Joe Biden and Kamala Harris speak as the United States celebrates the one-year anniversary of the Capitol attack – LIVE | US news

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2.23 PM GMT 14:23

Biden holds responsibility for the January 6 attack on Trump

Joe Biden took to the podium to speak on the anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and immediately came out strong in blaming Donald Trump for the gang’s actions.

“A year ago today, in this holy place, democracy was attacked,” Biden said. The will of the people was attacked. The constitution, our constitution, has faced the most serious threats.”

“For the first time in our history, a president not only lost an election, he tried to prevent a peaceful transition of power when a violent gang violated the Capitol,” Biden continued.

Updated at 2.26 PM GMT

2.20 PM GMT 14: 20

Vice President Kamala Harris said she tells young people she interviewed that the January 6 attack “reflects the dual nature of democracy: its fragility and strength.”

“You see, the strength of democracy is the rule of law,” she said. The strength of democracy is the principle that all should be treated equally, that elections should be free and fair, and that corruption should not be given any command. The strength of democracy is that it empowers people. The fragility of democracy is: if we are not vigilant, if we do not defend it, democracy will not hold. will stumble. It will fall.”

2.14 PM GMT 14:14

Vice President Kamala Harris took to the stage to speak on the anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Harris was the vice president-elect that day, but she was also a senator. Although she left the building by the time the mob closed the gates, she spoke of how her employees were forced to turn “file cabinets into barricades.”

Harris said the day now lives on as one of the worst days in American history along with the attack on Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

“What the extremists who roamed these halls targeted weren’t just the lives of elected leaders,” Harris said. “What they sought to wreck and destroy was not just a sacred building as it is. What they were attacking were the institutions, values, and ideas that generations of Americans marched, protested, and shed blood to establish and defend.”

Updated at 2.20pm GMT

2.00 PM GMT 14:00

Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris prepare to speak to the American audience from the National Statuary Hall, just south of the rotunda that was invaded by rioters during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

We will have a live broadcast for you here on this blog.

Updated at 2.13pm GMT

1.58pm GMT13:58

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell used his statement about the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — “it was a black day for Congress and our country” — to throw a bullet at Democrats.

“It was astonishing to see some Democrats in Washington trying to use this anniversary to advance the goals of partisan politics long before this event,” McConnell said in a statement. “It is especially surprising to hear some Senate Democrats cite the mob’s attempt to disrupt our country’s standards, rules, and institutions as a justification for abandoning our own norms, rules, and institutions.”

Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have been linking the rebellion — where Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the ratification of the 2020 election result with Joe Biden’s victory — with Republicans’ attack on voter rights across the country.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine has more on what Republicans across the country have done regarding voting restrictions:

Meanwhile, here’s what McConnell had to say about the rebellion a year ago:

Andy Kim (@AndyKimNJ)

Remember what Republican leaders said before the amnesia occurred. I took notes that night: Mitch McConnell (January 6th): “The mob has been fed with lies. They have been provoked by the President and other powerful people…They have tried to disrupt our democracy, it has failed…This failed rebellion.” route

January 5, 2022 Andy Kim (@AndyKimNJ)

Senator McConnell: Former President Trump’s actions leading up to the riots were a disgraceful and disgraceful dereliction of duty. There is no doubt, and no one, that President Trump is both pragmatically and morally responsible for sparking today’s events.”

January 5 2022

1.49pm GMT13:49

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was on CBS reflecting on the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, when he was “within 30 feet of these rioters.” He recounted how a Capitol police officer in a flak jacket, carrying a machine gun, grabbed him by the collar and said, “Senator, we’re in danger.”

“When democracy is in danger, it often begins with a mob,” Schumer said. “Not everyone is part of the mob, but people excuse the mob. White people are on the mob. Donald Trump is still doing it, and we’re seeing violence still going on, threats of violence, against election workers, poll workers, all over the country.”

CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings)

“If we don’t believe in the integrity of our elections, what happens to our democracy?”: @SenSchumer says he’s worried about Americans’ mistrust of future elections – and some lawmakers’ willingness to forget last year’s violent attack on the Capitol pic.twitter.com/udLMAJrqSl

January 6 2022

Updated at 2.19pm GMT

1.34pm GMT13:34

An interesting piece of information that came out of the Today Show’s interview with Liz Cheney, the deputy chair of the House Special Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, is that she said she looks forward to former Vice President Mike Pence’s cooperation with the committee — as well as the committee’s continued cooperation with Pence team.

“Former Vice President Pence was a hero on January 6th,” Cheney said. He rejected the pressures of the former president, he did his duty, and the nation should be most grateful for the actions he took that day. We look forward to continuing the cooperation we had from the former Vice President’s team members and look forward to his cooperation.”

As a former vice president, Pence was serving as Senate speaker a year ago when insurgents stormed the Capitol. He was unwilling to go ahead with Donald Trump and his plan to dominate Pence’s largely ceremonial role in the joint session of Congress to certify the outcome of the 2020 presidential election with Joe Biden’s victory.

On that day, Trump supporters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” Pence was evacuated, along with other high-ranking members of Congress. But in retrospect, Pence did his best to not talk about the attack — or talk bad about Trump at all, and stay consistent along partisan lines.

Updated at 2.19pm GMT

1.22pm GMT13:22

Here’s more from Liz Cheney, deputy chair of the House Special Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, who was on the Today Show this morning.

She told Savannah Guthrie that our institutions “have only held out because of the people who were willing to stand up against the pressure of former President Trump, the people in his Department of Justice … the elected officials at the state level who stood up to him and the law enforcement officers here in the Capitol.”

“We have come so close, and we have to realize how important it is for the system to depend on people and that it will never happen again,” Cheney said.

Guthrie asked Cheney if she thought our democracy was still in a fragile state. Cheney replied: “The threat continues.”

“Donald Trump keeps making the same allegations that he knows caused violence on January 6, and it is very important, if you look at what is happening in my own party, the Republican Party, rather than dismissing what happened on January 6, rejecting the lies about elections and making it clear that a president who engaged in these activities can never become president again—unfortunately, many in my two parties embrace the former president, look the other way and refuse to downplay the danger. “This is how democracies die and we simply cannot let that happen.”

Updated at 2.18pm GMT

1.08 PM GMT 13:08

Liz Cheney: Trump’s behavior on the day of the attack was a ‘gross dereliction of duty’

Hello, live blog readers.

Today marks the first anniversary of one of the worst days in US history: the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The day a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election result of Joe Biden’s victory – clashing with police, destroying property and leaving five dead.

In his remarks from Capitol Steps today, Biden is expected to outline Trump’s “single responsibility” for the “chaos and massacres” that day, according to the White House.

Although the attorney general, Merrick Garland, may have disappointed some critics of faster and tougher justice — particularly for the former president — in his speech yesterday detailing the Justice Department investigation, Biden’s strong stance against Trump will certainly appeal to him. preference. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a briefing Wednesday that Biden was “clearly clear” about the “threat the former president poses to our democracy.”

David Smith of The Guardian has more here:

Meanwhile, Liz Cheney, deputy chair of the House Committee to Investigate the January 6 Mutiny, said live this morning that the committee looks forward to the cooperation of former Vice President Mike Pence — who should have been evacuated from the rooms that day, As many in the mob were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

She also said Trump’s behavior on that day was a “significant dereliction of duty.”

Updated at 1.24pm GMT

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