WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden forcefully blamed Donald Trump and his supporters Thursday for holding a “dagger at the throat of democracy” with election lies that sparked last year’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, using the anniversary of the attack to warn that America’s system of government remains under urgent threat.
The president set the tone on a day of remembrance that brought fiery speeches, moments of silence and anguished accounts from lawmakers recalling the terrifying hours of Jan. 6, 2021, when the Trump mob laid siege to the Capitol and rioters tried to stop the routine, ceremonial certification of election results.
Notably, almost no Republicans joined Biden and the Democrats in what some hoped would be a day of reconciliation. Instead, it was a fresh and jarring display of a nation still deeply torn by the lies that led to the riot, by its unsettled aftermath and Trump’s persisting grip on a large swath of the country.
“For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,” Biden said. “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Biden’s criticism of the defeated president was rife with condemnation for the assault that has fundamentally changed Congress and the nation, and has raised global concerns about the future of American democracy.
His voice booming at times, reverberating in the ornate Statuary Hall where rioters had laid siege, the president called on Americans to remember what they saw Jan. 6 with their own eyes: the mob attacking police and breaking windows, a Confederate flag inside the Capitol, gallows erected outside amid calls to hang the vice president — all while Trump sat at the White House watching on TV.
“The former president’s supporters are trying to rewrite history,” Biden said, incredulous. They want you to see Election Day as the day of insurrection and the riot that took place here on January 6 as a 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.”
Until the anniversary, Biden had mentioned the attack only sparingly but he aggressively weighed in Thursday and coupled his message with a call for voting rights legislation that Democrats have long been urging.
The president’s remarks drew a stark contrast with the false narratives that persist about the Capitol assault, including the continued refusal by many Republicans to affirm that Biden won the 2020 election. Five people died in the Capitol siege and its immediate aftermath.
“We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie,” Biden said. “The former president of the United States of America has spread a web of lies about the 2020 election.”
Yet even as the president spoke, the vanquished Trump gave no signs of letting go, a show of the division in the country emphasized by the silence and absence of most Republicans to join Biden at the Capitol.
From Florida, Trump revived his unfounded attack on the elections. He accepted no responsibility for sending the thousands of supporters to the Capitol that day when he told them to “fight like hell.” By Thursday evening, he was sending out a fundraising appeal.
Even among congressional Republicans who condemned the attack in the days afterward, few spoke that way now — some joining in Trump’s false portrayals.
“What brazen politicization of January 6 by President Biden,” tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a sometimes Trump confidant who had initially said he had abandoned Trump after the riot only to quickly embrace him again.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell — who at the time said Trump was “practically and morally” responsible the attack — issued a statement that highlighted the gravity of that day, but also said some Democrats were trying to exploit it for other purposes. He was absent, with a contingent attending the funeral of former colleague Sen. Johnny Isakson in Georgia.
Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House committee investigating the attack and one of the few GOP lawmakers attending the Capitol ceremonies, warned that “the threat continues.” Trump, she said, “continues to make the same claims that he knows caused violence on January 6.”
“Unfortunately, too many in my own party are embracing the former president, are looking the other way or minimizing the danger,” she told NBC’s “Today” show. “That’s how democracies die. We simply cannot let that happen.”
She was joined by her father Dick Cheney, the former vice president and now a Republican Party elder. They were the only members of the GOP seen for a moment of silence on the House floor.
Dick Cheney was greeted by several Democrats and said in a statement: “I am deeply disappointed at the failure of many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the January 6 attacks and the ongoing threat to our nation.”
Throughout Thursday, lawmakers shared their experiences of being trapped in the House or rushed away from the Senate, as the siege raged for hours. Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan showed a shard of glass from one of the Capitol’s broken windows he carries in his pocket.
“January 6 is not over,” he said, choking up. “The threat, and the lie that fuels that threat, continues to rear its head.” He said: To truly protect our democracy we need truth.”
The House panel investigating the insurrection plans to spend the coming months exploring and revealing what happened with public hearings.
Biden and his administration have come under criticism from some in his party for not adequately explaining how they believe democracy is at risk, or pushing Congress hard enough to pass election and voting rights legislation that is stalled by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Barack Obama, the former president, said “nothing is more important” on the anniversary than ensuring the right to vote.
“Our democracy is at greater risk today than it was back then,” Obama said in a statement.
Biden’s address, and that of Vice President Kamala Harris who is leading the administration’s efforts on the voting and elections legislation, appeared as a direct response to critics.
“We must pass voting rights bills,” Harris said in her address. “We cannot sit on the sidelines.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drew on history with a hope that Americans would turn to their “better angels” to resolve differences. Lawmakers held an evening vigil on the Capitol steps.
Other remembrances — or demonstrations — were few around the country.
Biden’s sharp message and the Republicans’ distance from it come as lawmakers are adjusting to the new normal on Capitol Hill — the growing tensions that many worry will result in more violence or, someday, a legitimate election actually being overturned.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed that 3 in 10 Republicans say the attack was not violent. Around two-thirds of Americans described the day as very or extremely violent, including about 9 in 10 Democrats.
The percentage of Americans who blame Trump for the riot has grown slightly over the past year, with 57% saying he bears significant responsibility, up from 50% in the days after the attack.
Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud were rejected by the courtsand refuted by his own Justice Department.
An investigation by the AP found fewer than 475 cases of voter fraud among 25.5 million ballots cast in the six battleground states disputed by Trump, a minuscule number in percentage terms.
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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Kevin Freking, Jill Colvin Alexandra Jaffe and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
Trump maintains grip on GOP despite violent insurrection
WASHINGTON (AP) — As a raging band of his supporters scaled walls, smashed windows, used flagpoles to beat police and breached the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn a free and fair election, Donald Trump’s excommunication from the Republican Party seemed a near certainty, his name tarnished beyond repair.
Some of his closest allies, including Fox News Channel hosts like Laura Ingraham, warned that day that Trump was “destroying” his legacy. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough,” said his friend and confidant Sen. Lindsey Graham. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader who worked closely with Trump to dramatically reshape the judiciary, later denounced him as “morally responsible” for the attack.
But one year later, Trump is hardly a leader in exile. Instead, he is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and a leading contender for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Trump is positioning himself as a powerful force in the primary campaigns that will determine who gets the party’s backing heading into the fall midterms, when control of Congress, governor’s offices and state election posts are at stake. At least for now, there’s little stopping Trump as he makes unbending fealty to his vision of the GOP a litmus test for success in primary races, giving ambitious Republicans little incentive to cross him.
“Let’s just say I’m horrendously disappointed,” said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a longtime Republican who now serves on the advisory committee of the Renew America Movement, a group trying to wrest the party away from Trump’s control.
“His ego was never going to let him accept defeat and go quietly into the night,” she added. “But what I am surprised by is how deferential so many of the Republican elected officials” have been.
Rather than expressing any contrition for the events of Jan. 6, Trump often seems emboldened and has continued to lie about his 2020 election loss. He frequently — and falsely — says the “real” insurrection was on Nov. 3, the date of the 2020 election when Democrat Joe Biden won in a 306-232 Electoral College victory and by a 7 million popular vote margin.
Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed.
Undaunted, Trump is preparing for another run for the White House in 2024, and polls suggest that, at the moment, he would easily walk away with the GOP nomination.
For Trump, the extraordinary outcome is the product of sheer will and a misinformation campaign that began long before the election, when he insisted the only way he could lose was if the election was “rigged” and wouldn’t commit to accepting defeat. His refusal to accept reality has flourished with the acquiescence of most Republican leaders, who tend to overlook the gravity of the insurrection for fear of fracturing a party whose base remains tightly aligned with Trump and his effort to minimize the severity of what happened on Jan. 6.
“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,” Biden said in a speech Thursday at the Capitol that did not mention Trump by name. “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 means more to him than our democracy or our Constitution. He can’t accept he lost.”
Trump responded, accusing Biden of using his name “to try to further divide America.”
“This political theater is all just a distraction for the fact Biden has completely and totally failed,” he said in a statement.
At least nine people who were at the Capitol died during or after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber. But less than half of Republicans recall the attack as violent or extremely violent, according to a poll released this week by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. About 3 in 10 Republicans said the attack was not violent.
The situation has stunned and depressed critics in both political parties who were convinced the insurrection would force Republicans to abandon the Trump era once and for all. He became the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. The second impeachment centered on his role in sparking the insurrection, but Trump was acquitted in a Senate trial, a clear indication that he would face few consequences for his actions.
“There was this hope when we were in the safe room that we would go back and the Republicans would see how crazy this was, how fragile our democracy was, what President Trump had done, and that they would renounce that and we would all come together,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., describing the events that day. Instead, she said, “there were people defending the insurrectionists and defending Trump and continuing with the challenge and the Big Lie.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican who, with Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, has emerged as one of the few GOP anti-Trump critics in Congress, had predicted Trump’s hold on the party would “be gone” by the summer. But Kinzinger, who recently announced his decision not to run for reelection, blamed House Republican leader and Trump ally Kevin McCarthy for proving him wrong.
“What I underestimated was the impact that one person would have on that, and that is Kevin McCarthy and his visit to Mar-a-Lago,” Kinzinger said, referring to a trip McCarthy took to Florida in late January 2021 as the party was on the verge of disarray. With their eyes on retaking the House in 2022, Trump and McCarthy agreed to work together and released a photograph showing them smiling side by side.
“Kevin McCarthy is legitimately, singlehandedly the reason that Donald Trump is still a force in the party,” Kinzinger said. “That full-hearted embrace, I saw firsthand in members, made them not just scared to take on Trump but in some cases also full-heartedly embrace him.”
Aides to McCarthy didn’t respond to a request for comment on Kinzinger’s characterization.
Others, however, point to fractures that suggest Trump’s power is waning.
Banned from Twitter and denied his other social media megaphones, Trump no longer controls the news cycle like he did in office. He canceled a news conference that was scheduled for Thursday following pressure from some Republican allies, who warned that such an event was ill-advised.
During last year’s most prominent elections, Republicans like Virginia gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin strategically kept Trump at arm’s length. Youngkin’s victory created a possible model for candidates running in battleground states where suburban voters uncomfortable with the former president are a key bloc.
While Trump’s endorsement remains coveted in many midterm primary races, it has also failed to clear the field in some key races. Trump has similarly struggled to prevent other Republicans from eyeing the 2024 presidential nomination. His former vice president, secretary of state and a handful of Senate allies have made frequent trips to early voting states, preparing for potential campaigns and refusing to rule out running against Trump.
“When somebody walks out of the most powerful office in the world, the Oval Office, to sit by the swimming pool at Mar-a-Lago, his influence declines,” said John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. Bolton has funded extensive national and state-level polling on the subject over the last year that has found Trump’s sway and the power of his endorsement waning considerably since he left office.
“I really think that the evidence is clear that the people are done with Trump,” Bolton said. “He still has support, but it is declining. Honestly, it’s not declining as fast as I would like to see and it’s not down to zero. But among real people, it is declining.”
Trump is also facing a flurry of investigations, including in New York, where prosecutors are investigating whether his real estate company misled banks and tax officials about the value of his assets, inflating them to gain favorable loan terms or minimizing them to reap tax savings. New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office confirmed this week that it has subpoenaed Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., as part of an investigation into the family’s business practices. Both children have been prominent political surrogates for Trump.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the Jan. 6 committee continues to investigate the Trump White House’s involvement in the deadly insurrection.
Trump still has his eyes on 2024, even as he continues to obsess over the 2020 election. After spending 2021 raising money and announcing his endorsements of candidates who have parroted his election lies up and down the ballot, Trump’s team is preparing to pivot to helping those candidates win with a stepped-up rally schedule and financial support, including transfers to candidate accounts and targeted advertising.
Trump, according to allies, sees the midterms as a foundation for his next campaign, and intends to use the cycle to position himself for his party’s nomination.
Voting rights advocates, meanwhile, are increasingly worried as states with Republican legislatures push legislation that would allow them to influence or overrule the vote in future elections. They fear what might happen if Trump-endorsed candidates for secretary of state and attorney general who say the election was stolen find themselves in positions that could sway the outcome in 2024.
“It’s a concerted effort to undermine our public’s confidence in the electoral system, so in 2022 and 2024, if they don’t like the elections — and this is Republicans — they can overturn it,” said Whitman, who also serves as co-chair of States United Action, a nonpartisan nonprofit that aims to protect the integrity of future elections. “We are in a very, very fragile place.”
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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.