The following is a text of President Joe Biden’s speech marking the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The White House provided the text of this speech:
The January 6th Coverage by Ruzeki
“Madam Vice President, my fellow
Americans: To state the obvious, one year ago today, in this sacred place,
democracy was attacked — simply attacked. The will of the people was under
assault. The Constitution — our Constitution — faced the gravest of threats.
Outnumbered and in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the National Guard, and other brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law.
Our democracy held. We the people
endured. And, we the people prevailed.
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 breached the Capitol.
But, they failed. They failed.
And on this day of remembrance, we
must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.
I’m speaking to you today from
Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. This is where the House of
Representatives met for 50 years in the decades leading up to the Civil War.
This is…on this floor is where a young congressman of Illinois, Abraham
Lincoln, sat at desk 191.
Above him — above us, over that door
leading into the Rotunda — is a sculpture depicting Clio, the muse of history.
In her hands, an open book in which she records the events taking place in this
chamber below.
Clio stood to 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. The facts and the truth that Vice President Harris just shared
and that you and I 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 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 a 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 are being
used as weapons, like spears. Fire extinguishers are 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’ve 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 it 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.
But 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, and 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 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 that’s the truth: They face up to it.
We are a great nation. My fellow
Americans, in life, there’s truth and, tragically, there are lies — lies
conceived and spread for profit and power. We must be absolutely clear about
what is true and what is a lie.
And here is 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 interests as more important than his country’s
interests and America’s interests, 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
in the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the
principles of that party, too many others are transforming that party into
something else. They seem no longer to want to be the party — the party of
Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes.
But whatever my other disagreements
are with Republicans who support the rule of law and not the rule of a single
man, I will always seek to work together with them to find shared solutions
where possible. Because if we have a shared belief in democracy, then anything
is possible — anything.
And so, at this moment, we must
decide: What kind of nation are we going to be? Are we going to 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. The way forward is to recognize the truth and to live by it.
The “big lie” being told by the former president and many Republicans who fear
his wrath is that the insurrection in this country actually took place on
Election Day — November 3rd, 2020.
Think about that. Is that what you
thought? Is that what you thought when you voted that day? Taking part in an
insurrection? Is that what you thought you were doing? Or did you think you
were carrying out your highest duty as a citizen and voting?
The former president and his
supporters are trying to rewrite history. They want you to see Election Day as
the day of insurrection and the riot that took place here on January 6th as the
true expression of the will of the people.
Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country — to look at
America? I cannot.
Here’s the truth: The election of
2020 was the greatest demonstration of democracy in the history of this
country.
More of you voted in that election
than have ever voted in all of American history. Over 150 million Americans
went to the polls and voted that day in a pandemic — some at great risk to
their lives. They should be applauded, not attacked.
Right now, in state after state, new
laws are being written — not to protect the vote, but to deny it; not only to
suppress the vote, but to subvert it; not to strengthen or protect our
democracy, but because the former president lost.
Instead of looking at the election
results from 2020 and saying they need new ideas or better ideas to win more
votes, the former president and his supporters have decided the only way for
them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections.
It’s wrong. It’s undemocratic. And frankly, it’s un-American.
The second big lie being told by the
former president and his supporters is that the results of the election of 2020
can’t be trusted.
The truth is that no election — no
election in American history has been more closely scrutinized or more
carefully counted. Every legal challenge questioning the results in every court
in this country that could have been made was made and was rejected — often
rejected by Republican-appointed judges, including judges appointed by the
former president himself, from state courts to the United States Supreme Court.
Recounts were undertaken in state
after state. Georgia — Georgia counted its results three times, with one
recount by hand. Phony partisan audits were undertaken long after the election
in several states. None changed the results. And in some of them, the irony is
the margin of victory actually grew slightly.
So, let’s speak plainly about what
happened in 2020. Even before the first ballot was cast, the former president
was pre-emptively sowing doubt about the election results. He built his lie
over months. It wasn’t based on any facts. He was just looking for an excuse —
a pretext — to cover for the truth.
He’s not just a former president.
He’s a defeated former president — defeated by a margin of over 7 million of
your votes in a full and free and fair election.
There is simply zero proof the
election results were inaccurate. In fact, in every venue where evidence had to
be produced and an oath to tell the truth had to be taken, the former president
failed to make his case.
Just think about this: The former
president and his supporters have never been able to explain how they accept as
accurate the other election results that took place on November 3rd — the
elections for governor, United States
Senate, the House of Representatives
— elections in which they closed the gap in the House.
They challenge none of that. The
president’s name was first, then we went down the line — governors, senators,
House of Representatives. Somehow, those results were accurate on the same
ballot, but the presidential race was flawed?
And on the same ballot, the same
day, cast by the same voters. The only difference: The former president didn’t
lose those races; he just lost the one that was his own.
Finally, the third big lie being
told by a former president and his supporters is that the mob who sought to
impose their will through violence are the nation’s true patriots.
Is that what you thought when you
looked at the mob ransacking the Capitol, destroying property, literally
defecating in the hallways, rifling through desks of senators and
representatives, hunting down members of congress? Patriots?
Not in my view.
To me, the true patriots were the
more than 150 (million) Americans who peacefully expressed their vote at the
ballot box, the election workers who protected the integrity of the vote, and
the heroes who defended this Capitol.
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 and
those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a
dagger at the throat of America — at American democracy.
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.
Those who incited the mob — the real
plotters — who were desperate to deny the certification of the election and
defy the will of the voters.
But their plot was foiled.
Congressmen — Democrats and Republicans — stayed. Senators, representatives,
staff — they finished their work the Constitution demanded. They honoured their
oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Look, folks, now it’s up to all of
us — to “We the People” — to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame
of democracy, to keep the promise of America alive.
That promise is at risk, targeted by
the forces that value brute strength over the sanctity of democracy, fear over
hope, personal gain over the public good. Make no mistake about it: We’re living at
an inflexion point in history.
Both at home and abroad, we’re
engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the
aspirations of the many and the greed of the few, between the people’s right of
self-determination and self-the self-seeking autocrat.
From China to Russia and beyond,
they’re betting that democracy’s days are numbered. They’ve actually told me
democracy is too slow, too bogged down by division to succeed in today’s
rapidly changing, complicated world.
And they’re betting — they’re
betting America will become more like them and less like us. They’re betting
that America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman.
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 should
ever, ever be.
Our Founding Fathers, as imperfect
as they were, set in motion an experiment that changed the world — literally
changed the world. Here in America, the people would rule, power would be
transferred peacefully — never at the tip of a spear or the barrel of a gun.
And they committed to paper an idea that couldn’t live up to — they couldn’t
live up to but an idea that couldn’t be constrained: Yes, in America all people
are created equal.
We reject the view that if you
succeed, I fail; if you get ahead, I fall behind; if I hold you down, I somehow
lift myself up.
The former president, who lies about
this election, and the mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away
from the core American values.
They want to rule or they will ruin
— ruin what our country fought for at Lexington and Concord; at Gettysburg; at
Omaha Beach; Seneca Falls; Selma, Alabama. And what we were fighting for: the
right to vote, the right to govern ourselves, the right to determine our own
destiny.
And with rights come responsibilities:
the responsibility to see each other as neighbours — maybe we disagree with
that neighbour, but they’re not an adversary; the responsibility to accept
defeat then get back in the arena and try again the next time to make your
case; the responsibility to see that America is an idea — an idea that requires
vigilant stewardship.
As we stand here today — one year
since January 6th, 2021 — the lies that drove the anger and madness we saw in
this place, they have not abated.
So, we have to be firm, resolute,
and unyielding in our Defense of the right to vote and to have that vote
counted. Some have already made the ultimate sacrifice in this sacred effort.
Jill and I have mourned police
officers in this Capitol Rotunda not once but twice in the wake of January 6th:
once to honour Officer Brian Sicknick, who lost his life the day after the
attack, and a second time to honour Officer Billy Evans, who lost his life
defending this Capitol as well.
We think about the others who lost
their lives and were injured and everyone living with the trauma of that day —
from those defending this Capitol to members of Congress in both parties and
their staffs, to reporters, cafeteria workers, custodial workers, and their
families. Don’t kid yourself: The pain and scars from that day run deep.
I said it many times and it’s no
more true or real than when we think about the events of January 6th: We are in
a battle for the soul of America. A battle that, by the grace of God and the
goodness and gracious — and greatness of this nation, we will win. Believe me,
I know how difficult democracy is. And I’m crystal clear about the threats
America faces. But I also know that our darkest days can lead to light and
hope.
From the death and destruction, as
the vice president referenced, in Pearl Harbor came the triumph over the forces
of fascism. From the brutality of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
came historic voting rights legislation.
So, now let us step up, write the
next chapter in American history where January 6th marks not the end of
democracy, but the beginning of a renaissance of liberty and fair play.
I did not seek this fight brought to
this Capitol one year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either. I will
stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to
place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.
We will make sure the will of the
people is heard; that the ballot prevails, not violence; that authority in this
nation will always be peacefully transferred.
I believe the power of the presidency
and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it; to lift us up, not tear
us apart; to be about us — about us, not about “me.” Deep in the heart of
America burns a flame lit almost 250 years ago — of liberty, freedom, and
equality.
This is not a land of kings or
dictators or autocrats. We’re a nation of laws; of order, not chaos; of peace,
not violence.
Here in America, the people rule through the ballot, and their will prevails.
So, let us remember: Together, we’re one nation, under God, indivisible; that
today, tomorrow, and forever, at our best, we are the United States of America.
God bless you all. May God protect
our troops. And, may God bless those who stand to watch over our democracy."
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