President Joe Biden on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot warned that the threats to democracy witnessed that day did not end when the violence stopped.
In a passionate speech Thursday, Biden condemned the “web of lies” spread by former President Donald Trump, blaming him directly for encouraging the attackers who tried to overturn the 2020 election.
“You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t obey the law only when it’s convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies,” Biden said in an address from the Capitol.
“The lies that drove the anger and madness we saw in this place, they have not abated,” he added. “So we have to be firm, resolute and unyielding in our defense of the right to vote and have that vote counted.”
Biden’s speech in National Statuary Hall kicked off a day-long program of events organized by Democrats on the anniversary of the riot, when hundreds of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol and forced members of Congress to flee their chambers.
