Biden decries Trump backers’ ‘dagger at throat’ of democracy
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden forcefully blamed Donald Trump and his supporters Thursday for holding a “dagger at the throat of democracy” with election lies that sparked last year’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, using the anniversary of the attack to warn that America’s system of government remains under urgent threat.
The president set the tone on a day of remembrance that brought fiery speeches, moments of silence and anguished accounts from lawmakers recalling the terrifying hours of Jan. 6, 2021, when the Trump mob laid siege to the Capitol and rioters tried to stop the routine, ceremonial certification of election results.
Notably, almost no Republicans joined Biden and the Democrats in what some hoped would be a day of reconciliation. Instead, it was a fresh and jarring display of a nation still deeply torn by the lies that led to the riot, by its unsettled aftermath and Trump’s persisting grip on a large swath of the country.
“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. “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Biden’s criticism of the defeated president was rife with condemnation for the assault that has fundamentally changed Congress and the nation, and has raised global concerns about the future of American democracy.
His voice booming at times, reverberating in the ornate Statuary Hall where rioters had laid siege, the president called on Americans to remember what they saw Jan. 6 with their own eyes: the mob attacking police and breaking windows, a Confederate flag inside the Capitol, gallows erected outside amid calls to hang the vice-president — all while Trump sat at the White House watching on TV.
“The former president’s supporters are trying to rewrite history,” Biden said, incredulous.
“They want you to see Election Day as the day of insurrection and the riot that took place here on January 6 as a true expression of the will of the people. Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country, to look at America? I cannot.”
Until the anniversary, Biden had mentioned the attack only sparingly, but he aggressively weighed in Thursday and coupled his message with a call for voting rights legislation that Democrats have long been urging.
The president’s remarks drew a stark contrast with the false narratives that persist about the Capitol assault, including the continued refusal by many Republicans to affirm that Biden won the 2020 election. Five people died in the Capitol siege and its immediate aftermath.
“We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie,” Biden said. “The former president of the United States of America has spread a web of lies about the 2020 election.”
Yet even as the president spoke, the vanquished Trump gave no signs of letting go, a show of the division in the country emphasized by the silence and absence of most Republicans to join Biden at the Capitol.
From Florida, Trump revived his unfounded attack on the elections. He accepted no responsibility for sending the thousands of supporters to the Capitol that day when he told them to “fight like hell.” By Thursday evening, he was sending out a fundraising appeal.
Even among congressional Republicans who condemned the attack in the days afterward, few spoke that way now — some joining in Trump’s false portrayals.
“What brazen politicization of January 6 by President Biden,” tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a sometimes Trump confidant who had initially said he had abandoned Trump after the riot only to quickly embrace him again.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell — who at the time said Trump was “practically and morally” responsible the attack — issued a statement that highlighted the gravity of that day, but also said some Democrats were trying to exploit it for other purposes. Rep. Liz Cheney, vice-chair of the House committee investigating the attack and one of the few GOP lawmakers attending the Capitol ceremonies, warned that “the threat continues.” Trump, she said, “continues to make the same claims that he knows caused violence on January 6.”
“Unfortunately, too many in my own party are embracing the former president, are looking the other way or minimizing the danger,” she told NBC’s Today show. “That’s how democracies die. We simply cannot let that happen.”
She was joined by her father Dick Cheney, the former vicepresident and now a Republican Party elder. They were the only members of the GOP seen for a moment of silence on the House floor.