Sign up for our daily Inside Washington email and get exclusive U.S. coverage and analysis delivered to your inbox.
Get our free Inside Washington emails
Joe Biden directly confronted Donald Trump for the first time on his role on January 6, calling on him to condemn the far-right group Proud Boys and other rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol.
During the first debate before the 2024 presidential election, Trump refused to say whether he would condemn the deadly attack.
He did not answer questions about voters preparing to cast their ballots in the next election who are concerned that Trump may have violated his oath to accept the election.
CNN host Jake Tapper tried to question him twice.
“Let me talk about January 6th,” Trump said, claiming that on that day “we had a great border” and “we were respected around the world.”
“Then he comes in and we’re not laughed at as a bunch of stupid people,” he said of Biden.
Near the end of the 90-minute debate, moderator Dana Bash asked Trump three times whether he would accept the election results.
Trump disputed this and said he would accept the results of a “fair, legitimate and good election” before launching into unfounded claims of fraud that damaged him in the 2020 presidential election.
Prior to this, Trump had repeatedly falsely claimed that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had declined his offer to deploy the National Guard under presidential command on January 6, 2021. Trump claimed to have an audio recording of Pelosi saying she would “take responsibility,” but the clip Trump referred to also includes a segment in which the California lawmaker said, “I take responsibility for not making them more prepared that day.”
Trump also claimed he told protesters to act “peacefully and patriotically.”
“What have they done to totally innocent people? You should be ashamed of what you’ve done,” he told Biden.
The former president has called hundreds of criminal defendants accused of participating in the Capitol attack “patriots” and “hostages” and has promised to grant mass pardons if elected.
“Those people are patriots? Fuck you,” Biden said. “Are you going to condemn the people who stormed the Capitol? What are you going to do about it?”
It marked the first time Biden or other Democratic officials have directly questioned the former president about his role in the Jan. 6 attack.
Trump faces criminal charges of leading a nationwide conspiracy to overturn the election results in states that Biden lost, and then failing to stop rioters who tried to carry it out by force.
He had pleaded not guilty to charges in Washington, D.C. and Georgia.
“I did nothing wrong,” Trump said Thursday, “and it would be a rigged and nasty system… He prosecuted me because I was his political opponent.”
During a September 2020 debate, President Trump ordered members of the neo-fascist Proud Boys group to “stand back and stand by.”
Months later, gang members conspired to storm the Capitol during a joint session of Congress to certify the election results, then clashed with police and stormed the building.
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three of his members were convicted of treason in connection with the Iorent riots.
Tarrio and three lieutenants were convicted last year of sedition conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Tarrio, as the group’s leader, organized the mob and led it toward the Capitol, where members of the Proud Boys tore down barricades and smashed windows to enter the building, then bragged about their actions on social media and in group chat messages that were later shared with the jury.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide soon whether President Trump will be given “immunity” from criminal prosecution for acts he committed while in office.