Biden Warns Americans Not to Forget the Jan. 6 Attack

President Biden warned Americans not to forget the violent attack that took place at the Capitol four years ago, and he accused President-elect Donald J. Trump and his supporters of trying “to rewrite — even erase — the history of that day.”

Since Election Day, Mr. Biden has focused on ensuring a smooth and orderly transition of power — something that Mr. Trump refused to deliver as he was leaving office at the end of his first term. But on the eve of the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Biden addressed the issue directly.

“To tell us we didn’t see what we all saw with our own eyes,” he wrote in The Washington Post. “To dismiss concerns about it as some kind of partisan obsession. To explain it away as a protest that just got out of hand.”

“This is not what happened,” he wrote.

At a reception Sunday evening for members of Congress, the president echoed his essay in remarks, saying that democracy had been “literally put to the test” and talking about the challenge of protecting it.

It was hardly the first time Mr. Biden has urged people to remember what happened on that violent day.

In 2022, a year after the Capitol assault, Mr. Biden stood in the building’s Statuary Hall to condemn the marauding mob that had tried to stop the certification of his victory. He denounced Mr. Trump’s actions as president on that day.

“At this moment,” Mr. Biden declared, “we must decide: What kind of nation are we going to be?”

In November, Americans delivered their answer: Three years after Mr. Biden’s speech, Mr. Trump’s return to office is set to be affirmed by Congress on Monday. Now, in his final days in office, Mr. Biden is reckoning with the reality that his repeated warnings about the threat that Mr. Trump posed to democracy went unheeded by many voters.

Until Sunday night, Mr. Biden had not repeated his warnings about the fate of democracy if Mr. Trump regained the White House. Two days after the election, the president offered a more optimistic assessment of the future. He said he had congratulated Mr. Trump on his victory and he did not repeat his concerns about what that meant for the country.

“The American experiment endures, and we’re going to be OK,” Mr. Biden said.

The following week, Mr. Biden met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office for two hours. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the president had instructed his staff to do what Mr. Trump had refused to do four years earlier: Be gracious.

“You’re going to hear me continuing to say this over and over again: the importance of having a smooth transition, an importance of having an orderly transition,” Ms. Jean-Pierre told reporters. “The president respects the will of the American people and wants to make sure that occurs.”

The vote will be certified on Monday in the same process that was interrupted by the insurrection in 2021. Vice President Kamala Harris will oversee the certification, and Mr. Biden is scheduled to be away in New Orleans when it happens, offering solace to the victims of a New Year’s Day terror attack in the city.