Was the Capitol Riot Worse Than the Lincoln Assassination? Biden Just Said So...

President Joe Biden called the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” during his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. The claim generated quite a bit of controversy on Twitter.

“Biden asserts riot was a worse attack than various bombings and deadly attacks on the Capitol, deadly Summer of Rage with its attacks on the WH and federal court buildings, four presidential assassinations, another five assassination attempts, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11. OK,” Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, remarked.

Biden asserts riot was a worse attack than various bombings and deadly attacks on the Capitol, deadly Summer of Rage with its attacks on the WH and federal court buildings, four presidential assassinations, another five assassination attempts, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11. OK. https://t.co/1S7Hc0nsLW

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) April 28, 2021

Many others mentioned the September 11, 2001, attacks and Pearl Harbor.

I hate to "reality check" this but I imagine police letting unarmed protesters fie into the Capitol building, killing absolutely no one & the worst thing being the theft of the Speaker's podium is probably not as bad as the 9/11 attack or Pearl Harbor.🔻https://t.co/esjtKfABSJ

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) April 28, 2021

Biden’s characterization of the Capitol riot represents excessive hyperbole, but to be fair, a foreign government — not U.S. citizens — perpetrated Pearl Harbor and foreign terrorists perpetrated the September 11 attacks. Biden appears to consider only American attacks on Americans in his discussion of “attacks on democracy.”

On that score, however, presidential assassinations and assassination attempts arguably outweigh the Capitol riot by a wide margin. The Capitol rioters did break into the U.S. Capitol and vandalize it, stealing Nancy Pelosi’s rostrum. However, they did not kill anyone or stop the certification of the Electoral College vote in the 2020 presidential election.

By contrast, since the end of the Civil War, fellow Americans have assassinated four presidents and attempted to assassinate five others. John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 — five days after the Civil War. Lincoln’s death had tremendous impacts on Reconstruction and it took the presidency from a Republican and gave it to a Democrat, Andrew Johnson. In 1881, Charles J. Guiteau assassinated James Garfield. In 1901, Leon Czolgosz assassinated William McKinley. In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy.

Assassination plots have targeted many other presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, both of whom sustained wounds in the attempts.

Does Biden really believe the Capitol riot constituted a worse attack on American democracy than the Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy assassinations?