US President Joe Biden addressed the nation on the anniversary of January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building. He spoke from the very same Capitol Hill building, particularly from its Statuary Hall, where rioters stormed in an attempt to stop the certification of then-President-elect Biden’s electoral victory in the November, 2020 polls.

Here are some of the key things President Biden said:

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

2. “Those who stormed this Capitol, and those who instigated and incited, and those who called on them to do so, held a dagger to the throat of America and American democracy. They didn’t come here out of patriotism or principle; they came here in rage, not in service of America, but rather in service of one man.”

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3. “This wasn’t a group of tourists; this was an armed insurrection. They weren’t looking to uphold the will of the people, they were looking to deny the will of the people. They weren’t looking to hold a free and fair election, they were looking to overturn one.”

4. “Whatever my other disagreements are with Republicans to support the rule of law and not the rule of a single man, I will always seek to work together with them. To find shared solutions where possible, because we have a shared belief in democracy, then anything is possible.”

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5. “A 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 principle. Because he sees his own interest as more important than his country’s interest, and America’s interest. And because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution. 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 in every battleground state have all said he lost.”

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6. “It’s not about me, it’s not about whether I’m President or she’s vice president. It’s about the system and somebody who decides to put himself above everything. And so – but I did not want to turn it into a contemporary political battle between me and the President. It’s way beyond that.”

7. “I know how difficult democracy is. I’m crystal clear about the threats America faces. I also know our darkest days can lead to light and hope from the death and destruction the vice president referenced in Pearl Harbor, from the brutality of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus bridge came historic voting rights legislation.”  

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8. “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. We will make sure the will of the people is heard, that the ballot prevails, not violence, but authority in this nation will always be peacefully transferred.”

9. “They’re (China and Russia) betting that America is a place for the autocrat, the dictator, the strongman. That is not who we are. That is not who we have ever been. And that is not who we should ever, ever be. Our Founding Fathers, as imperfect as they were, set a motion and experiment that changed the world … Power would be transferred peacefully, never at the tip of a spear or a barrel of a gun.”

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10. “I believe the power of the presidency and the purpose is to unite this nation, not divide it. To lift us up, not tear us apart. It is about us, about us, not about me. Deep in the heart of America burns a flame, almost 250 years ago, of liberty, freedom and equality.”