Biden Links Pelosi Attack to January 6: Rioters Said ‘Those Very Same Words’
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President Biden on Wednesday conflated the attempted kidnapping of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the violent attack on her husband with January 6, claiming that the suspect and the rioters who stormed the Capitol shared the same political motivations.
David DePape broke into the couple’s San Francisco home last Friday and screamed, “Where’s Nancy?” before attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer in the presence of responding police officers. Pelosi sustained a fractured skull in the targeted attack.
Almost two years ago, as they roamed the hallways of the Capitol searching for Democratic political officials as well as former vice president Mike Pence, January 6 participants uttered those “very same words,” Biden claimed at an address at Union Station on Wednesday.
“It was an enraged mob that was whipped up into a frenzy by a president who repeated over and over again the big lie that the 2020 election had been stolen,” he said. Intimidation and violence “against Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisan officials who are just doing their jobs” have been fueled by such rhetoric, Biden added.
The president pivoted to the stakes of the upcoming midterm elections, which he claimed is “democracy itself,” a common refrain from his party of late.
Attempting to appeal to both parties, he said, “We must vote knowing what’s at stake. . . . Institutions that have held us together are also at stake.”
One such foundational American institution, the Supreme Court, has faced repeated assaults on its integrity and security this past year, including the unprecedented leak of the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and the subsequent assassination attempt against conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was part of the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito warned last week that the leak of the document endangered his life and the lives of his conservative colleagues on the bench, making them all “targets for assassination.”
While Biden didn’t mention those incidents specifically, he did condemn political violence regardless of whether it is aimed at Republicans or Democrats.
“My fellow Americans, we’re facing a defining moment, an inflection point; we must with an overwhelming unified voice speak as a country and say there’s no place for voter intimidation or political violence in America, whether it’s directed at Democrats or Republicans,” he said.
Departing slightly from his typical fearmongering of the entire GOP as an existential threat to America, Biden clarified that the MAGA wing is a “minority of that party.”
“The nation is under attack because Trump refused to accept the results of the 2020 election,” he claimed. “He abused himself and put loyalty to himself over loyalty to the Constitution.”
Now, “extreme MAGA Republicans” are already questioning future elections, Biden alleged, noting that there are “more than 300 election deniers” on the ballot this year across America.
He made no reference to Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who recently dodged at a debate against incumbent Brian Kemp on whether she’d accept the results of the election. Abrams first rejected the outcome of the 2018 election for the position, which she lost by more than 50,000 votes, claiming that it was “rigged.” She said she acknowledged later that Kemp’s victory was legitimate.
“This is not about me,” Biden said Wednesday. “This is about all of us. It’s about what makes America, America. It’s about the durability of our democracy.”
