Biden, Trump respond to US Capitol violence
Wilmington
President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday denounced the storming of the US Capitol as an “insurrection” and demanded President Donald Trump go on television to call an end to the violent “siege.”
“At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault,” the veteran Democrat said in Wilmington, after hundreds of Trump supporters protesting his election defeat swarmed the Capitol building and put the nation’s lawmakers at risk.
“I call on President Trump to go on national television now to… demand an end to this siege,” Biden said.
“To storm the Capitol, to smash windows, to occupy offices, the floor of the United States Senate… threatening the safety of duly elected officials? It’s not a protest, it’s insurrection.”
‘Stolen’ election allegations
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump told his supporters on Wednesday to “go home” after they stormed the US Capitol following a rally during which he repeated his spurious claims of election fraud.
At the same time as he told his supporters to go home, Trump repeated his incendiary allegations that the November 3 election won by Democrat Joe Biden was “stolen.”
“I know your pain,” Trump said in a one-minute video on Twitter. “”We had an election that was stolen from us.
“But you have to go home now,” he said. “We have to have peace. We have to have law and order.”
Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol after his nearby rally, disrupting a joint session of Congress being held to confirm Biden’s victory.