Connect with us

Hot News

Biden to call out Trump on Capitol riot anniversary

Published




Agency Report

President Joe Biden will turn the screws on Donald Trump by calling him out Thursday for “singular responsibility” in provoking the mayhem on January 6 last year, when the outgoing Republican leader’s supporters stormed Congress.

Biden’s decision to use his speech on the anniversary to squarely blame Trump and Republican allies for their role in the unprecedented attack on US democracy will mark a sharp escalation in his approach to Trump and the riot.

Through the first year of his presidency, Biden has preferred mostly to ignore Trump, who still refuses to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and continues to spread conspiracy theories to his millions of followers about being the true winner.

But in a speech from inside the Capitol’s Statuary Hall — where exactly a year ago a Trump mob rampaged through to try and stop certification of Biden’s election win — the Democratic president will firmly blame his predecessor, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

“I would expect President Biden to lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol and the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage,” she said.

“President Biden has been clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy,” she said.

Asked if Biden would use Trump’s name, Psaki said “we’re finalizing the speech, but I think people will know whom he’s referring to.”

Earlier Wednesday, the Capitol police chief, Thomas Manger, said his forces would not be caught unprepared again, as they were last year.

And Attorney General Merrick Garland also promised that justice was being done, saying he was “committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

Advertisement
Comments



Trending