President Joe Biden gave remarks today on the first anniversary of the U.S. Capitol protests of January 6, 2021. The President spoke for nearly twenty-five minutes from Statuary Hall in the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
“My fellow Americans, to state the obvious, one year ago today in this sacred place, democracy was attacked, simply attacked,” Biden said. “The will of the people was under assault. The Constitution, our Constitution, faced the gravest of threats.”
Some protestors also turned into rioters as they gained entry into the Capitol building and destroyed property.
“We all heard the police officers who were there that day testify to what happened,” Biden said. “One officer called it, quote, ‘a medieval battle’ and said that he was more afraid that day than he was fighting the war in Iraq. They’ve repeatedly asked since that day, ‘How dare anyone, anyone, diminish, belittle, or deny the hell they were put through, we saw with our own eyes?’ Rioters menaced these halls, threatening the life of the speaker of the House, literally erecting gallows to hang the vice president of the United States of America.”
Biden said that the “armed insurrection” was conducted by people looking to “deny the will of the people.”
Republican Senator Lindsay Graham was one of the first politicians to remark following Biden’s speech and tweeted, “What brazen politicization of January 6 by President Biden. I wonder if the Taliban who now rule Afghanistan with al-Qaeda elements present, contrary to President Biden’s beliefs, are allowing this speech to be carried?”
On Wednesday, January 5, 2022, Trump canceled a press conference he had planned to hold in Florida on the anniversary of the protest at the Capitol, the Miami Herald reports. Trump said in a statement that he would instead be discussing his complaints at his first rally of 2022. The rally is planned in Arizona later this month.
Before the events of January 6, 2021, Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” against Biden’s victory at a “Save America” rally.
As Congress prepared to certify Biden’s victory in the November 2020 general election, Biden repeatedly referred to Trump as “the previous president” and publicly blamed him for the violence erupting at the U.S. Capitol last year.
When questioned why he did not mention Trump by name after his address today, Business Insider reports Biden said, “I didn’t want to turn it into a modern political war between myself and the [previous] president… It’s a lot more than that.”
Congressman Gaetz and Greene had their own press conference representing a different perspective.
"We did not want the Republican voice to go unheard and we did not want today's historical narrative to be hijacked and captured by those who were the true insurrectionists." @RepMattGaetz pic.twitter.com/6ZoInjhidh
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) January 6, 2022
Greene also posted to Twitter that Democrats trying to pin last years’ events as “one of the worst attacks in American history… are lying.” Greene included a video that begins with President Bush speaking after the attack on 9/11 followed by a series of clips of people commenting on the events on January 6. The video can be seen below:
When Democrats and their spokesmen in the media claim January 6th was one of the worst attacks in American history, they are lying.
Here’s the truth. pic.twitter.com/AIEhaKZzjd
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) January 6, 2022
President Biden’s full speech can be found here.
Note: This article was updated on January 7 at 8:29 am to add additional information.
He said terrible things about President Trump which were not true and if anything, the things he said fit him better than.