‘Insurrection,’ ‘chaos’
Biden calls on Trump to urge his
supporters to end siege
President-elect Joe Biden called the rioting Wednesday at the Capitol “insurrection” and “chaos,” and he told President Donald Trump to go on national television to urge his supporters to end their siege.
“What we’re seeing is a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent, it’s disorder, it’s chaos. It borders on sedition. And it must end, now,” Biden said from The Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware. “I call on this mob to pull back now and allow the work of democracy to go forward.”
Biden told Trump to go on national television “to demand an end to this siege.”
“It’s not protest, it’s insurrection,” said Biden, a former 36-year senator and former vice president who presided over the Electoral College count in 2017 that seated Trump.
Trump tweeted a video after Biden’s speech, telling protesters they should “go home.”
Biden said the rioting, in which protesters smashed windows and rummaged through Senate desks, didn’t reflect America. Rioters swarmed the Capitol, storming the House and Senate chambers on the second floor of the building, shouting and waving flags. At least one entered the Senate chamber and shouted from the dais, “Trump won the election!”
“At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times, an assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself; an assault on the people’s representatives, the Capitol Hill police, sworn to protect them; the public servants who work at the heart of our republic; an assault on the rule of law like few times we’ve ever seen it,” Biden said.
After Biden left the stage, he returned to express confidence in his inauguration.
“I am not concerned about my safety, security or the inauguration,” Biden said. “The American people are going to stand up now. Enough is enough is enough.”