A lone protester demonstrating towards the January 6 attacker stands exterior the Capitol throughout Biden’s speech
Madam Vice President, my fellow Individuals: To state the plain, one 12 months in the past right now, on this sacred place, democracy was attacked — merely attacked. The desire of the folks was beneath assault. The Structure — our Structure — confronted the gravest of threats.
Outnumbered and within the face of a brutal assault, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Division, the Nationwide Guard, and different courageous legislation enforcement officers saved the rule of legislation.
Our democracy held. We the folks endured. And we the folks prevailed.
For the primary time in our historical past, a president had not simply misplaced an election, he tried to forestall the peaceable switch of energy as a violent mob breached the Capitol.
However they failed. They failed.
And on this present day of remembrance, we should ensure that such an assault by no means, by no means occurs once more.
I am talking to you right now from Statuary Corridor in america Capitol. That is the place the Home of Representatives
met for 50 years within the many years main as much as the Civil Warfare. That is — on this flooring is the place a younger congressman of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, sat at desk 191.
Above him — above us, over that door main into the Rotunda — is a sculpture depicting Clio, the muse of historical past. In her arms, an open ebook through which she information the occasions happening on this chamber beneath.
Clio stood watch over this corridor one 12 months in the past right now, as she has for greater than 200 years. She recorded what came about. The true historical past. The true details. The true reality. The details
and the reality that Vice President Harris simply shared and that you simply and I and the entire world noticed with our personal eyes.
The Bible tells us that we will know the reality, and the reality shall make us free. We will know the reality.
Nicely, right here is the God’s reality about January sixth, 2021:
Shut your eyes. Return to that day. What do you see? Rioters rampaging, waving for the primary time inside this Capitol a Accomplice flag that symbolized the trigger to destroy America, to tear us aside.
Even throughout the Civil Warfare, that by no means, ever occurred. But it surely occurred right here in 2021.
What else do you see? A mob breaking home windows, kicking in doorways, breaching the Capitol. American flags on poles getting used as weapons, as spears. Hearth extinguishers being thrown on the heads of cops.
A crowd that professes their love for legislation enforcement assaulted these cops, dragged them, sprayed them, stomped on them.
Over 140 cops had been injured.
We have all heard the cops who had been there that day testify to what occurred. One officer known as it, quote, a med- — ‘medieval’ battle, and that he was extra afraid that day than he was combating the conflict in Iraq.
They’ve repeatedly requested since that day: How dare anybody — anybody — diminish, belittle, or deny the hell they had been put by means of?
We noticed it with our personal eyes. Rioters menaced these halls, threatening the lifetime of the Speaker of the Home, actually erecting gallows to hold the Vice President of america of America.
However what did we not see?
We did not see a former president, who had simply rallied the mob to assault — sitting within the personal eating room off the Oval Workplace within the White Home, watching all of it on tv and doing nothing for hours as police had been assaulted, lives in danger, and the nation’s capital beneath siege.
This wasn’t a gaggle of vacationers. This was an armed rebel.
They weren’t trying to uphold the need of the folks. They had been trying to deny the need of the folks.
They had been trying to uphold — they weren’t trying to uphold a free and truthful election. They had been trying to overturn one.
They weren’t trying to save the reason for America. They had been trying to subvert the Structure.
This is not about being slowed down prior to now. That is about ensuring the previous is not buried.
That is the one approach ahead. That is what nice nations do. They do not bury the reality, they withstand it. Seems like hyperbole, however that is the reality: They withstand it.
We’re an important nation.
My fellow Individuals, in life, there’s reality and,
tragically, there are lies — lies conceived and unfold for revenue and energy.
We have to be completely clear about what’s true and what’s a lie.
And right here is the reality: The previous president of the
United States of America has created and unfold an internet of lies in regards to the 2020 election. He is completed so as a result of he values energy over precept, as a result of he sees his personal pursuits as extra necessary than his nation’s pursuits and America’s pursuits, and since his bruised ego issues extra to him than our democracy or our Structure.
He cannot settle for he misplaced, regardless that that is what 93 United States senators, his personal Lawyer Common, his personal Vice President, governors and state officers in each battleground state have all stated: He misplaced.
That is what 81 million of you probably did as you voted for a brand new approach ahead.
He has completed what no president in American historical past — the historical past of this nation — has ever, ever completed: He refused to just accept the outcomes of an election and the need of the American folks.
Whereas some brave women and men within the Republican Occasion are standing towards it, making an attempt to uphold the rules of that occasion, too many others are reworking that occasion into one thing else. They appear now not to need to be the occasion — the occasion of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes.
However no matter my different disagreements are with Republicans who assist the rule of legislation and never the rule of a single man, I’ll all the time search to work along with them to search out shared options the place attainable. As a result of if we now have a shared perception in democracy, then something is feasible — something.
And so, at this second, we should resolve: What sort of nation are we going to be?
Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?
Are we going to be a nation the place we permit partisan election officers to overturn the legally expressed will of the folks?
Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the sunshine of the reality however within the shadow of lies?
We can’t permit ourselves to be that form of nation. The best way ahead is to acknowledge the reality and to dwell by it.
The Huge Lie being instructed by the previous president and plenty of Republicans who worry his wrath is that the rebel on this nation really came about on Election Day — November third, 2020.
Take into consideration that. Is that what you thought? Is that what you thought while you voted that day? Participating in an rebel? Is that what you thought you had been doing? Or did you suppose you had been finishing up your highest responsibility as a citizen and voting?
The previous president and his supporters try to rewrite historical past. They need you to see Election Day because the day of rebel and the riot that came about right here on January sixth because the true expression of the need of the folks.
Are you able to consider a extra twisted approach to have a look at this nation — to have a look at America? I can’t.
This is the reality: The election of 2020 was the best demonstration of democracy within the historical past of this nation.
Extra of you voted in that election than have ever voted in all of American historical past. Over 150 million Individuals went to the polls and voted that day in a pandemic — some at grea- — nice threat to their lives. They need to be applauded, not attacked.
Proper now, in state after state, new legal guidelines are being written — to not defend the vote, however to disclaim it; not solely to suppress the vote, however to subvert it; to not strengthen or defend our democracy, however as a result of the previous president misplaced.
As a substitute of wanting on the election outcomes from 2020 and saying they want new concepts or higher concepts to win extra votes, the previous president and his supporters have determined the one approach for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections.
It is mistaken. It is undemocratic. And albeit, it is un-American.
The second Huge Lie being instructed by the previous President and his supporters is that the outcomes of the election of 2020 cannot be trusted.
The reality is that no election — no election in American historical past has been extra carefully scrutinized or extra fastidiously counted.
Each authorized problem questioning the leads to each court docket on this nation that would have been made was made and was rejected — typically rejected by Republican-appointed judges, together with judges appointed by the previous president himself, from state courts to america Supreme Courtroom.
Recounts had been undertaken in state after state. Georgia — Georgia counted its outcomes thrice, with one recount by hand.
Phony partisan audits had been undertaken lengthy after the election in a number of states. None modified the outcomes. And in a few of them, the irony is the margin of victory really grew barely.
So, let’s converse plainly about what occurred in 2020. Even earlier than the primary poll was forged, the previous president
was preemptively sowing doubt in regards to the election outcomes. He constructed his lie over months. It wasn’t primarily based on any details. He was simply searching for an excuse — a pretext — to cowl for the reality.
He isn’t only a former president. He is a defeated former president — defeated by a margin of over 7 million of your votes in a full and free and truthful election.
There’s merely zero proof the election outcomes had been inaccurate. In reality, in each venue the place proof needed to be produced and an oath to inform the reality needed to be taken, the previous president did not make his case.
Simply take into consideration this: The previous president and his supporters have by no means been capable of clarify how they settle for as correct the opposite election outcomes that came about on November third — the elections for governor, United States Senate, the Home of Representatives — elections through which they closed the hole within the Home.
They problem none of that. The President’s title was first, then we went down the road — governors, senators, Home of Representatives. One way or the other, these outcomes had been correct on the identical poll, however the presidential race was flawed?
And on the identical poll, the identical day, forged by the identical voters.
The one distinction: The previous President did not lose these races; he simply misplaced the one which was his personal.
Lastly, the third Huge Lie being instructed by a former President and his supporters is that the mob who sought to impose their will by means of violence are the nation’s true patriots.
Is that what you thought while you regarded on the mob ransacking the Capitol, destroying property, actually defecating within the hallways, rifling by means of desks of senators and representatives, looking down members of congress? Patriots? Not in my opinion.
To me, the true patriots had been the greater than 150 [million] Individuals who peacefully expressed their vote on the poll field, the election staff who protected the integrity of the vote, and the heroes who defended this Capitol.
You may’t love your nation solely while you win.
You may’t obey the legislation solely when it is handy.
You may’t be patriotic while you embrace and allow lies.
Those that stormed this Capitol and people who instigated and incited and people who known as on them to take action held a dagger on the throat of America — at American democracy.
They did not come right here out of patriotism or precept. They got here right here in rage — not in service of America, however slightly in service of 1 man.
Those that incited the mob — the true plotters — who had been determined to disclaim the certification of the election and defy the need of the voters.
However their plot was foiled. Congressmen — Democrats and Republicans — stayed. Senators, representatives, employees — they completed their work the Structure demanded. They honored their oath to defend the Structure towards all enemies, international and home.
Look, of us, now it is as much as all of us — to ‘We the Folks’ — to face for the rule of legislation, to protect the flame of democracy, to maintain the promise of America alive.
That promise is in danger, focused by the forces that worth brute power over the sanctity of democracy, worry over hope, private achieve over public good.
Make no mistake about it: We’re residing at an inflection level in historical past.
Each at residence and overseas, we’re engaged anew in a wrestle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the numerous and the greed of the few, between the folks’s proper of self-determination and self- — the self-seeking autocrat.
From China to Russia and past, they’re betting that democracy’s days are numbered. They’ve really instructed me democracy is simply too gradual, too slowed down by division to reach right now’s quickly altering, sophisticated world.
And so they’re betting — they’re betting America will change into extra like them and fewer like us. They’re betting that America is a spot for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman.
I don’t imagine that. That isn’t who we’re. That isn’t who we now have ever been. And that’s not who we should always ever, ever be.
Our Founding Fathers, as imperfect as they had been, set in movement an experiment that modified the world — actually modified the world.
Right here in America, the folks would rule, energy can be transferred peacefully — by no means on the tip of a spear or the barrel of a gun.
And so they dedicated to paper an concept that could not dwell as much as — they could not dwell as much as however an concept that could not be constrained: Sure, in America all individuals are created equal.
We reject the view that for those who succeed, I fail; for those who get forward, I fall behind; if I maintain you down, I someway carry myself up.
The previous President, who lies about this election, and the mob that attacked this Capitol couldn’t be additional away from the core American values.
They need to rule or they’ll destroy — destroy what our nation fought for at Lexington and Harmony; at Gettysburg; at Omaha Seashore; Seneca Falls; Selma, Alabama. What — and what we had been combating for: the correct to vote, the correct to manipulate ourselves, the correct to find out our personal future.
And with rights come duties: the accountability to see one another as neighbors — perhaps we disagree with that neighbor, however they don’t seem to be an adversary; the accountability to just accept defeat then get again within the area and check out once more the subsequent time to make your case; the accountability to see that America is an concept — an concept that requires vigilant stewardship.
As we stand right here right now — one 12 months since January sixth, 2021 — the lies that drove the anger and insanity we noticed on this place, they haven’t abated.
So, we now have to be agency, resolute, and unyielding in our protection of the correct to vote and to have that vote counted.
Some have already made the final word sacrifice on this sacred effort.
Jill and I’ve mourned cops on this Capitol Rotunda not as soon as however twice within the wake of January sixth: as soon as to honor Officer Brian Sicknick, who misplaced his life the day after the assault, and a second time to honor Officer Billy Evans, who misplaced his life defending this Capitol as properly.
We take into consideration the others who misplaced their lives and had been injured and everybody residing with the trauma of that day — from these defending this Capitol to members of Congress in each events and their staffs, to reporters, cafeteria staff, custodial staff, and their households.
Do not child your self: The ache and scars from that day run deep.
I stated it many occasions and it is no extra true or actual than after we take into consideration the occasions of January sixth: We’re in a battle for the soul of America. A battle that, by the grace of God and the goodness and gracious — and greatness of this nation, we are going to win.
Imagine me, I understand how tough democracy is. And I am crystal clear in regards to the threats America faces. However I additionally know that our darkest days can result in mild and hope.
From the loss of life and destruction, because the Vice President referenced, in Pearl Harbor got here the conquer the forces of fascism.
From the brutality of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge got here historic voting rights laws.
So, now allow us to step up, write the subsequent chapter in American historical past the place January sixth marks not the tip of democracy, however the starting of a renaissance of liberty and truthful play.
I didn’t search this struggle delivered to this Capitol one 12 months in the past right now, however I cannot shrink from it both.
I’ll stand on this breach. I’ll defend this nation. And I’ll permit nobody to position a dagger on the throat of our democracy.
We’ll be certain the need of the folks is heard; that the poll prevails, not violence; that authority on this nation will all the time be peacefully transferred.
I imagine the ability of the presidency and the aim is to unite this nation, not divide it; to carry us up, not tear us aside; to be about us — about us, not about ‘me.’
Deep within the coronary heart of America burns a flame lit virtually 250 years in the past — of liberty, freedom, and equality.
This isn’t a land of kings or dictators or autocrats. We’re a nation of legal guidelines; of order, not chaos; of peace, not violence.
Right here in America, the folks rule by means of the poll, and their will prevails.
So, allow us to keep in mind: Collectively, we’re one nation, beneath God, indivisible; that right now, tomorrow, and without end, at our greatest, we’re america of America.
God bless you all. Could God defend our troops. And should God bless those that stand watch over our democracy.