Jan. 6 updates: Biden tears into Trump for inciting Capitol attack
Speaking at the Capitol, Biden slammed Trump for "spreading a web of lies."
Thursday marks one year since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and Democrats observed the anniversary with somber tributes at the building that's the symbol of American democracy.
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The events in Washington included a panel discussion with historians, firsthand testimonies from lawmakers and a prayer vigil on the Capitol steps.
From Statuary Hall, which rioters stormed last year, President Joe Biden gave his most forceful rebuke of former President Donald Trump to date -- without calling him by name -- blaming him for the violence that erupted at the Capitol after he refused to accept a peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, were the only Republicans present in the House chamber for a moment of silence led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
ABC News Live will provide all-day coverage of Thursday's events at the Capitol and examine the continuing fallout for American democracy one year since the Jan. 6 siege.
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Biden rejects Trump's characterization of mob as 'patriots'
In front of the presidential seal, flanked by two American flags, inside the Capitol's Statuary Hall -- a rare place for a president to speak but from where pro-Trump rioters stormed last year -- Biden directly blamed Trump for last year's violence and rejected the former president's characterization of the mob as "patriots."
“Is that what you thought when you looked at the mob ransacking the Capitol, destroying property -- literally defecating in the hallways -- rifling through the desks of senators and representatives, hunting down members of Congress? Patriots? Not in my view," he said in a firm tone.
“To me, the true patriots were the more than 150 Americans who peacefully expressed their vote at the ballot box," Biden continued.
"The former president -- who lies about this election -- and the mob that attacked this Capitol could not be further away from the core American values. They want to rule or they will ruin -- ruin what our country fought for at Lexington and Concord, at Gettysburg and Omaha Beach, Seneca Falls, Selma, Alabama," he said, invoking ideals of American democracy.
Rejecting Trump’s election lies one by one, Biden repeated that despite the former president building his false case over months that there is "zero proof the election results are inaccurate."
Biden calls Trump plot to overturn the election a 'dagger at the throat of America'
Without mentioning Trump by name, Biden blamed him over and over again for the violence that erupted at the Capitol last year and the serious danger his "web of lies" poses to the country.
"Those who stormed this Capitol, and those who instigated and incited, and those who called on them to do so, held a dagger at the throat of America and American democracy," Biden said about Trump and his allies.
Biden hinted at how plotting to try to take the election from him -- and more so, the will of American voters -- began well in advance of Jan. 6 as Trump sewed doubt in the election with his supporters as it neared.
"They didn't come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage -- not in service at American rather and service of one man. Those who incited the mob -- the real plotters -- were desperate to deny the certification of this election," Biden said.
"The former president and his supporters have decided the only way for them to win is to suppress your vote and subvert our elections, it's wrong, it's undemocratic and frankly, it's unAmerican," Biden said, appearing to speak both directly about Trump, leaning into the camera, and to the American people.
He said Americans "cannot allow ourselves" to be a kind of nation that stands for lies and by a former president that has violently rejected a peaceful transfer of power.
Biden slams Trump for spreading 'web of lies' around election loss
In his most forceful remarks yet against Trump, Biden called out the former president -- without using his name -- for weaving what he called a "web of lies" around the 2020 election and attacking American democracy as no other leader has before.
"We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie," Biden said. "And here's the truth: The former president of the United States of America has created spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle -- because he sees his own interest is more important than his country's interest and America's interest -- because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution."
"He can't accept he lost," Biden said. "He can't accept he lost even though that's what 93 United States senators, his own attorney general, his own vice president, governors and state officials and every battleground state, all said, he lost."
Establishing Trump as a "defeated former president -- by a margin of 7 million votes in a free and fair election," Biden defended his win against Trump and his supporters by laying out the facts of the election.
Harris ties ‘fragility of democracy’ to push for voting rights legislation
A somber Vice President Kamala Harris, in remarks ahead of Biden, said what the "extremists who roamed these halls targeted" last year when was not only an attack on the lives of elected leaders and the 2020 election.
"What they sought to degrade and destroy was not only a building, hallowed as it is. What they were assaulting. were the institution's the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed, and shed blood to establish and defend," she said.
The vice president, who was at the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6 last year, reflected on what she called "the dual nature of democracy: its fragility and its strength."
"The strength of democracy is the rule of law," she said. "And the fragility of democracy is this. That if we are not vigilant, if we do not defend it, democracy simply will not stand. It will falter and fail."
She ended her remarks with a call to pass Democrats voting rights bills in the Senate as restrictive voting laws are enacted across the country.
"But we, the American people, must also do something more. We cannot sit on the sidelines. We must unite in defense of our democracy," she said.
Dick Cheney blasts GOP leadership, praises daughter
Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney departed the House chamber after the moment of silence walking alongside his daughter, and told ABC News, "Very proud of Liz," when asked for some parting thoughts.
The somewhat frail former vice president -- clad in crisp navy pinstripe suit -- was greeted by a swarm of reporters and still photographers as he became the unwitting star of this unusual day on Capitol Hill.
"It’s great coming back," he said. "Liz is doing a hell of a job. I’m here to support her."
When asked for his reaction to Republican leadership’s handling of the day, Cheney -- not one to mince words -- said, "Well, it’s not a leadership that resembles any of the folks that I knew when I was here for 10 years -- dramatically."
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who holds the seat her father once held, said GOP leadership is "very concerning," adding, "I think a party that is in thrall to a cult personality is a party that is dangerous to the country, and I think we clearly have got to get to a place we are we are focused on substance and on issues."
The former vice president took the long walk across the Capitol toward the Senate chamber, stopping momentarily to take in his own white stone bust outside the office of Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who is far from the Capitol, and instead, at a funeral for a late GOP senator in Atlanta.
-ABC News' Trish Turner, Mariam Khan and Benjamin Siegel