Biden rips into Trump on anniversary of Jan. 6 attack
President Biden marked the first anniversary of the storming of the Capitol by emphatically blaming former President Trump for inciting and leading the attack — and lying about it.
Standing inside the Capitol that was ransacked by angry Trump supporters a year ago, Biden pulled no punches as he accused the twice-impeached president of seeking to illegally stay in power by overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“He can’t accept that he lost,” Biden said. “He refused to accept the results of an election.”
“He’s not just a former president,” Biden added. “He’s the defeated former president. He lost by 7 million of your votes.”
Flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden emphatically denounced the mob and Trump’s allies who sent them to the Capitol. He called them an existential and ongoing threat to American democracy.
“You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said. “Those who instigated and incited held a dagger to the throat of American democracy.”
Biden refused to utter Trump’s name.
But he trashed Trump in unusually personal terms, noting that Trump watched on TV as his supporters marauded through the Capitol hunting down perceived enemies like then-Vice President Mike Pence.
He also denounced the GOP for joining a yearlong campaign concocted by Trump to whitewash the attack and to promote a Big Lie that the election was stolen from him.
Mocking Trump for failing to prove an, Biden vowed to lead the fight to preserve American democracy.
“I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol … But I will not shrink from it either,” he said. “I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy.”
He fiercely defended the police officers who defended the Capitol and lawmakers from both parties who stood together to affirm the election results.
“Don’t kid yourself: the pain and scars from that day run deep,” he said.
Biden also called for unity and healing. But his main message was to assign blame to Trump for what he calls a historic and not-yet-done campaign to undermine American democracy.
“They want to rule or they will ruin,” Biden said.
A series of Jan. 6 remembrance events during the day will be widely attended by Democrats, in person and virtually, but few if any prominent Republicans are expected to attend.