Anniversary of January 6

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, 5 years ago, Donald Trump incited a vicious MAGA mob to storm the U.S. Capitol with one goal: to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election.

Fortunately, Trump and his gang of violent extremists failed in their mission to undermine our democracy that day, but make no mistake, Donald Trump continues to bear direct responsibility for this disgraceful attack, an attack that forever scarred our political system and scarred our Nation.

We cannot, and we must not forget, what happened on January 6, 2021. That morning, my colleagues and I started the day in this Chamber, ready to fulfill our constitutional duty to ratify the electoral college votes that would elect Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States, a peaceful duty undertaken by Congress after every Presidential election since 1789.

But by the afternoon, the peaceful transition of power was obstructed by armed rioters sent to us by Donald Trump. Trump's vicious mob forced its way into the Capitol Building armed with firearms, bear spray, and baseball bats. The rioters beat U.S. Capitol Police officers with flagpoles bearing the American flag itself.

They blinded officers with chemical sprays. They smashed windows and caused millions of dollars in damage to our temple of democracy. They hunted for lawmakers in the Halls of this building. They called for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence. For several hours, American democracy hung by a thread.

Those people came into this Chamber. They desecrated this Chamber. They went through the desks of the Members of the Senate here. They hung from the walls of this Chamber. They did the same thing to the House of Representatives. They were looking for House and Senate Members that they could capture.

And our Parliamentarians, they actually took the electoral college votes out of the well of the Senate and whisked them off to safety, and we thank the Parliamentarians for their courage that day.

The insurrection, however, resulted in the deaths of several of our officers here and injuries to more than 140 members of law enforcement, who were here trying to protect the Members, trying to protect the building, trying to protect the electoral college votes.

Just this morning, I spoke to a Capitol Police officer who stood shoulder to shoulder with Officer Brian Sicknick on January 6. He was with Officer Sicknick who collapsed in the Capitol after being assaulted by insurrectionists and, tragically, passed away the next day, trying to protect this institution, trying to protect democracy.

And to this day, the brave officers who defended Congress bear the scars, physical and mental, of that dark day. And thanks to these brave officers, the rioters were ultimately pushed out and lawmakers returned that night, as I could sit at this desk after 9 p.m. that night to return so that we could, in fact, ensure that Joe Biden was certified as the President of the United States, as the winner of the 2020 election. And democracy, though bent and battered and bruised, was not broken. That is what we are remembering here this evening.

But today, we confront something that perhaps is even more sinister than the heinous violence that occurred that day. Today, we face the systemic attempt by supposed leaders, by Trump and rightwing MAGA Republicans, to erase and rewrite the truth of January 6, whitewashing the violence of the riot and calling it a ``day of love.''

I invite everyone in this Chamber and across the country to watch the footage of that day, to ask the colleagues and families of those law enforcement officers who were hurt and killed that day if they see January 6, 2021, as a ``day of love.''

On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned the January 6 criminals en masse. He gave amnesty to the insurrectionists, rightfully charged with and legitimately convicted of assaulting law enforcement with dangerous weapons in this building as they protected democracy.

And as one of the first official acts of President Trump, as he came back into power in January of 2025, President Trump chose not to lower costs for the American people or to end Putin's war in Ukraine in 1 day, as he promised, and instead on his first day in office, Donald Trump chose to betray the brave law enforcement officers who protect us day in and day out. He chose to erase the crimes committed that day for his personal political benefit.

He chose to send the chilling message that political violence in his name would not only be condoned, it would be rewarded. Trump and his rightwing MAGA supporters hailed those who carried Confederate flags and symbols of White supremacy as patriots. That is gaslighting on steroids. The true patriots are our brave Capitol Police officers who fought on the frontline and held the line for as long as they possibly could. The true patriots are the Americans that stand up for democracy and speak out against authoritarianism. The true patriots are Americans who refused to bend the knee to wannabe Kings.

Trump will continue to lie about what happened here on January 6, 2021, but the video, the texts, the personal messages from that day do not. We all saw what happened that day. We all heard what happened that day. We cannot and we must never forget what happened that day.

January 6 was not an isolated incident. It was the first page in Trump's authoritarian playbook. It marked the start of Trump's sustained attack on our democracy, on the legitimacy of our elections, on our government institutions. In just the last year, Trump has unlawfully imprisoned international students for their speech. He has exacted revenge on his political rivals. He has deployed troops in our cities to do his bidding. He has ignored court orders. He has engaged in unauthorized and illegal acts of war. And now, Trump and MAGA Republicans have set their sights on the 2026 election.

They are rigging the system in their favor by peddling lies and misinformation, by enacting partisan gerrymandering schemes and by restricting access to the ballot for millions of Americans. Five years later, Donald Trump remains laser focused on sabotaging our free and fair elections in the United States of America. This President has no regard or respect for the Constitution. This President has no regard or respect for the rule of law. This President has no regard or respect for our most sacred values as a nation. He is testing our democracy day in and day out.

And in the face of this historic test, every American must denounce the actions of those who chose to subvert our Constitution on January 6. Every American must condemn those who continue to side with lawlessness and authoritarianism over the basic principles of American democracy, equality, freedom, and the peaceful transfer of power.

Every American must stand up and say no to this wannabe King. On the 250th anniversary of our country's founding, a founding that began in Massachusetts, on Lexington Green and in Concord with ``the shot heard round the world,'' we are once again saying we will stand up for democracy. Our future demands it. We ourselves must summon the courage to fight to protect a democracy that began 250 years ago. We must show the same courage to take on a king, a dictator, a despot in the same way that those minutemen and women 250 years ago displayed their courage.

Those great patriots, they did create a Constitution under which we live here, but that is now under assault. So it is up to us to stand up--and by the way, to redeem the courage of all of those police officers, all those law enforcement officers who gave their lives and their own personal health in order to protect this institution. That is what we remember today, and we must never forget it.

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