Former President Donald Trump shot back at President Joe Biden, after he called out his predecessor during his speech to mark the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol. As Biden slammed Trump and Republicans for spreading lies about the 2020 election, Trump fell back on further perpetuating the Big Lie that the election was stolen, and he called the president’s speech an act of “political theater” in a statement tweeted by his Director of Communications Taylor Budowich.
45: The Democrats want to own this day of January 6th so they can stoke fears and divide America. I say, let them have it because America sees through theirs lies and polarizations. pic.twitter.com/imisPr4b6A
— Taylor Budowich (@TayFromCA) January 6, 2022
While Biden warned that lies about the 2020 election ” held a dagger at the throat of America,” Trump fell back on familiar claims he made after he lost his bid for re-election. “Why is it that the Unselect Committee of totally partisan political hacks, whose judgement has long ago been made, not discussing the rigged Presidential Election of 2020? It’s because they don’t have the answers or justifications for what happened. They got away with something, and it is leading to our Country’s destruction. They want all conversation concerning the Election ‘Canceled.’ Just look at the numbers, they speak for themselves,” he said in the statement.
Trump also railed against calling his false claims about the election the “Big Lie,” and he downplayed the insurrection. “They are not justifiable, so the complicit media just calls it the Big Lie, when in actuality the Big Lie was the Election itself,” he said. “The Democrats want to own this day of January 6th so they can stoke fears and divide America. I say, let them have it because America sees through their lies and polarizations.”
Earlier in his statement, Trump also said that the speech was meant to distract from other issues facing the country. “This political theater is all just a distraction for the fact Biden has completely and totally failed,” he said, while listing other issues that he found issues with Biden’s handling of them, including the COVID-19 pandemic, military and more.
A few people on Twitter denounced Trump’s response, sharing a Fox News story about his statement and called him out for his statement. One asked if Trump was responding to being called a “loser.”
Trump heard Biden use his name in his speech? Why did nobody else hear the word Trump? Or does Trump refer to the word loser???https://t.co/P6tEu3tFMf
— Brain Seeker (@GermanVaccine) January 6, 2022
During his speech to mark one year since the insurrection, Biden called out the “defeated former president” and other Republicans for spreading lies about the election, which led to the riot. “The former President of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He’s done so, because he values power over principal, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country’s interest, than America’s Interest, and because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution. He can’t accept he lost,” he said in part.