U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks to mark the first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, by a mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump. The mob, riled up after listening to a speech by Mr. Trump, broke into the Capitol to disrupt the counting of electoral college votes, in an effort to prevent Mr Biden from being declared the winner of the November 2020 elections.
Mr. Biden will say that Americans “ must decide what kind of nation we are going to be,” according to a preview of the speech released by the White House.
“Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?” he will say, asking, rhetorically, if Americans would permit “ partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people.”
Mr. Trump was impeached by the Democrat led House of Representatives for ‘incitement of insurrection’ days after the January 6 attack. He was acquitted by the Senate 57-43 ( a conviction required 67 votes).
Mr. Trump, who was scheduled to hold a press conference this to mark the day at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, said he would instead discuss many “ important topics” on January 15 in Arizona. Mr. Trump blamed the media’s “ total bias” as well as members of the a House committee investigating the events of January 6 for the postponement.
However, Mr. Trump’s news conference had not gone down well with several of his own party colleagues. Some Republican Senators had publicly suggested that it would be a bad idea for Mr. Trump to attract attention to the event, with the party split between his loyalists and some who are reluctant to support or have criticized Mr. Trump’s undermining of the electoral process.
“It’s a free country and you’re entitled to say whatever you want to say subject to some limitations, but I think the country has moved on,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, according to Politico.