Biden says Trump lacked ‘courage to act’
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden decried his predecessor for failing to try and stop last year’s deadly mob attack on the Capitol, saying Monday that ” Donald Trump lacked the courage to act” as hours of “medieval hell” unfolded.
“Every day we rely on law enforcement to save lives. Then, on Jan. 6, we relied on law enforcement to save our democracy,” Biden said in a prerecorded speech to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives’ annual conference in Orlando, Florida.
Biden, who remains in isolation in the family quarters of the White House after testing positive for COVID-19 last week, has previously slammed Trump for helping to incite the mob on Jan. 6, 2021, with a “web of lies” about the 2020 presidential election being marred by widespread voter fraud that never actually occurred.
But his comments to the conference were the clearest link Biden has made between Trump and the insurrection since a House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol began holding hearings in June as part of its work to get to the bottom of all that occurred.
“You saw what happened. The Capitol police, the D.C
Metropolitan police, other law enforcement agencies were attacked and assaulted before our very eyes. Speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized,” said Biden, whose voice is still raspy and deeper than usual as he recovers from the effects of the coronavirus. “Lives were lost. And for three hours, the defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office.”