Biden: Trump Spread ‘Web of Lies’ Which Started Jan 6 Riot
Biden says the 45th president started the insurrection
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President Joe Biden said former President Donald Trump stoked the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, because the "web of lies" spread to "prevent" the peaceful transfer of power.
Biden said Trump "sees his own interest as more important than America's."
Biden reflected on the deadly attack, saying that "the will of the people was under assault."
"Our Constitution faced the gravest of threats," Biden said.
"Outnumbered in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police, the National Guard, and brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law."
"Our democracy held. We, the people, endured. We the people prevailed," Biden said.
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Then Biden took a veiled shot a Trump referring to him only as "the former president."
"For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election. He tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob reached the Capitol," Biden said.
"But they failed."
Biden added that Americans "must make sure this never, never happens again."
Biden pointed to Clio, noting she documents the events of Congressional history in the journal she holds.
"Clio stood watch over this hall one year ago today, as she has for more than 200 years. She recorded what took place – the real history, the real facts, the real truth," Biden said.
"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 of Jan. 6, 2021," Biden continued.
"Go back to that day. What do you see? Rioters rampaging, waving, for the first time inside the Capitol, Confederate flags that symbolize the cause to destroy America – to rip us apart.
"Even during the Civil War, that never happened. But it happened here, in 2021."
"A mob, breaking windows, kicking in doors," Biden continued.
Biden then invoked Trump again, noting that he "had just rallied the mob to attack," and watched the riot on television, and did "nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives were at risk, the nation's Capitol under siege."
Biden said the rioters were "looking to deny the will of the people," and "overturn" a "free and fair election."
The President noted his speech was "about making sure the past isn’t buried."
Biden said Trump "created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election."
"He has done so because he values power over principle; he sees his own interest as more important than America’s interest; his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution," Biden said.
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"He can’t accept he lost, even though that’s what 93 U.S. senators, his own attorney general, his own vice president, governors, state officials in every battleground state, have all said. He lost," Biden said.
"He has done what no president in the history of this country has ever done. He refused to accept results of an election and the will of the American people," Biden said.
Biden said, "they seem to no longer want to be the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, or the Bushes," referring to members of the Republican Party loyal to Trump.
"The big lie being told by the former president and many Republicans wo fear his wrath is that the insurrection in this country actually took place on Nov. 3, 2020," Biden said.
"They want you to see Election Day as the day of insurrection."
"Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country, to look at America? I cannot."
"At this moment, we must decide what kind of nation we are going to be?" Biden declared.
"Will we be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?
"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," Biden said.
"The way forward is to recognize the truth and to live by it."
Biden then slammed new election laws in Republican-led states across the nation.
"The only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections," Biden said.
"It is wrong. It is un-democratic, and frankly, it is un-American."
Biden said that "no election in American history has been more closely scrutinized."
"Every legal challenge questioning the results in every court in this country was made and was rejected," Biden said, noting that, often times, Republican-appointed judges rejected the challenges.
He then said, "even before the first ballot was cast," Trump "was preemptively sewing lies about the vote," saying they were not "based on facts."
"He is not just a former president. He is a defeated president," Biden said.
"You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t obey the law only when it is convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies," Biden said.
"Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited, and those who called on them to do so, held a dagger at the throat of America and American democracy."
Biden added they "didn’t come here out of patriotism or principle."
"They came here in rage. Not in service of America, but rather, in service of one man," Biden said.
"Those who incited the mob, the real plotters who were desperate to deny the certification of this election, defied the will of the voters. But their plot was foiled."
He added:
"Congress finished the work, honored their oath to defend the Constitution, against all enemies--foreign and domestic."
Biden said the United States is "at an inflection point in history both at home and abroad," warning that America is "engaged in a new struggle between democracy and autocracy."
The president said that "from China, Russia and beyond, they are betting that democracy’s days are numbered," and that America "will become more like them and less like us."
"They are betting that America is the place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strong man," Biden said.
"I do not believe that.
"That is not who we are, that is not who we have ever been, and that is not who we will ever, ever be."
