Former President Donald Trump was uncharacteristically silent on the one-year anniversary of a mob of Trump supporters storming the Capitol, before eventually suggesting that Republicans should simply forget about the event.
Trump has spent months lambasting the Jan. 6 select committee’s efforts to link his actions (and those of his closest advisers) with inciting the riot, which resulted in the death of one Trump supporter.
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He had previously announced he would hold a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on the one-year anniversary but canceled it just days prior, and the first statement he released on Thursday failed to mention the riot at all despite frequently commenting on it over the past year.
“Due to inept leadership that gave us open borders, COVID incompetence, loss of energy independence, a military in chaos, rampant inflation, corrupt elections, and lack of world standing, our Nation, perhaps for the first time, has lost its confidence,” he wrote.
But President Joe Biden did not shy away from directly linking Trump with the event while delivering a Thursday speech from the Capitol.
Biden referred to the “former president” more than a dozen times but did not once mention Trump by name. Instead, he called him a “defeated former president” who “spread a web of lies about the 2020 election.”
“He values power over principle because he sees his own interests as more important than his country’s interest and America’s interest,” the president said. “Because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution.”
Trump appeared to be watching Biden’s speech and, after its conclusion, released a lengthier statement that again attacked Biden for “destroying our Nation with insane policies of open Borders, corrupt Elections, disastrous energy policies, unconstitutional mandates, and devastating school closures” before accusing Biden of using his “name” to “try to further divide America.”
“This political theater is all just a distraction for the fact Biden has completely and totally failed,” he said. “The Democrats want to own this day of January 6th so they can stoke fears and divide America. I say, let them have it because America sees through theirs lies and polarizations.”
Furthermore, Trump questioned why the Jan. 6 “Unselect Committee of totally partisan political hacks” is not investigating “the rigged Presidential Election of 2020?”
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“It’s because they don’t have the answers or justifications for what happened. They got away with something, and it is leading to our Country’s destruction,” Trump wrote. “They want all conversation concerning the Election ‘Canceled.’ Just look at the numbers, they speak for themselves. They are not justifiable, so the complicit media just calls it the Big Lie, when in actuality the Big Lie was the Election itself.”
