The AP Interview: Pelosi says 'democracy won' on Jan. 6

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WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a singular connection for Americans and the satellite connected the eve of the day of the horrific attack connected the Capitol:

“Democracy won.”

In an interrogation with The Associated Press connected Wednesday, wrong the Capitol wherever a mob loyal to Donald Trump had laid siege, Pelosi said it’s clip for the state to crook to its “better angels,” gully from past and guarantee a time similar Jan. 6 ne'er happens again.

"Make nary mistake, our ideology was connected the brink of catastrophe," Pelosi told the AP.

“Democracy won that night," she said. "These people, due to the fact that of the courageous enactment of the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police and others, they were deterred successful their enactment to halt the peaceful transportation of power. They lost.”

The talker volition pb Congress connected Thursday successful a time of remembrance astatine the Capitol, with President Joe Biden speaking successful the morning, and historians and lawmakers sharing remembrances passim the time — though fewer Republicans are expected to attend.

“This has to beryllium a play of remembrance, of reconciliation,” Pelosi said, drafting connected the illustration acceptable by Abraham Lincoln.

“Lincoln said, With malice toward none, with foundation toward all" arsenic the Civil War was ending. "We person to widen the manus of friendship.”

The deadly insurrection stunned the country, and the world, arsenic rioters ransacked the Capitol, immoderate successful hand-to-hand combat with police, aft a defeated President Trump exhorted them to combat arsenic Congress was certifying the Biden’s election.

Pelosi said nary 1 could person imagined a U.S. president calling for an insurrection, but there’s present an “enormous civics acquisition learned arsenic to what a president is susceptible of,” she said.

“I deliberation present radical are alerted to the information that determination tin beryllium rogue presidents."

Republicans are mostly staying distant from the remembrance events. They downplay the battle and blasted Democrats for not fortifying the Capitol.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House number leader, said successful a missive to colleagues that Democrats are utilizing the day “as a partisan governmental limb to further disagreement our country.”

Pelosi, the California congresswoman, who made past 15 years agone arsenic the archetypal pistillate talker of the House -- and has go 1 of the astir almighty leaders ever to person held the gavel -- said she bears “absolutely nary consciousness of responsibility” for the existent divisions successful Congress, oregon the country.

After having doubly led the House to impeach Trump, she said her connection to those who assaulted the Capitol — and the millions of Americans who backed Trump and could enactment him again — is that they were lied to. Countless tribunal cases and investigations person shown no grounds of elector fraud that could person tipped the election, arsenic helium claims.

“They whitethorn person thought that was right,” she said. ”But they were lied to by the president of the United States."

For that, she said, “he should beryllium ashamed.”

Sitting beneath a representation of George Washington, Pelosi drew heavy connected the founders' imaginativeness for a state wherever Americans would person galore differences but trust connected communal consciousness to resoluteness them.

She referred to Lincoln’s efforts -- insisting connected constructing the dome of the Capitol contempt naysayers during the Civil War -- to underscore nationalist unity.

“We cannot shirk our responsibility. We person the powerfulness and we person the work and we volition unrecorded up to that to support our state together," she said.

“Let’s anticipation that we ne'er elite a president who volition incite an insurrection connected the Congress of the United States."

Looking backmost connected the nighttime of Jan. 6, erstwhile the Capitol was cleared of the mob, Pelosi said she is astir arrogant of the determination legislature leaders made to rapidly instrumentality to certify the predetermination results.

She hopes to “soon” reopen the mostly shuttered Capitol -- a “symbol of ideology to the world,“ present closed to the nationalist longer than immoderate different clip successful its past — erstwhile the coronavirus pandemic wanes and the physician’s bureau signals it is safe.

Inside her offices astatine the Capitol, Pelosi showed the reflector that was shattered successful the melee but has since been repaired, on with a doorway that was vandalized arsenic the mob went searching for her, menacingly calling her name.

There is simply a league country wherever respective from her unit barricaded themselves, soundless and fearful arsenic rioters stalked outside. She had been presiding implicit the House, down the hall, and was hurried to a unafraid location.

Pelosi said portion historical artifacts tin beryllium mended and replaced, she knows the affectional toll of the deadly time lingers for many.

“What I retrieve astir astir the time is thing that I find astir unforgiving astir it, and that is the interaction that it had connected young radical successful the Capitol, my unit successful particular,” she said. “What I retrieve the most, and volition ne'er forget, is the trauma that I saw successful the eyes of the young radical who were contiguous for that violence.”

Biden has suggested that 1 mode to bolster ideology astatine location and astir the satellite is to amusement that America's authorities tin work, though his docket has stalled successful the Senate.

Pelosi agrees and said she expects Congress to decorativeness up Biden’s “Build Back Better Act,” a bundle of societal initiatives and clime alteration strategies, and nonstop it to the president’s table ”this year.”

And she said the election-law and voting rights authorities present stuck successful the Senate is “probably the astir important authorities that we tin pass.”

She said of Biden: “I deliberation he’s a large unifier. I deliberation the times person recovered him and that he’s the close idiosyncratic for the close occupation astatine this time,."

As for her ain plans, arsenic galore expect this whitethorn beryllium her last word successful office, Pelosi would lone accidental she “may” tally for reelection.

For now, she urged Americans to look ahead, not back.

“The aboriginal is America’s resilience, America’s greatness,” she said. “America volition ever prevail and that we volition past — adjacent what we went done past year.”

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