The January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will play a key role in the upcoming presidential election, with two leading candidates for the White House pushing dueling narratives about the legacy of that day's events.
For Biden, the storming of the Capitol, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to stop the certification of the 2020 election results, was a reminder of how fragile American democracy is and the danger a Trump presidency poses to it. It became something to do. As Biden said during his 2020 campaign, this is yet another example of the ongoing battle for the soul of the nation, a theme Biden has embraced as he seeks another term in office. We are putting even more effort into
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has trivialized the events of January 6 and pushed further claims that he and his supporters have been unfairly targeted. He has promised to pardon those charged with crimes related to the riot and has condemned not only his own criminal charges against his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but also the investigation into the day of the riot. continuing.
Conflicting approaches from leading White House candidates highlight how, three years after the riot, the events of January 6 are giving elected officials a new political tool to sway voters. is reflected.
“I think obviously we're a few years apart, but it's still a top priority for some voters,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump administration official who resigned over the events of January 6. It seems like it has become.” He's framed a lot of his message around the fact that democracy is at stake, and I think that's going to be a central theme of his campaign. ”
Biden is scheduled to discuss the resonance of January 6th three years later in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on Friday, using context related to the American Revolution.
“This Saturday marks three years since a violent mob, encouraged by Donald Trump, invaded our nation's Capitol. The president sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. It was the first time in the history of our country,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters this week.
“The threat that Donald Trump posed to American democracy in 2020 will only become more serious in the years that follow,” she added. “Our message is clear and simple: We are campaigning as if the fate of our democracy depended on it. Because it will.”
Biden has been preparing for the speech over the past week and had lunch with a group of scholars and historians about it on Wednesday. The White House said the group discussed “ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions here in the United States and around the world.”
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that “presidents tend to meet with historians, which they have done in the past, before important national moments. So we're definitely going to see that.” About lunch.
The day before the speech, Biden's reelection campaign released its first paid ad of 2024, focusing on democracy and attacking President Trump. The 60-second ad, narrated by Mr. Biden, is scheduled to air in key battleground states starting next week and features Mr. Trump “eroding American democracy and excusing and even promoting political violence.” He claims to have made an effort.
Friday's remarks will be Biden's fifth major speech focused on democracy. The fourth time was in the battleground state of Arizona in September, when he called out the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Trump critic and longtime friend of Biden.
The president's other speeches on democracy will be in January 2022 on the one-year anniversary, January 6, 2022, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in September 2022, and in Washington, D.C., in November, days before the midterm elections. It was conducted.
“[Biden’s] Not known for harsh political rhetoric or pearl-clutching, the public listens when he speaks about threats to democracy. “His speech on the January 6th anniversary is important not just for its political impact, but because we can never forget what Donald Trump did,” said Democratic strategist Michael Starr Hopkins. Ta.
The president has increasingly targeted Trump in recent statements, particularly in his speeches to donors at fundraisers across the country.
During a visit to Philadelphia last month, Biden said Trump posed a threat to democracy and highlighted 2026 as a notable anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“I don't think this country will turn to Donald Trump on the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding. Imagine, everyone, at that moment, what do we want to be?” Biden said. “If we do our job in 2024, we will have done something that generations have done. We could literally say we saved democracy.”
Meanwhile, Trump is spending Saturday's third anniversary on the campaign trail, planning two events in Iowa ahead of the state's key caucuses. He has chanted January 6th before during rallies, most notably at the first event of his 2024 campaign in Waco, Texas, last April, for his role in He put his hand on his chest while a song was being sung by a group of inmates. attack.
But the events of January 6 also pose a major source of legal trouble for Trump as he seeks the Republican nomination and returns to the White House in 2024.
Trump was charged by federal prosecutors in August with trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, and his supporters tried to halt the official process to certify the results1. It culminated in the riots on June 6th.
If the Colorado and Maine decisions were to pass, President Trump would be removed from the ballot for insurrection and his second term would be barred under the terms of the 14th Amendment. It will be done. The Trump campaign is appealing both rulings, and Trump plans to remain on the ballot in those states until the lawsuits play out legally.
The former president falsely claimed in the weeks following the 2020 election that the election was fraudulent and fraudulent. He then told his supporters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, the day Congress was scheduled to certify the results.
Trump downplayed the events of January 6 while on the campaign trail, framing his charges and indictments against hundreds of rioters as politically motivated.
“I call them 'J-6 hostages,' not prisoners of war. I call them hostages, but what happened? And you know, it's unfortunate. ,” President Trump said at a rally in November.
The former president has said he would consider pardoning some of those charged in connection with the Capitol attack and spoke at a fundraiser for the Jan. 6 defendants earlier this year.
Some of Mr. Trump's allies consider the Democratic focus on January 6 overblown.
“Every morning when Democrats wake up and look at their calendars, their iPhones say January 6, 2021. The date never changes,” Kellyanne Conway, a former senior aide to President Trump, recently told Fox News. He said this in an appearance. “And they get in electric cars and go get abortions. He explained the Democratic Party in seven seconds.”
But ahead of the third anniversary of the attacks, polls show that January 6 still resonates with many voters.
a University of Maryland survey after University of Washington A report released Tuesday found that 53% of Americans say Mr. Trump bears at least “a fair amount” of responsibility for the attack on the Capitol.
The poll also found that 55% of Americans say the events of January 6th should never be forgotten, including 86% of Democrats and 53% of independents. , indicating that the issue could effectively reveal the type of voters Biden will need to win re-election.
But in a sign of President Trump's continued claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent, the poll found that 62% of Americans said Biden's victory was legitimate, 7 percentage points higher than 2021. It was also found that there was a decrease.
“President Biden has the trust of the American people, and we are deeply concerned about how delicate our democratic experiment could be if it were to fall into the wrong hands,” said Hopkins, CEO of Northern Star Strategies. We owe it to them to never forget what will become.”
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