The White House defended a speech by Vice President Kamala Harris comparing last year’s Capitol riot to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Press secretary Jen Psaki said people seizing on Harris’s remarks Thursday, which drew a throughline between Dec. 7, 1941, Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 6, 2021, were deflecting responsibility to protect democracy.
KNOWN CAPITOL RIOT LEADER SPENT ONE DAY IN JAIL WHILE 80 OTHERS LANGUISH IN ‘DC GULAG’
“Instead of focusing on or analyzing comparisons of moments in history, I would suggest that they be a part of solving the threat to democracy that occurs today, that is happening today,” Psaki told reporters on Thursday. “And they’re using this as an excuse not to be a part of that.”
Harris, who said the dates “instantly remind all who have lived through them where they were, and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault,” drew immediate rebuke, with critics pointing to the thousands of Americans who died at Pearl Harbor and in the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and Twin Towers that led the U.S. into war.
Ari Fleischer, press secretary to former President George W. Bush, called the move “absolutely absurd and ridiculous” in a Fox News interview.
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The Jan. 6 riot resulted in the death of a Trump supporter and indirectly led to the deaths of two U.S. Capitol Police officers.
