The insurrection was unsuccessful in preventing him from becoming president, but it has instead become a persistent reminder of the divisions he once promised to heal and the fraught political environment in which he governs.īiden has made attempts to bridge those divisions by doing what he can to move on. Still, the January 6 riot has doggedly shadowed Biden’s first year in office. He has left investigating the riot to Congress and made clear he won’t interject into the Justice Department’s prosecution of its perpetrators. It’s a topic that drives Biden, according to officials, but one that hasn’t played a central role in his public agenda. I will stand in this breach, I will defend this nation, I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy.”īiden worked over the holidays to write and refine an address that was bluntly honest about the motivations and consequences of the riot, along with the threats to American democracy that still persist. “I did not seek this fight, brought to this Capitol one year ago today,” he said. “He’s not just a former President,” Biden said in his forceful remarks, “he’s a defeated former President.”īiden touched upon his deeply personal views of the assault on democracy and the attack on the hallowed Capitol building where he spent nearly four decades during his time as a senator.īut he also acknowledged it wasn’t a battle he necessarily expected or sought.

In his speech from the Capitol’s Statuary Hall on Thursday, the President wielded the sharpest language he’s ever used about the attempted coup, denouncing “the former President” 16 times for lying about the election because he couldn’t reckon with losing.

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