OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Joe Biden went after Donald Trump on Thursday and accused him of “inciting” a riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 of 2020.
Speaking from Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol on the anniversary of the incident, Biden claimed Trump pushed a “web of lies” about the 2020 election because he could not accept his defeat.
Below is a transcript of his remarks:
And the whole world saw with our own eyes. The Bible tells us that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. We shall know the truth. Well, here is the God’s truth about January 6th, 2021. Close your eyes. Go back to that day. What do you see? Rioters rampaging, waving, for the first time inside this Capitol, Confederate flag that symbolized the cause to destroy America, to rip us apart. Even during the Civil War, that never, ever happened.
But it happened here in 2021. What else do you see? A mob breaking windows, kicking in doors, breaching the Capitol, American flags on poles being used as weapons, as spears, fire extinguishers being thrown at the heads of police officers. A crowd that professes their love for law enforcement assaulted those police officers, dragged them, sprayed them, stomped on them. Over 140 police officers were injured. We all heard the police officers who were there that day testify to what happened. One officer called it, quote, a medieval battle, and 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 menace 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.
What did we not see? We didn’t see a former president who had just rallied the mob to attack, sitting in the private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk, the nation’s capital under siege. This wasn’t a group of tourists. This was an armed insurrection. They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people. They were looking to deny the will of the people.
They were looking to uphold — they weren’t looking to uphold a free and fair election. They were looking to overturn one. They weren’t looking to save the cause of America, they were looking to subvert the Constitution. This isn’t about being bogged down in the past. This is about making sure that the past isn’t buried. That’s the only way forward. That’s what great nations do. They don’t bury the truth. They face up to it. Sounds like hyperbole, but it’s the truth, they face up to it. We are a great nation. My fellow Americans, in life there is truth, and tragically there are lives — lies conceived and spread for profit and power. We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie.
And here’s the truth: the former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He’s done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country’s interest, and America’s interest.
And because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution, he can’t accept he lost, even though that’s what 93 United States senators, his own attorney general, his own vice president, governors, and state officials in every battleground state have all said he lost.
That’s what 81 million of you did as you voted for a new way forward. He has done what no president in American history, the history of this country, has ever, ever done. He refused to accept the results of an election and the will of the American people. While some courageous men and women on the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principle of that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else.
They seem no longer to want to be the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes.
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