Biden decries ‘big lie’ on anniversary of riot
Marking a year since the insurrection, the president blamed his predecessor Trump for the violent breach of the US Capitol
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday forcefully condemned Donald Trump’s election “big lie” that sparked the deadly breach of the US Capitol by his supporters and continues to motivate deep national division exactly one year ago.
“For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” Biden said, as he marked the anniversary of the insurrection by a mob of Trump’s supporters who attacked US Capitol, home to American congress, to prevent a joint sitting of lawmakers from certifying Biden’s election as the next president.
Four people died in the hourslong chaos a year ago, which occurred after Trump urged supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell”. One police officer died the day after battling rioters and four later died by suicide.
Biden spoke from the Statuary Hall, a portion of the US Capitol building that had been ransacked by the rioters that day.
“He’s not just a former president,” Biden said, leaning into the microphone, “He’s a defeated former president.”
Biden did not name Trump even once though he referred to him at least 16 times in a speech lasting nearly 25 minutes.
Ahead of Biden’s speech, a sombre vice-president Kamala Harris said at the Capitol on Thursday, that American democracy remains at risk.
“On January 6th, we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful. The lawlessness, the violence, the chaos,” she said. “What was at stake then, and now, is the right to have our future decided the way the constitution describes it.”
The day’s commemorative events were also to feature a speech by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy
Pelosi, and a prayer vigil on the steps of the Capitol.
However, such are the depths of division 12 months later that many senior Republicans didn’t even show up. Trump cancelled a press conference originally scheduled for Thursday at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate at the urging of allies. However, he hit back at Biden on Thursday, repeating his claim that the election was “rigged”.
“This political theatre is all just a distraction for the fact Biden has completely and totally failed,” Trump said. “They are not justifiable, so the complicit media just calls it the Big Lie, when in actuality the Big Lie was the Election itself.”
Trump’s claims of fraudulent voting and vote counts have repeatedly been rejected by the states in question, the Justice Department, and US courts.
But one year later, Trump is hardly a leader in exile. Instead, he is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and a leading contender for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Trump is positioning himself as a powerful force in the primary campaigns that will determine who gets the party’s backing heading into the fall midterms, when control of Congress, governor’s offices and state election posts are at stake.
With inputs from agencies