President Biden speaks on one year anniversary of Capitol riots
The U.S. Capitol is seen at dawn, one year after the violent Jan. 6 insurrection by supporters of then-President Donald Trump who assaulted police and smashed their way into the Congress to interrupt the Electoral College certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory, in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022.[(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)]
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is preparing to mark the first anniversary of the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Biden and congressional Democrats will start Thursday in Statuary Hall, one of several spots where rioters swarmed a year ago and interrupted the electoral count. Biden is set to draw a contrast between the truth of what happened and the false narratives that have sprung up about the Capitol assault, including the continued refusal by many Republicans to affirm that Biden won the 2020 election. He plans to highlight the ongoing threat facing the nation’s democracy by those who used or condoned the use of force to try to subvert the will of the people.
“And so at this moment we must decide what kind of nation we are going to be,” Biden will say, according to excerpts of his remarks released early Thursday. “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.”