President Joe Biden scolded Republicans Thursday for blocking a Democrat-led effort to investigate the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill.
The president spoke about the upcoming Senate vote to establish a commission as he made a stop for ice cream while visiting Ohio.
The vote is expected to fail, as not enough Senate Republicans plan to support the legislation.
Biden purchased an ice cream cone and one for a bystander, prompting reporters to ask what flavor he ordered.
“Chocolate Chocolate Chip,” Biden replied.
“What’s your message to Republicans who are prepared to block the January 6th commission?” the reporter continued.
“Eat some chocolate, chocolate chip,” Biden said.
After another reporter questioned him, Biden continued, “I can’t imagine anyone voting against establishing a commission on the greatest assault since the Civil War on the Capitol.”
As Breitbart News reporter Joel Pollak has detailed, there have been many attacks on the Capitol since the Civil War — some of them far worse than the riots on January 6th.
There have been many attacks on the Capitol — many of them far more severe than the Capitol riot. A Puerto Rican terrorist group opened fire during debate in the House of Representatives in 1954, wounding five members in “the most severe assault in the history of the Capitol building.” The Weather Underground exploded a bomb in the Senate in 1971; another left-wing group carried out a similar attack in 1983; and a gunman opened fire at a Capitol checkpoint in 1998, killing two Capitol Police officers. In 2017, a left-wing gunman opened fire on Republicans during a baseball practice, wounding several, including a Capitol Police officer; though the attack did not take place at the Capitol building itself, it was the most serious political violence in recent years. And earlier this month, a radical Nation of Islam follower drove into two Capitol Police, killing Officer William Evans.
During the Civil War, the Confederate army never breached the United States Capitol Building. In 1864, Lt. Gen. Jubal Early briefly attacked Fort Stevens in Washington, DC, but that was the closest the Confederates came to the Capitol and the White House.