WASHINGTON (Reuters)-U.S. President Biden delivered a speech on Thursday at the first anniversary of the capture of the Capitol by supporters of former President Trump, accusing Trump of spreading a “web of lies” to undermine American democracy.
Biden said in a speech in Congress that Trump lied that widespread voting fraud had stolen the election from him, which could undermine the rule of law and subvert future elections. The rioters attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, smashed windows, attacked the police and forced lawmakers to flee for their lives.
“A former president of the United States of America created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He did this because he put power above principles,” Biden said. “He can’t accept his failure.”
Biden did not name his predecessor in his 25-minute speech. Afterwards, he told reporters that he wanted to focus on threats to the American political system, not Trump himself.
This tone, including a mockery of Trump’s “scarred self-esteem,” has changed Biden’s past style. He has been focused on advancing his agenda for most of his first year in office. Trump issued a statement three times within a few hours after Biden’s speech, accusing Biden of trying to divide the country and reiterating his wrong election propositions.
Trump’s behavior in the past year has broken the norm as he did when he was in office. Unlike other former U.S. presidents who failed to be re-elected, Trump refused to accept the vote results of voters and pressured his fellow Republicans to find a way to overturn the election results, but he did not succeed.
His false claims provided a cover for Republicans to pass new voting restrictions in some states. They said restrictions were necessary in order to fight fraud. And research shows that this kind of fraud is very rare in American elections.
Biden’s Democratic colleagues, a handful of Republicans, and many independent experts have stated that Trump’s persistent denial may make the future transfer of power in the United States even more unlikely to be peaceful–especially because the vote gap is more than Biden’s victory in 2020. Election with a narrower electoral gap. Biden won the presidency nationwide in 2020 by a margin of 7 million votes.
This speech showed that Biden and other Democrats remain wary of Trump’s political prowess. In the first time after the riots, even some Republicans thought that Trump’s control of the party had been shaken, but since then, Trump has only been grasped more firmly.
“Our democracy is very fragile. On the other side of the opposition, with the help of many people, the worship of the’big lie’ is still very active, and they continue to try to rewrite or ignore history,” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal said. Said in the event.
Reuters/Ipsos polls show that 55% of Republican voters believe Trump’s false claims. These claims have been refuted by dozens of courts, state electoral departments, and members of his own government.
Trump is still very popular among Republican voters, and he is working hard to build momentum for the Republican candidates in the mid-term congressional elections on November 8. Public documents show that Trump has accumulated at least $98 million in fundraising accounts. (Finish)
Compiled by Xu Wenyan/Li Tingyi reviewed by Liu Xiuhong
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