Congress on Thursday will mark the one year since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters sought to stop the counting of electoral votes and overturn the 2020 election results. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to speak at the Capitol, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced several events, which will be live-streamed.
“These events are intended as an observance of reflection, remembrance and recommitment, in a spirit of unity, patriotism and prayerfulness,” she said in a letter to her Democratic colleagues.
A House pro forma session will be held on the House floor at noon, with prayer, a statement from the chair and a moment of silence. At 1 p.m., Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden will moderate a conversation between historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham to establish and preserve the narrative of January 6.
At 2:30 p.m., members of Congress will reflect on January 6, presided over by Representative Jason Crowe. A prayer vigil will be held at 5:30.
CBSN, CBS News’ 24/7 streaming network, will stream the president and vice president’s remarks as well as the House events live. Throughout the day, CBSN will feature interviews with lawmakers including Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, and discussions with CBS News journalists including chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes, chief justice and national affairs correspondent Jeff Pegues, senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe and correspondents Kris Van Cleave and Nikole Killion. CBSN will also offer first-person reflections of what happened on January 6 and in the year since.
CBSN’s flagship politics show, “Red & Blue,” will broadcast a special edition at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET, led by anchor Elaine Quijano in New York and CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in Washington, D.C. They will feature conversations with CBS News chief political analyst and senior national correspondent John Dickerson, elections and surveys director Anthony Salvanto and senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge.
“CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil will anchor the broadcast from the U.S. Capitol. Dokoupil will sit down with Americans on different sides of the political spectrum to explore mistrust in institutions and what that means for future elections. The show will report on how the sheer scale of the attack wasn’t known for several weeks and months, featuring Jeff Pegues, Kris Van Cleave, Nancy Cordes and John Dickerson.
Five people died as a result of the violence on January 6, and former President Trump was impeached on a charge of inciting the violence (he was later acquitted by the Senate). The House of Representatives has set up a select committee to investigate the origins of the attack.
In a letter to his Democratic colleagues this week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote that January 6 participants were “fueled by conspiracy and the ravings of a vengeful former president” and “they sought to destroy our Republic.”
Schumer continued that Senate Democrats will “will make clear that what happened on January 6th and the one-sided, partisan actions being taken by Republican-led state legislatures across the country are directly linked, and we can and must take strong action to stop this antidemocratic march.” He called for the Senate to change its rules around debate and announced the Senate will debate and vote before Martin Luther King Jr. Day on changing the rules if the GOP blocks voting rights legislation.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote in a letter to Republican colleagues that the “actions of that day were lawless and as wrong as wrong can be.” But he continued that Democrats are “using it as a partisan political weapon to further divide our country.”
