President Joe Biden urged Americans in an op-ed published on Sunday, January 5, 2025, to not forget the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He emphasized that the country has a shared responsibility to remember the events of that day.
The article, which appeared in The Washington Post, was released just ahead of the U.S. Congress’s meeting on Monday to formally certify Donald Trump’s election as president. This comes nearly four years after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to block the certification of his 2020 election loss.
The op-ed was published two weeks before Trump is set to assume the presidency again.
Biden wrote, “We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. We cannot accept a repeat of what occurred four years ago.”
He also reassured that the election certification process would be peaceful this time.
Biden has consistently painted Trump as a threat to democracy, highlighting Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 loss as evidence of this.
Defending democracy was a key focus of Biden’s re-election campaign, though he stepped down from it in July due to concerns about his age. Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic party nominee, has made similar accusations against Trump.
Trump, who will begin his second non-consecutive term in two weeks, continues to reject the legitimacy of his 2020 loss and has spread false theories about the events of January 6, 2021. He has also promised to issue widespread pardons for those convicted in connection with the attack, many of whom were found guilty of crimes such as assaulting law enforcement officers.
Biden expressed concern over efforts to distort the history of January 6, writing, “An unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite – even erase – the history of that day. To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes.”
He added that future generations, who will not have witnessed the riot firsthand, will learn about it through footage, testimony, history books, and the truth passed down to them. “We cannot allow the truth to be lost,” he concluded.
