President Biden plans to address the nation Thursday from the U.S. Capitol, marking the first anniversary of its attack by a violent mob of supporters of President Donald Trump as Congress met to confirm Biden’s electoral college victory. Biden is expected to squarely blame Trump for the assault and ask, “Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies?”
Democratic House leaders have planned a full day of commemorative activities, including testimonials from lawmakers, commentary from historians and a prayer vigil. Senate Democrats plan to deliver floor speeches about the day. Republican leaders do not plan to participate. The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection resulted in five deaths and injured about 140 members of law enforcement.
No Republican leaders have said they plan to attend Jan. 6 commemoration at Capitol
No members of Republican leadership have said they plan to attend Thursday’s events commemorating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
The Washington Post contacted the offices of Senate and House GOP leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Minority Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.).
McConnell will be in Atlanta for the funeral of the late senator Johnny Isakson (Ga.), according to a spokesman. Scalise will be in his Louisiana district, his spokeswoman said.
In a statement Thursday, Scalise condemned the violence on Jan. 6, sought to equate it with the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020, criticized the bipartisan committee investigating the attack and argued that Democrats were “politicizing” Jan. 6.
No other members of GOP leadership responded to The Post’s requests for comment.
Former president Donald Trump had been planning to hold a news conference at his private Mar-a-Lago Club but canceled it Tuesday night, blaming the media and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
Two of Trump’s most vocal supporters in the House — Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — will hold a news conference Thursday afternoon in the Cannon House Office Building, where they will deliver “a Republican response” to the commemorations of the attack.
Gaetz and Greene have defended the rioters who launched the insurrection, hailing them as “patriots,” and have embraced Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
Biden, Harris to speak from Statuary Hall, breached by pro-Trump mob last year
Biden and Vice President Harris will deliver remarks Thursday from National Statuary Hall, a stately space at the Capitol previously best known for its collection of statues contributed by each of the 50 states.
A year ago, Statuary Hall was one of the many areas of the Capitol breached by pro-Trump supporters as they sought to stop the confirmation of Biden’s electoral college win. At the time, a stunned former senator Claire McCaskill, watching protesters carrying “Trump 2020” flags stream through Statuary Hall live on television, told MSNBC at the time, “That’s Statuary Hall … You can’t get through with a hairbrush that’s metal! How did they get through with a flag pole, through the metal detectors?”
From that same space Thursday, Biden is expected to mark the anniversary of the attack and to question if the U.S. will be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm.
“Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies?” Biden will say, according to prepared text of his speech from the White House. “We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation. The way forward is to recognize the truth and to live by it.”
Video: Is the Capitol any safer a year after Jan. 6?
Schumer says nearly every GOP lawmaker fears Trump
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that nearly every Republican lawmaker is afraid of Trump and chided the top two GOP leaders in Congress, saying their “courage and outrage” at Trump from a year ago is now gone.
During an appearance on “CBS This Morning,” Schumer said that he is “eager to work with Republicans to restore our democracy.”
“The problem is so far just about every one of them is so afraid of Donald Trump,” Schumer said. “Even when they whisper to us that they don’t like what he’s saying, that they don’t agree with what he’s saying, they’re afraid to resist him. He has a power over the Republican Party now that is damaging.”
Schumer also took aim at Trump for continuing to spread the “big lie” that he won the 2020 election.
“This man, he’s such an egotist,” Schumer said. “He can’t accept that he lost the election fairly and squarely. Instead, he’s eroding our democracy.”
Speaking of the attack on the Capitol a year ago, Schumer said, “We had some great moments that day.”
He recalled meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) about resuming the count of electoral college votes after the rioters had been cleared from the Capitol.
“When we went to that secret place, McConnell, McCarthy, Pelosi and I said we’re going to come back at 8 p.m. and count the votes,” Schumer said. “But that moment of courage and outrage by McConnell and McCarthy are gone. They’re following Trump.”
Analysis: On the Jan. 6 anniversary, Republican candidates embrace the ‘big lie’
If there’s one thing that has become clear in the year since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, it’s that the most violent assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812 was not the turning point away from Trump that some Republicans expected. Instead, more and more members of the GOP have embraced his false claims of election fraud and whitewashed the violence that wracked the Capitol that day.
Fact Checker: A guide to what we know about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol
“The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!”
— Former president Donald Trump, in a statement, Oct. 21
“The events of January 6, 2021, marked the most significant assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812.”
— Judge Patricia Millett, U.S. Court of Appeals, in an opinion issued Dec. 9
These quotes signify the vast gulf of understanding about the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Biden to say United States must decide ‘what kind of nation we are going to be’
During his remarks Thursday, Biden will say that the United States “must decide what kind of nation we are going to be,” according to an excerpt released by the White House.
“Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?” Biden plans to say. “Are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people? Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies? We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation. The way forward is to recognize the truth and to live by it.”
Pence, who was targeted by pro-Trump mob, plans no public appearances
Former vice president Mike Pence, who became a target of the violent pro-Trump mob a year ago, has no planned public appearances on Thursday.
Pence drew Trump’s ire on Jan. 6, 2021, for refusing to use his largely ceremonial position overseeing the count of electoral college votes by Congress to alter the results.
Chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” echoed throughout the Capitol after it was breached by Trump supporters that day. Secret Service officers whisked Pence to a room off the Senate floor, with his wife and daughter, for his safety.
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the House Jan. 6 select committee, has said his panel would like to talk to Pence about what transpired that day.
Biden to squarely blame Trump for Jan. 6 assault
Biden will squarely blame Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and for continuing to propagate falsehoods and unrest over the past year, when he speaks Thursday on the first anniversary of the insurrection.
“President Biden will lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol, the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage that we saw,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday. She added that Biden “has been clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy and how the former president constantly works to undermine basic American values and rule of law.”
Biden has criticized Trump by name on only a few occasions during his first year in office, and aides have made it clear he is reluctant to stir partisan fires or elevate Trump’s falsehoods. But some Democrats argue that Biden urgently needs to take on Trump more directly as the leader of a movement that is challenging America’s democracy.
How Republicans became the party of Trump’s election lie after Jan. 6
On the Saturday in November 2020 when Joe Biden was declared president-elect, Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno took to Twitter to congratulate Biden and his running mate and to urge his “conservative friends” to accept the results of the presidential election.
He wrote that there was probably some fraud and illegal votes cast, but he concluded, “Was it anywhere near enough to change the result, no.”
But just over a year later, Moreno — now a candidate in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary — has deleted the tweets calling for unity and, in a new campaign ad, looks directly into the camera and declares, “President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right.”
Garland: DOJ will hold those responsible for Jan. 6 riot accountable
Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed to hold accountable everyone who was responsible for the Jan. 6 riot — whether they were at the Capitol or committed other crimes surrounding the day’s events. Investigators are methodically building more complicated and serious cases and will prosecute people “at any level,” he said.
“The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last,” Garland said Wednesday, speaking in the Justice Department’s Great Hall in an address that was broadcast live online and by cable news channels. “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. We will follow the facts wherever they lead.”
Garland made the remarks on the eve of the anniversary of the Capitol breach as he faces intensifying pressure to do and say more about the investigation and to focus more acutely on the actions of Donald Trump and his associates.
Schumer rips Trump for pushing ‘big lie’ that he beat Biden
On the eve of the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) excoriated former president Donald Trump for continuing to push the “big lie” that he won the 2020 election. Schumer said the falsehood was the “root cause” of the insurrection.
“Let’s be very clear: January 6th was not merely a senseless act of mob violence that sprung up spontaneously,” Schumer said at a Senate Rules Committee meeting. “It was an attempt to reverse, through violent means, the outcome of a free and fair election.”
“And make no mistake: the root cause of January 6th is still with us today,” Schumer added. “It is the ‘big lie’ pushed by Donald Trump that is undermining faith in our political system and making our democracy, our country, less safe.”
Facebook’s enforcement faltered before Jan. 6
Facebook’s policing of toxic content in posts by political groups fell steeply soon after Americans voted in November 2020, then surged again during the week of the Jan. 6 attacks, according to an investigation by ProPublica and The Washington Post.
The decline in the removals of groups violating Facebook policies came as the company disbanded a task force that had focused on combating hate speech, misinformation and incitements to violence during the election itself, several former company employees said.
During nine increasingly tense weeks between Election Day and Jan. 6, 2021 — a period when Facebook groups swelled with an average of more than 10,000 posts a day attacking Joe Biden’s victory as illegitimate — enforcement actions against groups faltered.
GOP officials in Arizona’s largest county affirm 2020 election was secure in rebuttal to Trump’s claims
The November 2020 election in Arizona’s largest county was administered properly and not marred by fraud, the Republican-led local government concluded in a lengthy report released Wednesday. The 93-page document debunks one-by-one vague allegations of potential problems previously identified by the GOP-led state Senate and championed by Donald Trump and his allies.
County officials said the blunt rebuttal, released on the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was intended to highlight the ongoing dangers of unfounded claims of mass election fraud.
