Biden says Trump lacked ‘courage to act’ throughout January 6 riot

President Joe Biden decried his predecessor for failing to attempt to cease final yr’s lethal mob assault on the Capitol, saying Monday that “ Donald Trump lacked the courage to act” as hours of “medieval hell” unfolded. “Every day we depend on legislation enforcement to avoid wasting lives.

Then, on Jan. 6, we relied on legislation enforcement to avoid wasting our democracy,” Biden stated in a prerecorded speech to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives’ annual convention in Orlando, Florida.

Biden, who stays in isolation within the household quarters of the White House after testing optimistic for COVID-19 final week, has beforehand slammed Trump for serving to to incite the mob on Jan.

6, 2021, with a “web of lies” concerning the 2020 presidential election being marred by widespread voter fraud that by no means really occurred.

But his feedback to the convention had been the clearest hyperlink Biden has made between Trump and the riot since a House committee investigating the assault on the Capitol started holding hearings in June as a part of its work to resolve all that occurred. “You noticed what occurred.

The Capitol police, the D.C Metropolitan police, different legislation enforcement businesses had been attacked and assaulted earlier than our very eyes. Speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized,” stated Biden, whose voice continues to be raspy and deeper than common as he recovers from the consequences of the coronavirus. “Lives were lost. And for three hours, the defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office.”He added that whereas Trump was “doing that, brave law enforcement officers are subject to the medieval hell for three hours.” That referenced Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump administration White House aide, testifying earlier than the House Jan.

6 committee about Trump’s mood as he sat in his eating room and watched TV as his plans to overturn the election fell aside. Biden didn’t point out the committee’s work particularly in the course of the taped deal with and has beforehand largely averted the subject. He stated after its opening listening to that the work was about permitting “no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy,” but in addition famous then that he’d not had time to observe the primary installment.

The committee held its closing summer season listening to final week, which centered on Trump’s failing to assist disperse attackers overrunning the Capitol — whilst high aides and members of his household implored him to name for an finish to the violence.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had urged beforehand that, whereas Biden had been in a position to tune in sometimes to the committee’s work, he hadn’t been in a position to focus a lot on the proceedings as he targeting doing his job as president. Whether Biden has had extra time to observe as he recovers from COVID-19 is unclear.

Trump plans to be in Washington on Tuesday to handle the America First Agenda Summit, the primary time he’s returned to the nation’s capital since leaving workplace. Jean-Pierre provided no remark about that speech on Monday, saying, “I don’t know what he’s coming to talk about.”

In his pre-taped feedback, Biden famous that legislation enforcement officers in the course of the riot had been “dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage, face-to-face with a crazed mob that believed the lies of the defeated president.” “The police had been heroes that day.

Donald Trump lacked the braveness to behave,” the president stated. “The brave women and men in blue all across this nation should never forget that. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-cop. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American.”