In a fiery, incensed address from the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, President Joe Biden gave his strongest defense of democracy yet to mark the anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot, directly attacking former President Donald Trump as a defeated liar and an outstanding threat to the country’s founding ideals.

Biden gave a rare speech from a quiet National Statuary Hall, which the former president’s supporters invaded exactly one year before, walking through the halls of Congress as lawmakers evacuated their chambers and went into hiding, many afraid for their lives.

While never mentioning Trump by name, he placed blame squarely on the “former president of the United States” for his lies about his 2020 election loss and how they set off not only last year’s violent rampage on the Capitol but an unending contamination of democracy.

“Because he sees his own interests as more important than his country's interests, than America's interests,” Biden said Thursday. “And because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution. 

“He can’t accept he lost,” Biden hammered home.

“He’s not just a former president; he’s a defeated former president,” he emphasized.

Biden laid out a clear dividing line between “God’s truth” and the lies spread by Trump and his supporters about who won the election and how secure it was, noting it was the first time a former president had contested a peaceful transfer of power of the presidency.

“This isn't about being bogged down in the past. This is about making sure the past isn’t buried,” Biden said. “That's what great nations do. They don't bury the truth. They face up to it.”

Biden sneered at the idea that the Capitol rioters would be called patriots, calling American voters and the many who defended the U.S. Capitol one year ago the true patriots.

“You can't love your country only when you win. You can't obey the law only when it is convenient,” Biden said. “You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.”

Biden called this moment an “inflection point in history” for democracy and America in the face of autocratic ideals both at home and abroad.

“We are in a battle for the soul of America,” he said, echoing the slogan of his presidential campaign.

“I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. Not allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy. We will make sure the will of the people is heard," Biden added.

“Here in America, the people rule through the ballot, and their will prevails,” he said to end his speech.

“So let us remember together: We're one nation, under God, indivisible that today, tomorrow and forever at our best — we are the United States of America.”

Biden is set to give a speech on voting rights next week in Atlanta, a critical piece of legislation for Democrats in this midterm election year that has stalled due to Republican opposition and as states have passed their own restrictions on voting.

Trump, who canceled a press conference he had planned for Thursday, quickly released a statement in response to Biden’s speech.

“This political theater is all just a distraction for the fact Biden has completely and totally failed,” the former president said, once again repeating the claim the 2020 election was stolen. “They got away with something, and it is leading to our Country's destruction.”