WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday condemned former President Donald J. Trump to intervene decisively to stop the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, saying his predecessor “didn’t have the guts to act” and betrayed the police he claims he supports.
Mr. Biden, who has largely avoided discussing the former president or the Jan. 6 investigation by a House select committee, weighed in during a statement to an organization representing black law enforcement leaders.
“The police officers were heroes that day,” the president said in videos from the White House residence, where he is recovering from Covid-19. “Donald Trump lacked the courage to act. The brave women and men in blue across the nation must never forget that. You can’t be a supporter of the rebels and the cops. You cannot be pro-insurgency and pro-democracy. You cannot be pro-rebel and pro-American.”
The president’s comments came just four days after a House committee wrapped up its summer hearing series with a prime-time meeting that highlighted Mr. Trump’s inaction as crowds of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the counting of Electoral College votes, sealing their re-election defeat. Mr. Trump did not call his vice president, his defense secretary, his military chief, his attorney general, his homeland security secretary or anyone else to send help to the Capitol that day.
Instead, testimony showed that Mr. Trump spent the afternoon watching the violence unfold on Fox News and resisting aides who continued to implore him to take action. A call from a Pentagon official to coordinate the response initially went unanswered because “the president didn’t want anything done,” according to a White House lawyer whose account was presented at the hearing. The tweets and video he eventually posted did not condemn the attack and in some cases appeared to add fuel to the fire.
Key takeaways from the January 6 hearings
Mr. Trump and his allies have no role in the panel’s work because Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, chose not to appoint anyone to the panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected several of his initial picks. . The president has not otherwise refuted the explanation for his refusal to act that day.
But his political action committee published an op-ed on Monday recalling a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general last November that noted Mr. Trump had told his defense secretary three days before Jan. 6 that there would be many protesters and he must ensure that there is enough security to make it a safe event.
During the hearings, Mr. Biden barely commented, much less addressed Mr. Trump by name, focusing on his own agenda. But some Democrats were disappointed that he was so quiet on the issue.
Mr. Biden did not seem at all restrained in Monday’s remarks to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, delivered from a podium with the presidential seal and an American flag behind him.
“On Jan. 6, we relied on law enforcement to save our democracy,” the president said. “We saw what happened. The Capitol Police, the DC Metropolitan Police, other law enforcement agencies were assaulted and assaulted before our eyes. Speared, sprayed, trampled, cruel. Lives were lost. And for three hours, the defeated former President of the United States watched it all while sitting in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office.
“While he was doing this,” Mr. Biden added, “brave law enforcement officers were subjected to medieval hell for three hours, dripping with blood, surrounded by carnage, face to face with a maddened mob that believed the lies of the vanquished President.”
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