Biden calls recent Jan. 6 video and testimonies ‘devastating,’ says he has gone out of his way not to comment

President Biden said on Saturday that he found the Jan. 6 committee’s newly released footage and testimony to be “devastating.” 

“I think the testimony and the video are actually devastating, and I’ve been going out of my way not to comment,” Biden told reporters while in Oregon. “I mean, the case has been made, it seems to me, fairly overwhelming.”

The committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol released never-before-seen footage from the day itself showing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and then-Senate Minority Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) making urgent calls for assistance as rioters breached the Capitol.

“We have some senators who are still in their hideaways,” Schumer told former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller in the footage. “They need massive personnel now.”

In additional footage obtained by CNN, Pelosi spoke with former Vice President Mike Pence amid the riot, telling him “I worry about you being in that Capitol. Don’t let anybody know where you are.”

The committee unanimously voted at the end of its Thursday hearing to subpoena former President Trump in what Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) acknowledged was an “extraordinary” move. However, the subpoena is not expected to yield testimony from the former president, who has frequently dismissed the committee as partisan.

Updated 10/16/22 9:14 a.m.