On the 6th of January, Biden will denounce Trump and warn of threats to democracy.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Joe Biden will deliver a speech on Thursday commemorating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol, criticizing former President Donald Trump's role in the riot and warning of the ongoing risks to democracy.
In a statement ahead of the president's remarks at 9 a.m. ET, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would "set out the significance of what happened at the Capitol and President Trump's singular culpability for the chaos and carnage that we witnessed."
The president's speech on Thursday, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, would lay out "the unique responsibility that President Trump bears for the chaos and bloodshed that we witnessed."
He will vehemently refute the previous president's claims in an attempt to deceive the American people and his own supporters, as well as divert attention away from his role in the events," she continued.
According to excerpts provided ahead of his address, Biden will remark that Americans must pick what type of country they want to live in.
"Are we going to be a country where political violence is the norm?" Are we going to be a country where partisan election officials may reverse the people's legally expressed will? Are we going to be a nation that lives in the shadow of lies rather than the light of truth?" Biden is expected to speak. "We can't let ourselves become that kind of country." The only way forward is to recognize and live by the truth."
Even while Trump and other Republicans continue to spread misinformation about the validity of the 2020 election results, Biden, who has frequently stated that Jan. 6 was one of the darkest days in American history, has been hesitant to condemn his predecessor by name.
According to Psaki, Biden was "clear-eyed about the threat the former president poses to our democracy and how the previous president seeks to undermine basic American principles and the rule of law on a daily basis."
"He [Biden] sees January 6th as a sad climax of what President Trump's four years caused to our country," she continued.
According to Psaki, the president will speak briefly about voting rights, but his main focus will be on the significance of January 6 in American history and what the country can do to avoid similar threats in the future. On Tuesday in Atlanta, Biden will deliver a separate speech on voting rights legislation.
Some Democrats, notably Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, had urged the White House to use the anniversary to reintroduce voting rights legislation. However, some Biden supporters claimed that the two issues should be kept separate, arguing that voting rights are about ending voter disenfranchisement of people of color, while Jan. 6 is about a violent attempt to overturn the country's democratic electoral process.
Following the president's speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has planned a series of festivities to commemorate the day thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a futile attempt to prevent legislators from declaring Biden's victory in the presidential election. Some House members will provide personal accounts of the incident, while historians will debate the "historic perspective" of the attack on Jan. 6.
Kamala Harris, the Vice President, is also expected to speak.
Biden was "very directly involved" in preparing his speech, according to Psaki, and the events of last year "struck him personally." She went on to say that certain Republicans' "quiet and complacency" in the aftermath of the assault "had remained" with Biden.
Trump had planned to hold a press conference on the anniversary of the January 6 attack on Thursday, but canceled it on Tuesday, blaming the House select committee investigating the violence.
According to a poll issued Saturday by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland, 60 percent of Americans believe Trump bears "a considerable deal" or "a good bit" of the blame for the attack.
According to the study, Americans' opinions are strongly divided along partisan lines, with 72 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Trump supporters saying the former president bears "just some" or "none at all" culpability.
More than 700 people have been charged with federal offenses in connection with the Capitol disturbance, and a House committee has questioned several Trump associates. Before the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans might take control of Congress and shut down the inquiry, the committee is anticipated to submit a report on its findings.
