President Joe Biden will address the anniversary of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol with a speech Thursday calling for former President Donald Trump's involvement in the riot and warning of the ongoing threats to democracy.
In a statement, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden would lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol and the singular responsibility that President Trump has for the chaos and carnage we saw. She said that he will forcibly push back on lies spread by the former president in an attempt to mislead the American people and his own supporters, as well as distract from his role in what happened.
Biden, who has repeatedly said that Jan. 6 was one of the darkest days in U.S. history, has been reluctant to criticize his predecessor by name, even as Trump and other Republicans continue to lie about the validity of the 2020 election results.
Psaki said that Biden was clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy and how the former president constantly works to undermine basic American values and rule of law. She said that January 6th was a tragic culmination of what those four years under President Trump did to our country.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. has scheduled a series of events following the president's speech to mark the anniversary of the day thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying Biden's victory in the presidential election. Some House members will share their personal accounts of the attack and historians will hold a discussion on the historic perspective of January 6.
Kamala Harris is expected to speak.
Psaki said Biden was very personally involved in crafting his speech and that last year's events hit him personally. She said that the silence and complacency of some Republicans in the time since the attack has stuck with Biden.
Psaki said the president will address voting rights, but his main focus will be on the place Jan. 6 has in the nation's history and what the country should do to prevent similar threats in the future.
Some Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have used the anniversary to draw renewed attention to passing voting rights legislation. Psaki said that Biden would have more to say about voting rights soon. Trump had planned to hold a news conference Thursday for the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, but canceled it on Tuesday, blaming the House Select Committee investigating the riot.
A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 60 percent of Americans think Trump has a good deal or a good deal to take over the attack, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released Saturday.
The poll found that Americans' views were deeply divided along partisan lines, with 72 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Trump voters saying that the former president bears just some responsibility or none at all. More than 700 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot and the House committee has interviewed a number of people close to Trump. The committee is expected to release a report on its findings before the midterm elections in 2022 when Republicans could win control of Congress and shut down the investigation.