WASHINGTON (AP) — During the first presidential debate, Republican Donald Trump sidestepped the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, deflected blame for the violent mob siege and repeatedly refused to state unequivocally that he will accept the results of this year’s election for the White House.
And President Joe Biden, who has said the job of his presidency is to restore the soul of the nation, has failed and floundered. He has failed to forcefully confront, contradict and hold Trump, the indicted former president, accountable for the attack on the election – and democracy.
It’s an extraordinary moment, or lack thereof, that democratic advocates find troubling. The sweeping attempt to overturn the 2020 election and the subsequent insurrection that defined Trump’s presidency fade from view during the opening debate of the general election campaign.
Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompsonthe Democrat who chaired the House committee investigation on January 6 during the last Congress said it is a very unfortunate situation.
“We could have a January 6, 2.0,” Thompson said outside the Capitol on Friday.
The outcome underscores the choice Americans face this fall, as the 2020 election row remains fundamental to but also overshadowed by the 2024 campaign, despite Trump’s federal indictment four years ago has started to undo the results. -until the violent siege and despite the convictions of more than a thousand people in the attack on the Capitol.
This is happening as the Supreme Court is reviewing cases related to January 6. Among other things, a ruling was made on Friday that makes it easier for some rioters to challenge their charges and convictions. A ruling is expected on Monday on whether Trump can claim immunity in the federal election case.
All things considered, what seemed politically untenable when a defeated Trump departed Washington in despair on Biden’s Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021, is now within reach, as the president who tried to overturn an election is the presumptive Republican nominee and is headed back to an Oval Office.
“We are four months away from the first presidential election since a violent attack on our Capitol. … And the man responsible for that — Donald Trump — is currently the leading candidate,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Democracy, which works to challenge authoritarianism.
“You would think that in itself would be disqualifying, or at least the central focus of the election,” he said.
And yet, Bassin said, the topic was “relegated to a side issue” in the debate, “and the current president has struggled to make clear why this issue should be of existential importance.”
The forum itself is not necessarily to blame. The moderators pressured the candidates, asking Trump not once, but repeatedly, whether he would commit to not holding another January 6 and accepting the outcome of the election this time.
Trump insisted he had “virtually nothing to do” with the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol and tried to shift blame to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calling out his false claims reiterated about the delay in sending the National Guard.
Biden, who has roiled the Democratic Party with his disappointing debate performance, with summary answers and little in-depth thought, struggled to give a coherent response despite giving high-profile speeches about January 6, including on its first anniversary.
“Look, he encouraged those people to go to Capitol Hill,” Biden said on the debate stage.
Thompson, whose committee produced a lengthy, more than 1,000-page report investigating Trump’s months-long effort to overturn the election and the storming of the Capitol, said Biden missed a “golden opportunity” to set the record straight as millions watched the election debate.
It was up to the people who actually experienced January 6, the lawmakers who fled to safety as the mob of Trump supporters approached, to respond. Rioters, many carrying flagpoles and tactical gear, engaged in brutal, bloody hand-to-hand combat, battling U.S. Capitol Police to gain entry to the building.
“January 6th was a dark day,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on social media.
“Trump-inspired insurgents attempted to impede the peaceful transition of power,” he said. Schumer denounced Friday’s “shameful decision” by the Supreme Court, which he said will “embolden anti-democratic radicals and make it more difficult for our justice system to bring insurrectionists to justice.”
Pelosi said Trump presented “another pack of lies” during the debate. “How dare he lay the blame for January 6 on anyone other than himself, the instigator of an uprising?”
On Friday, the Supreme Court limited a federal obstruction law used to indict Trump along with hundreds of Capitol riot defendants. While the ruling will certainly lead to a reconsideration of some cases against the rioters, it is unclear how it will affect Trump’s indictment, which also includes other charges.
Trump said at a rally Friday in Chesapeake, Virginia, that something “great” had just happened in response to the obstruction ruling, to roars of “USA!” from the crowd.
“They must be released immediately – immediately,” Trump said of the defendants he called “the J6 hostages.”
A more energized Biden said at his own rally in the swing state of North Carolina: “The choice in this election is simple. Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”
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Associated Press Editor Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
