Biden said. “This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. It’s also a threat to the character of our nation.”

Biden delivered the speech, his first focused on democracy since just before last year’s midterm elections, at an event meant to honor his old friend and adversary, Sen. John McCain, one of the most vocal Republican critics of Trump before his death from brain cancer in 2018.

Appearing at the Tempe Center for the Arts in McCain’s home state, the president announced that he would direct federal money left over from the COVID-19 relief plan passed in early 2021 to help build a new library honoring the senator.

In embracing McCain, Biden sought to reach out to anti-Trump Republicans and appeal to voters more generally in one of the battleground states likely to determine the outcome next year. Biden and McCain served in the Senate together for years and remained friendly even after running on opposing tickets in 2008, when McCain was the Republican presidential nominee and Biden was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

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