WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden criticized former President Donald Trump Monday for lacking the “courage to act” during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“For three hours, the defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office,” Biden said, in a taped message from the White House addressing the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
“While he was doing that, brave law enforcement officers were subject to the medieval hell for three hours.”
Biden’s comments come in the wake of Thursday’s House committee hearing investigating the attack, which focused on Trump’s failure to intervene while the riot was taking place at the Capitol.
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee that Trump did not call any officials at the Defense Department, the FBI or the National Guard to assist Capitol Police while the violence took place.
Witnesses also said that Trump was watching Fox News for two and a half hours during the riot.
Trump fails to act: This time, it wasn’t what he did. It was what he wouldn’t do as a mob attacked the Capitol
This is not the first time Biden has spoken out publicly against the Jan. 6 attack.
“We must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again,” Biden said on the one-year anniversary of the riot.
Trump is in Washington Tuesday for the first time since leaving office following the Jan. 6 riot. He will headline the America First Agenda Summit, a two-day gathering by the America First Policy Institute led by Trump supporters and former administration officials.
The latest on the hearings:Pressure campaigns, predictable violence: What we learned from all eight Jan. 6 hearings
Contributing: David Jackson
