Former President Donald Trump responded during a speech in Sioux City, Iowa, on Friday, to a speech President Joe Biden made earlier in the day near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to attack Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill protests a day before the third anniversary of the event.
While speaking to supporters in Iowa, Trump called the speech Biden gave a “pathetic fearmongering campaign event,” adding that “Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure. Other than that he’s doing quite well.”
“Biden, if you take a look at what he’s doing on the border or inflation, or our military, that horrible day in Afghanistan, you look at what he’s done with energy,” Trump said. “All throughout the world, we’re an embarrassment as a country. We’ve become an embarrassment as a country.”
In President Biden's first campaign speech of the year, he denounced Donald Trump as a threat to the country’s democracy – emphasizing the former president's role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Meanwhile, Trump and GOP candidates continue their campaign efforts in Iowa. pic.twitter.com/aqPefojDzU
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 6, 2024
“Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause,” Biden said at his campaign event. “This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about.”
“Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest; it was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists, not patriots. They weren’t there to uphold the Constitution; they were there to destroy the Constitution,” the president said. “You can’t have a contest, can’t have a contest if you see politics as an all-out war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences.”
On the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Pres. Biden delivered a speech arguing that democracy and fundamental freedoms are under threat if former Pres. Trump is elected as president again. @RachelVScott has more. https://t.co/L6tzTcPSfj pic.twitter.com/2TEGFtjhfY
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) January 6, 2024
“For our country, January 6 was an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said earlier Friday on Capitol Hill. “For many of the law enforcement officers defending the Capitol that day, January 6 was also dangerous, painful and personal.”
Trump pushed back in his remarks Friday, saying, “The only insurrection is the insurrection that is taking place at our border where he is allowing millions of people from parts unknown to invade our country at a level far worse than even a military invasion.”
