Biden says Trump ‘lacked the courage to act’ in stopping Jan 6 Capitol riot – National

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 braveness to behave” as hours of “medieval hell” unfolded.

“Day by day we depend on regulation enforcement to avoid wasting lives. Then, on Jan. 6, we relied on regulation enforcement to avoid wasting our democracy,” Biden stated in a prerecorded speech to the Nationwide Group of Black Regulation Enforcement Executives’ annual convention in Orlando, Florida.

Biden, who stays in isolation within the household quarters of the White Home after testing constructive for COVID-19 final week, has beforehand slammed Trump for serving to to incite the mob on Jan. 6, 2021, with a “internet of lies” in regards to the 2020 presidential election being marred by widespread voter fraud that by no means truly occurred.

However his feedback to the convention had been the clearest hyperlink Biden has made between Trump and the rebellion since a Home 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 regulation enforcement companies had been attacked and assaulted earlier than our very eyes. Speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized,” stated Biden, whose voice remains to be raspy and deeper than standard as he recovers from the consequences of the coronavirus. “Lives had been misplaced. And for 3 hours, the defeated former president of the USA watched all of it occur as he sat within the consolation of the non-public eating room subsequent to the Oval Workplace.”

He added that whereas Trump was “doing that, courageous regulation enforcement officers are topic to the medieval hell for 3 hours.”

That referenced Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump administration White Home aide, testifying earlier than the Home 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 “nobody to position a dagger on the throat of our democracy,” but additionally famous then that he’d not had time to observe the primary installment.

The committee held its closing summer time listening to final week, which targeted on Trump’s failing to assist disperse attackers overrunning the Capitol _ at the same time as prime aides and members of his household implored him to name for an finish to the violence.

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

Trump plans to be in Washington on Tuesday to deal with 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 speak about.”

In his pre-taped feedback, Biden famous that regulation enforcement officers in the course of the rebellion 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 courageous ladies and men in blue all throughout this nation ought to always remember that. You’ll be able to’t be pro-insurrection and pro-cop. You’ll be able to’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. You’ll be able to’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American.”