WASHINGTON (AP) – Congress confirmed Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election early Thursday after a violent crowd loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in an impressive attempt to overthrow the presidential election Americans, undermining the nation’s democracy and keeping Trump in White. House.
Lawmakers decided to complete the Electoral College count to show the country and the world the nation’s lasting commitment to maintaining the will of voters and the peaceful transfer of power. They advanced the night with high tensions and the country’s capital on alert.
Before Thursday morning, lawmakers finished their work by confirming that Biden won the election.
Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the joint session, announced the bill, 306-232.
Trump, who had repeatedly refused to grant the election, said in a statement immediately after the vote that there will be a smooth transition of power on the day of the inauguration.
“While I totally disagree with the outcome of the election and the facts confirm me, there will nevertheless be an orderly transition on January 20,” Trump said in a statement posted on Twitter by an aide.
The Capitol was besieged on Wednesday as elected representatives of the nation rushed to crouch under desks and put on gas masks while police tried in vain to barricade the building, one of the most discordant scenes that has ever unfolded in a seat of American political power. A woman was shot dead inside the Capitol and the mayor of Washington instituted a curfew in the evening to try to contain the violence.
Trump incited riot police whom he spent weeks falsely attacking the integrity of the election and had urged his supporters to come down to Washington to protest against formal congressional approval of Biden’s victory. Some Republican lawmakers were in the midst of objecting to the results on their behalf when the crowd abruptly stopped proceedings.
Together, Republican Party protests and election objections posed an almost unthinkable challenge to American democracy and exposed the depths of the divisions that have swept the country during Trump’s four-year term. While efforts to prevent Biden’s swearing-in on January 20 have surely failed, the support Trump has received for his efforts to overturn election results has severely strained the nation’s democratic railings.
Congress reconvened in the evening, with lawmakers denying protests that damaged the Capitol and vowed to finish confirming the Electoral College’s vote for Biden’s election, even if it took all the evening.
Pence reopened the Senate and addressed the protesters directly, “You didn’t win.”
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the “failed insurrection” underscored lawmakers’ duty to finish the count. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress will show the world “what America is made of” with the result.
The president gave a boost to his followers in action Wednesday morning at a rally in front of the White House, where he urged them to march to the Capitol. He spent much of the afternoon in the Oval Office’s private dining room watching scenes of the violence on television. At the urging of his staff, he reluctantly issued a couple of tweets and a recorded video telling his followers it was time to “return home in peace,” though he said he supported his cause.
Hours later, Twitter blocked Trump’s account for the first time, demanding that he withdraw tweets excusing violence, and threatened a “permanent suspension.”
A somber president-elect, Biden, two weeks after he was inaugurated, said American democracy was “under unprecedented assault.” “A sentiment echoed by many in Congress, including some Republicans. Former President George W. Bush said he viewed the events with “disbelief and dismay.”
The domed Capitol building has been the scene of occasional protests and violence for centuries. But Wednesday’s events were particularly striking both because they unfolded at least initially with the president’s implicit blessing and because of the underlying goal of overturning the results of a free and fair presidential election.
Tensions were already rising when lawmakers met Wednesday afternoon for the mandatory constitutional counting of Electoral College results, in which Biden defeated Trump, 306-232. Despite McConnell’s requests, more than 150 Republican lawmakers planned to support some of the findings, even though they had no evidence of election fraud or abuse.
Trump took the first steps in the processes of publicly making Pence, who played a primarily ceremonial role, to help the effort release the results. He tweeted, “Do it Mike, it’s a moment of extreme courage!”
But Pence, in a statement shortly before presiding, challenged Trump, saying he could not claim “unilateral authority” to reject the election votes that make Biden president.
After the siege, several Republicans announced they would withdraw their objections to the election, including Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., Who lost her re-election candidacy on Tuesday..
Earlier, protesters had fought in front of police and stormed the building, shouting and waving American and Trump flags as they marched down the aisles, many without masks during the COVID-19 crisis. Lawmakers were told to drown under the seats to cover them and put on gas masks after tear gas was used at the Capitol Roundabout. Some lawmakers in the house tweeted that they were in place at their offices.
Rep. Scott Peters, D-California, told reporters he was in the House of Representatives when riots began assaulting it. Security agents “made us all go down, it was seen that they were defending some kind of aggression.”
He said they had a piece of furniture against the door. “And they threw their guns at them,” Peters said. The windows of the door of the house were shattered.
The woman who died was part of a crowd that was breaking down the doors of a barricaded room where there were armed officers on the other side, police said. Capitol police shot her in the chest and took her to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. City police said three more people died due to medical emergencies during the lengthy protest on and around the Capitol precinct.
Staff members took ballot boxes from the Electoral College while the evacuation was taking place. Otherwise, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore, said the ballots would probably have been destroyed by the protesters.
The Mafia attack on Congress sparked outrage, mainly from Democrats but also Republicans, as lawmakers accused Trump of fomenting violence with his relentless falsehoods about election fraud.
“Tell me,” said Trump’s ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C. “Enough is enough.”
Several suggested Trump be prosecuted for a crime or even dismissed by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which seemed unlikely two weeks after his term expires.
“I think Donald Trump should probably be betrayed for something like that,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-California, told reporters. “It simply came to our notice then. And that’s how democracy dies. “
Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Who has at times clashed with Trump, issued a statement saying, “Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly result of the president’s addiction to constantly fueling the division. “.
Despite Trump’s repeated allegations of voter fraud, election officials and his own attorney general have said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All states have certified their results as fair and accurate, for both Republican and Democratic officials.
Punctuating their decision, both the House and Senate deeply rejected an objection to Arizona’s election results, which had been raised by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., And another from Pennsylvania, presented by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., And Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. Still, most House Republicans supported the objections. Other objections to the results from Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin disappeared.
The Pentagon said about 1,100 members of the District of Columbia National Guard mobilized to help support law enforcement at the Capitol. Dozens of people were arrested.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Zeke Miller, Kevin Freking, Alan Fram, Matthew Daly, Ben Fox and Ashraf Khalil in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.