In 2022, on the one-year anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riot, Vice President Kamala Harris compared the day to mass casualty events 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.
Harris spoke at the Capitol on January 6, 2022, leading a day of Democrats treating the riot — which resulted in the death of protester Ashli Babbit at the hands of Capitol police — as something akin to the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York City, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
“Certain dates echo throughout history, including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them, where they were and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault,” Harris said at the time. “Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars but a place in our collective memory. December 7, 1941. September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021.”
One police officer died the day after January 6 due to two strokes, and four more committed suicide in the months that followed.
It is unclear just how many first responders and others have died in the decades since 9/11 due to cancer and other related illnesses.
A total of 2,403 people were killed in the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.
Harris also in that speech called for legislation to allegedly protect democracy, The Daily Wire previously reported.
“On Jan. 6, we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful. The lawlessness. The violence. The chaos,” Harris said in 2022. “What was at stake then, and now, is the right to have our future decided the way the Constitution prescribes it: By we, the people.”
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“The violent assault that took place here, the very fact of how close we came to an election overturned, that reflects the fragility of democracy,” she added.
At the time of Harris’ speech, report and investigator Jerry Dunleavy called the vice president’s comparison “ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous comparisons… The Capitol riot was bad, political violence is wrong, & people are being prosecuted for it,” Dunleavy tweeted. “It wasn’t comparable to Pearl Harbor (2,403 sailors, soldiers, & civilians killed by the Japanese Empire) nor comparable to 9/11 (2,977 Americans & others killed by Al-Qaeda). Obviously.”
The Capitol riot was bad, political violence is wrong, & people are being prosecuted for it. It wasn’t comparable to Pearl Harbor (2,403 sailors, soldiers, & civilians killed by the Japanese Empire) nor comparable to 9/11 (2,977 Americans & others killed by Al-Qaeda). Obviously.
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) January 6, 2022
Podcast host and actor Joe Rogan also blasted Harris for her “insane” comparison.
“This is complete insanity. Look, Jan 6 was embarrassing; it was pathetic; it was confusing to me,” Rogan said in 2022. “‘Cause there are parts of it that confused me—the parts where you have these clear agent provocateurs in the audience calling for people to go into the Capitol. … There’s video of cops opening up barriers. What is that? Why did they do that? Has there ever been an explanation of that?”
