In the first of several planned events Thursday to mark the anniversary of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2020, President Joe Biden gave a speech accusing the rioters of “looking to subvert the Constitution”. The video above shows clips from the speech. President Biden also had scathing remarks for former President Donald Trump.
“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. He added that former President Trump “has spread a web of lies about the 2020 election.”
Biden and congressional Democrats started the day in Statuary Hall. It’s one of several spots where rioters swarmed, interrupting the electoral count of the election. Senate Democrats also gave speeches on the Senate floor Thursday morning. Other planned events include a moment of silence among House members, as well as a prayer vigil led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“What I remember most about the day is something that I find most unforgiving about it and that is the impact that it had on young people in the Capitol,” Rep. Pelosi said in a Wednesday interview with the Associated Press. “My staff in particular, young, idealistic people who come to the Capitol to partake of our government and the rest and that was an historic day for us.”
Almost every Republican on Capitol Hill will be absent from Thursday’s events. While congressional Republicans almost universally condemned the attack in the days afterward, most have stayed loyal to Trump in the year since. One notable exception is Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has joined the House committee investigating the Capitol riots. In an interview on NBC’s Today, Rep. Cheney said “the threat continues” for further damage to democracy.
“Unfortunately, too many in my own party are embracing the former president, are looking the other way or minimizing the danger,” Cheney said. “That’s how democracies die. We simply cannot let that happen.”
While Trump canceled a news conference planned for Thursday, he did release a statement. In it, he accused Biden of using “my name today to try to further divide America.”
“This political theater is all just a distraction for the fact Biden has completely and totally failed,” Trump said in the statement. “They got away with something, and it is leading to our country’s destruction.”