On Wednesday, Joe Biden condemned protestors at the U.S. Capitol after they stormed the U.S. Capitol building, stalling a congressional session to certify electoral college votes to declare Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Biden called the group an “insurrection” and a “mob” and called on Trump to “demand an end to this siege.”
In a televised statement, Biden said, “At this hour, our democracy is under an unprecedented assault, an assault on the Capitol itself, an assault on the people’s representatives, on the police officers sworn to protect them, and the public servants who work at the heart of our Republic, an assault on the rule of law, an assault on the most sacred of American undertakings: The doing of the people’s business.”
Biden’s comments came amid scenes of fighting between protestors protesting the result of the presidential election and police outside and inside the Capitol and as the building was locked down and those inside sought shelter. In one incident Wednesday, a woman inside the building was shot.
“Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America,” Biden said Wednesday. “This is not who we are. What we are seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent. It is disorder. It is chaos. It borders on sedition and it must end now.”
“I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward,” Biden said. “. . .I call on President Trump to go on national television, now, to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege. To storm the Capitol, to smash windows, to occupy offices, and to threaten the safety of duly elected officials is not protest. It is insurrection.”
Biden’s call for Trump to condemn the incident at the capitol comes as Trump has already called on National Guard troops and federal agents to respond and released his own video statement telling his supporters to go home. While Trump called on his supporters to go home in the video, he reiterated his claims of fraud in the election and his frustration with the election process.
