Blame for “chaos and slaughter” – Biden settles with Trump

A year after storming the US Capitol in Washington, US President Joe Biden calls on his compatriots to preserve democracy. “For the first time in our history, a president has not only lost an election, but has tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” said Biden on Thursday in a speech on the anniversary in the Capitol. “On this day of remembrance we must ensure that such an attack never happens again.” He will not allow anyone to put a dagger to the throat of democracy.

Both chambers of the US Congress also observed the violent attack on the Capitol with a minute’s silence on Thursday. Members of the House and Senate paused for a moment in view of the outbreak of violence on January 6, 2021.

In his speech, Biden clearly settled accounts with his predecessor Donald Trump – without mentioning his name once. Usually US presidents are reluctant to criticize their predecessors. But Biden became pretty clear.

The then US President had spun a “web of lies” that led to the attack on the US Capitol. The lies about the election result are “un-American” and have led to “chaos and slaughter”. To blame: Trump. “His battered ego is more important to him than our democracy or our constitution. He can’t come to terms with the fact that he has lost. “

Biden wants to “defend this nation”

Trump incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The aim was to prevent the confirmation of Joe Biden’s election victory. The US Democrat criticized the then incumbent following the attack in the White House on television “and doing nothing”.

The Americans would now have to decide “what kind of nation we will be,” the incumbent American president implored. “Will we be a nation that accepts political violence as the norm? (…) Will we be a nation that lives not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies?” Biden warns: “We cannot allow ourselves to be such a nation. The way forward is to know the truth and live by it.”

“I will defend this nation,” affirmed Biden in his speech. “We are a nation of peace and not violence. Order and not chaos.” He said of his predecessor, “He’s not just a past president. He is a defeated former president. ”

Trump accuses Biden of “political theater” and division

Former US President Donald Trump dismissed his successor Joe Biden’s speech on the first anniversary of the storm by Trump supporters on the Washington Capitol as “political theater”. Biden “used my name today to try to divide America further,” Trump wrote in a statement on Thursday. This “political theater” is merely an attempt to distract “from the fact that Biden has totally failed”.

The former president accused the Democrats of trying to use the memory of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 “to stir up fear and divide America”. The US citizens saw through “the lies and polarizations”.

Five people were killed in the attack on the US Capitol a year ago. The attack on the heart of US democracy rocked the country. In his speech, Biden thanked the police officers and national guards who had tried to defend the Capitol from the incited crowd. He also thanked the Republicans from Trump’s party, who had sided with US democracy.

Trump does not recognize his electoral defeat, even almost a year after the change in power in the White House. He continues to claim that he was defrauded from victory in November 2020. He did not provide any evidence of this. Dozens of lawsuits against the election results were unsuccessful in the courts. Critics call Trump’s allegations of fraud “The Big Lie”.

In the parliament chamber on the anniversary with a minute’s silence remembered the storming. The Capitol is the seat of Congress, the US Parliament, which consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. (with dpa / AFP)