Playbook PM: Biden swings at Trump on Jan. 6 anniversary

From: POLITICO Playbook - Thursday Jan 06,2022 06:16 pm

Jan 06, 2022

By Rachael Bade, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun

President Joe Biden speaks in the U.S. Capitol.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a ceremony in Statuary Hall at the Capitol this morning. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

President JOE BIDEN rarely says DONALD TRUMP’s name — intentionally so. The president has told reporters in the past that he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about his predecessor, waving off questions about his antics to focus on the job at hand.

Not today.

In his speech commemorating the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, Biden skewered the former president, putting blame for the unprecedented attack on Congress squarely on his shoulders.

“His bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy, our Constitution,” Biden said of Trump, whom he goaded as “a defeated former president, defeated by a margin of over 7 million of your votes in a full and free and fair election.”

Other quotes from the speech:

— “You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t obey the law only when it is convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.”

— “I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy.”

— “This isn’t about being bogged down in the past. This is about making sure the past isn’t buried. That is what great nations do. They don't bury the truth.”

As he left the Hill, Biden said this to reporters about why he was so forceful: "The way you have to heal is you have to recognize the extent of the wound."

CUE REPUBLICAN OUTRAGE — On Fox News, anchor BRET BAIER said the remarks were “the strongest President Biden has been in a speech.” But elected Republicans decried Biden’s address as too partisan on a day of remembrance.

Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.), via Twitter: “What [a] brazen politicization of January 6 by President Biden. I wonder if the Taliban who now rule Afghanistan with al-Qaeda elements present, contrary to President Biden’s beliefs, are allowing this speech to be carried?”

From there, Graham went on a Twitter thread that touched on the events of Jan. 6, thanked the U.S. Capitol Police, bashed Democrats’ “so-called voting rights acts,” described the Biden administration as in “free fall,” and said that Biden’s “efforts to politicize January 6 will fall flat.”

Two thoughts: 1) Doesn’t that response itself politicize the date? 2) Honestly, it’s hard to truly remember what happened on Jan. 6 if you ignore Trump’s role in it, as he sat in the Oval Office ignoring pleas to call off the dogs.

Speaking of …

THE COUNTERPROGRAMMING COMMENCES — Trump might have canceled his press conference for today, but he didn’t remain quiet.

In a 270-word statement directly responding to Biden’s speech, Trump repeated many of the same old lies about the 2020 election being “rigged,” falsely claimed that ballots in Georgia were sold for $10 a piece, said “Big Tech was used illegally,” yada yada yada. Trump ended his statement with this: “Never forget the crime of the 2020 Presidential Election. Never give up!”

His most ardent followers certainly aren’t.

— Florida Gov. RON DESANTIS said that Jan. 6 commemorations were a way for Democrats and the media to “smear” Trump supporters, likened the memorials to “Christmas” for news outlets and predicted that the coverage would be “nauseating,” Gary Fineout reports from Tallahassee.

“‘Jan. 6 allows them to create narratives that are negative about people that supported Donald Trump,’ said DeSantis, who also rejected labeling the riots as an ‘insurrection’ because no one has been charged with any crimes that fit that definition. … [H]e criticized those who compared the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to the Jan. 6 riots, saying it was ‘an insult to the people going into those buildings.’”

— On Twitter, Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) teased an episode of his podcast in which he suggested that Republicans need to “take over the January 6th Committee, issue subpoenas, and put the truth, however uncomfortable it may be, before the entire country.” In a separate clip with Gaetz, Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.) echoed that call: “I’m ready to rip the whole thing wide open and expose everything.”

Suddenly, we’re having flashbacks to Gaetz and dozens of House Republicans storming the SCIF during impeachment hearings.

— Gaetz and Greene also appeared on this morning’s live stream of STEVE BANNON’s podcast. (Reminder: Bannon was indicted two months ago on criminal contempt charges for ignoring a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee.)

“We’re ashamed of nothing. We’re proud of the work we did on Jan. 6 to make legitimate arguments about election integrity,” Gaetz said on Bannon’s show. “And we’re actually going to walk the grounds that patriotic Americans walked from the White House to the Capitol.” 20-second clip

— Meanwhile in Georgia, a group of Republicans had been planning an event to honor not just “those killed or hurt during the Jan. 6 riot, but [also] the ‘“J6” Prisoners’ and ‘J6 Patriots,’” WaPo’s Jonathan Edwards writes. “After bipartisan blowback, the Cobb County GOP on Wednesday canceled what it had been calling a ‘prayer vigil,’ citing ‘mischaracterization of the event.’”

— In D.C., two competing vigils are planned for today: One outside the Capitol and one outside the D.C. jail in support of the so-called “political prisoners” held there. More from WaPo’s Ellie Silverman

SPOTTED ON THE HOUSE FLOOR, per NYT’s Emily Cochrane, for the Hill pool: “ DICK CHENEY is indeed with LIZ CHENEY, masked and chatting with STENY HOYER on the House floor. As of now, I do not see any Republicans besides the Cheneys.”

— ABC’s Jon Karl caught up with the former VP at the Capitol. “I’m deeply disappointed we don’t have better leadership in the Republican Party to restore the Constitution,” Cheney said, noting that his daughter is an exception. He told reporters later that the current GOP leadership is “not a leadership that resembles any of the folks I knew when I was here for 10 years.”

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING:

— Assistant House Speaker KATHERINE CLARK (D-Mass.) is pushing the Senate to go nuclear, citing Jan. 6 in an op-ed for Newsweek that lefties will cheer: “The Way to Combat the Horror of January 6 Is to Abolish the Filibuster” : “The vast majority of Republicans in the House and Senate simply won't put democracy ahead of their own desperate pursuit of power. Every day, they attack our democracy by promoting the Big Lie, refusing to participate in the January 6 investigation, and supporting voter suppression laws. … So, we must go it alone. And to do that, we must abolish the filibuster.”

— Cheney (R-Wyo.) on “TODAY” chided her party: “If you look at what’s happening today in my party, the Republican Party, rather than reject what happened on [Jan. 6] — reject the lies about the election and make clear that a president who engaged in those activities can never be president again — unfortunately, too many in my own party are embracing that former president, are looking the other way, are minimizing the danger. That’s how democracies die, and we simply cannot let that happen.” More from NBC

— Rep. ANDY KIM (D-N.J.) spoke to our colleagues JC Whittington and Monica Akhtar about the events of Jan. 6 and the viral photos showing him helping clean up the Capitol after the attack. With video

— Sen. MITT ROMNEY (R-Utah): “We ignore the lessons of January 6th at our own peril. Democracy is fragile; it cannot survive without leaders of integrity and character who care more about the strength of our Republic than about winning the next election.” Full statement

— AP’s Farnoush Amiri has a piece detailing the racism that was on display one year ago in the Capitol. Rep. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-Miss.), chair of the Jan. 6 committee, said: “I saw the kind of hatred in the eyes of the people who broke in the Capitol. It was that same kind of hatred I saw in people who wanted to stop people of color from casting a ballot for the candidate of their choice in Mississippi.”

HEADS UP: VP KAMALA HARRIS will sit down for an interview about the anniversary of Jan. 6 tonight with PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff.

Good Thursday afternoon.

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ANTI-TRUMP AVENGERS ASSEMBLE — Former Trump White House press secretary STEPHANIE GRISHAM told CNN today that “next week,” a group of former Trump staffers will team up against their former boss: “We’re going to talk about how we can formally do some things to try and stop him and also, the extremism, that that kind of violence, rhetoric that has been talked about and continues to divide our country.”

— Who else is part of that team? Meridith McGraw and Daniel Lippman have some details: “While Grisham did not name members of the group, POLITICO can confirm former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff MILES TAYLOR, who was revealed to be the author of ‘Anonymous,’ former national security official OLIVIA TROYE, and Trump’s one time short-lived communications director, ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, are involved. None offered additional details on the group but POLITICO confirmed an invitation was sent out to other former officials to participate as well. Grisham said next week’s meeting will be both in person and via Zoom.”

THE STATE OF SOCIAL — Mark Scott and Rebecca Kern have a look at the state of social media in the year since the violent attack on the Capitol. The big takeaway: Things aren’t much better.

“A year after supporters of former President Donald Trump staged a deadly assault on the Capitol, the social media platforms where people organized and celebrated the riot are still ablaze with the same rumors, threats and election misinformation that flourished online before last year's violence. The ongoing flood of extremist content, based on POLITICO’s review of thousands of social media messages across six separate networks, comes despite efforts by major platforms such as Facebook, Google and Twitter to turn down the temperature — including by removing Trump himself.”

THE WHITE HOUSE

HARRIS TAPS NEW COMMS CHIEF — JAMAL SIMMONS will take over as comms director for the vice president, The Hill’s Amie Parnes scoops . “Simmons, a Michigan native who is widely respected in Democratic circles, has been involved in national politics since the Clinton administration. He went on to serve as deputy communications director for the Gore campaign. He's also served as an aide to former Florida Gov. and Sen. BOB GRAHAM, former Democratic presidential candidate WESLEY CLARK and was chief of staff to former Rep. CAROLYN CHEEKS KILPATRICK (D-Mich.).” More on that from Eugene

THE PANDEMIC

BOOSTER BUSINESS — The Biden administration has been adamant that one of the best ways that Americans can combat the Omicron wave is by receiving a booster shot. But so far, most Americans are not meeting the call. NYT’s Azi Paybarah reports that “according to a C.D.C. database, only about 35 percent of Americans have received a booster since mid-August, when additional shots were first authorized, even as eligibility has greatly expanded.”

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.

THE ECONOMY

TRADE DEFICIT IN GOODS HITS NEW HIGH — In November, the U.S. trade deficit in goods reached a record $99 billion “as Americans shopped for clothing, toys, and cell phones early in the holiday season, the Commerce Department said on Thursday,” WSJ’s Harriet Torry reports. The overall trade deficit, which includes both goods and services, was $80.2 billion — up from the $67.2 in October, but short of the record $81.4 billion deficit set in August.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

RUSSIA LATEST — You can expect Russia to take “an unyielding stance” in next week’s talks with the U.S. over the Ukraine crisis, writes WSJ’s Michael Gordon. Russia’s lead negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister SERGEI RYABKOV , “warned the Biden administration against resorting to the economic pressure it has threatened to try to get the Kremlin to back down,” and said that NATO’s “military ties to Ukraine represent a threat to Russia even if the country isn’t formally admitted into the alliance.”

AN UNANSWERED QUESTION — Biden has talked tough on Russia as the country threatens to invade Ukraine. But there’s at least one key question that hasn’t yet been answered: Will European countries really go along with serious penalties on Moscow? “On the surface, Europe appears willing,” Matthew Karnitschnig, Nahal Toosi and Paul McLeary report . “But a closer look finds a bloc divided on how far to go, which could complicate Biden’s efforts to project a unified resolve. While much of Eastern Europe — especially Poland and the Baltic states — is on high alert, the issue is nowhere near the top of the political agenda across most of the rest of the continent, where battling the pandemic and its economic fallout remains the priority.”

PLAYBOOKERS

MEDIAWATCH — via WaPo’s Paul Farhi: “Steven Ginsberg, The Washington Post’s National editor who led the organization’s political coverage through the Trump years and helped propel the company to one of its most successful periods with reporting that brought Pulitzer Prizes along with enormous readership, was named as the paper’s new managing editor Thursday.” Matea Gold , who is beloved by the entire national politics team, will replace him in the interim.

MEDIA MOVE — Brendan Bordelon is joining POLITICO as a tech reporter and author of Morning Tech. He most recently was a tech reporter for the National Journal and is a Morning Consult alum.

TRANSITIONS — Megan Tweed is now a legislative analyst for HRSA’s Bureau of Health Workforce. She most recently was director of government affairs at the American Gastroenterological Association. … Brad Gruehn is now chief of government relations at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. He previously was congressional affairs director at the American College of Emergency Physicians. …

… Alex Aronson is now managing director for the Institute of Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law. He previously was chief counsel for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). … Matthew Bishop is now a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. He most recently was military legislative assistant for Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.).

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Michelle Kwan, nominee for U.S. ambassador to Belize, welcomed Kalista Belle Kwan.

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