The plaque that House Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to hang in the Capitol, as required by law, does not characterize January 6, 2021 as a “day of love,” which is what President Donald Trump has repeatedly called a day most Americans still associate with a lawless insurrection and invasion of the U.S. Capitol by rioters.
But neither does the plaque go into detail about those rioters — nearly 1,500 of whom Trump pardoned on his first day back in office — or their actions on that day, the plaque’s text instead merely calling attention to “the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended” the Capitol.
Still, Johnson has refused to order the plaque’s display, claiming the text on the plaque may not strictly conform to what is mandated by the legislation, as it lists groups of law enforcement and police departments, rather than individuals.
Critics contend that Johnson’s true objection is that by hanging the plaque he would be acknowledging that the Capitol needed protecting that day, a notion that is in conflict with a major Trump/MAGA narrative.
On the fifth anniversary of January 6 — a day marking dizzying and unforeseeable reversals that very few on January 7, 2021 had predicted — Johnson is again being pushed by Democrats to display the plaque.
Below is a post from Congressman Joe Morelle (D-NY), whose Johnson criticism was widely echoed by other Democrats.
Speaker Johnson isn’t refusing to hang the J6 plaque out of principle—he’s afraid of President Trump. And in that fear, he’s choosing silence over honor for the Capitol Police and law enforcement officers who protected Congress and our democracy on January 6th.
— Joe Morelle (@RepJoeMorelle) January 6, 2026
This isn’t… https://t.co/HNNRCIZbuL
[Typical of MAGA comments on the issue is the reasonable assertion that the plaque was not previously a priority for Democrats, with one commenter complaining that the “mandate for installation [was] by March 15, 2023,” and asking Morelle, “What did you do to promote this installation? What did the Democrats controlling the House and Senate do about this during the Biden administration?” Yet Democrats did not control the House in March 2023, when California Republican Kevin McCarthy was Speaker.]
There is little argument that a plaque — if not this one, according to Johnson — was ordered by Congress to be displayed, the authorization being “part of an omnibus spending package approved by Democrats and 39 Republicans in 2022 and signed into law by Biden,” as the Times reported in May.
That legislation required the plaque “to be installed by March 2023 near the west front of the building” — a sort of Jan 6 equivalent to the “never forget” monuments that rose nationwide after 9/11.
The plaque is several feet wide, several feet high. It was last seen in a basement workshop of a House office bldg next to a mini-frig, a scooter & set of small lockers.
— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) January 6, 2026
How that plague’s hidden status has come to symbolize almost everything about that day 5 years ago … link .
U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) also skewered Johnson, as he has done previously, claiming Johnson was gaslighting the public by “trying to rewrite history” and also “breaking the law.”
.jpg){kind=link}