With a torrent of political news already flooding the first week of 2026, Democrats are determined to make sure one moment doesn’t get drowned out: The fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“We are not going to let this drop,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., told MS NOW, adding that Democrats would not allow Republican “lies about this to take hold.”
In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, many Republicans expressed horror. Some — including the House and Senate GOP leaders at the time, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — even went so far as to blame Trump for the riot.
But five years later, a reckoning of the attack has largely vanished. Most Republicans on Capitol Hill downplay Trump’s role, with some even cheering his decision to pardon even the most violent rioters.
Of course, Trump faced a series of federal criminal charges tied to his effort to reverse his electoral loss to Joe Biden in 2020. But after years of legal delays, the case never went to trial. The consequences that seemed inevitable for Trump proved to be easily escapable. And not only was Trump not punished for his role in trying to overturn an election, he was ultimately re-elected to the presidency — with Trump now floating the possibility of the Department of Justice paying him roughly $230 million as restitution for the federal investigations into him.
The absence of “accountability,” Democrats argue, has made it impossible to move on — and has only emboldened Trump in his second term by removing whatever guardrails existed during his first.
“Today, it really is still Jan. 6 in every sense,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told MS NOW Monday, arguing that there “continues to be an authoritarian attack on our institutions.”
Jayapal agreed.
“On every level, you can see our democracy being shaped into one where he is king or attempts to be king,” Jayapal said. “We’re in a very, very precarious and dangerous moment.”
Speaking with MS NOW ahead of the Trump administration’s weekend actions in Venezuela, Jayapal pointed to recent boat strikes in the Caribbean and the dismantling of federal agencies — despite congressionally approved appropriations — as examples of what she described as Trump’s “illegal presidential power.”
In an effort to reclaim the narrative of the violent attack five years later — and underline the stakes — Raskin and Jayapal are set to participate in an unofficial Democratic hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
Former law enforcement officers, state officials and others at the Capitol on the day of attack are expected to speak. Members of Congress will also share their firsthand accounts.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told MS NOW that Democrats were “not going to let Republicans, led by Donald Trump, erase the heroism of the Jan. 6 police officers and to clean the hands of Donald Trump’s responsibility.”
For Jayapal, in particular, the memories — the “trauma,” in her words — from five years ago are still very real.
The Washington state progressive Democrat was in the gallery overlooking the House floor as rioters breached the Capitol.
“I didn’t know if I would survive the attack,” she told MS NOW. She said there are still noises from that day — like the pounding on the chamber door — that “haunt” her.
One of the clearest signs, Democrats say, of the GOP efforts to paper over the anniversary is a plaque designed to honor the more than 20 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that responded to the Jan. 6 attack.
The plaque was created as a result of a 2022 law, which mandated that it be put on display by 2023.
The plaque remains in storage.
Over the years, some Republicans have cited technical issues with the plaque and where the law requires it to be displayed as the reasons for the delay. But of course, honoring law enforcement would acknowledge the violence that occurred during the Capitol attack.
Last year, a spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said they are “working” with the Architect of the Capitol to get the plaque mounted.
However, on Monday evening, in a new statement, Johnson’s team said “the statute authorizing this plaque is not implementable,” adding that if Democrats want to honor the U.S. Capitol Police, they could work “with the appropriate committees of jurisdiction to develop a framework for proper vetting and consideration.”
Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-N.Y., who in the past year spearheaded an initiative to hang posters of the plaque all over Capitol Hill, argued that Republicans don’t have the “courage” to cross Trump and put up the genuine article.
Now five years on, does Trump’s return to office mean that the GOP narrative downplaying the events of that day — the “papering over” of Jan. 6, as Jayapal put it — has won out?
Democrats interviewed by MS NOW said that’s not the case, arguing that Trump won in 2024 because of an economic message — not because the public had forgiven him for the events of Jan. 6.
“This is not the kind of person we would normally want in the Oval Office,” Morelle told MS NOW. “But I think they believed him when he said that he was going to, you know, do everything in record time to solve their economic problems.”
However, these Democrats say, the implications of Trump’s return have been clear.
For instance, immediately upon his return to the White House, Trump granted clemency to every person charged or convicted for their role in the Jan. 6 attack — nearly 1,600 total.
Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called the pardons an “absolute nightmare” for public safety.
In advance of the anniversary, Democrats on the panel released a report tracking where the pardoned rioters are now.
They found that 23 committed additional crimes in the years after attacking the Capitol but before Trump returned to office and pardoned them. The list of alleged crimes includes plotting the murder of FBI agents and possession of child sexual abuse material.
Separately, a handful have already been arrested for new alleged illegal activities since they received clemency. That includes one pardoned man who is accused of threatening to kill House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York in the fall of 2025.
Despite their concerns, as America hits the five year mark since the attack, Democrats were optimistic that voters are waking up.
“The forces of democracy are stronger,” Raskin told MS NOW. “We are battle-hardened. We know when not to take the bait, and we know when we’ve got to go fight”
“This is both a dangerous and precarious moment,” Jayapal said.
“But perhaps that crisis brings about real opportunity and strengthening of our country and our democracy and our values,” she added.
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