During an address on Thursday to commemorate the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol a year ago, President Joe Biden criticized former President Donald Trump, denouncing him for sowing a “web of lies” about voter fraud and a “stolen” election and undermined democracy in the United States because he couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he’d lost.
Biden gave his remarks at the National Statuary Hall at the Capitol, the building that was overrun by extremist Trump supporters in an effort to disrupt the Electoral College vote confirming Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. In his speech, Biden said: “I will stand in the breach. I will defend this nation, and I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy. [Trump is] not just a former president, he’s a defeated former president.” Biden accused his predecessor of valuing profit and personal gain over the rule of law and the will of the people.
Biden also noted that Trump did literally nothing to intervene for hours while a radicalized mob broke into the Capitol and looked to harm members of Congress. Said Biden: “It was an armed insurrection. They were not trying to uphold the will of the people. They were looking to deny the will of the people. They were not looking to uphold a free and fair election, they were looking to overturn one.”
The president also had words for the rioters who ransacked the Capitol, saying they were not “patriots” and were not trying to save democracy. Biden said: “You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t obey the law only when it’s convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies. Those who stormed this Capitol, those in instigated and incited it and those who called on them to do so, held a dagger at the throat of America.”
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