US President Donald Trump told his supporters on Wednesday to "go home" after they stormed the Capitol in protest of his reelection defeat and he urged them to stay peaceful, but he also praised their mission even after it erupted in violence.
In a video message tweeted as authorities struggled to take control of Capitol Hill, Trump refused to refrain from promoting his baseless allegations of mass voter fraud and said loyalists who had swarmed the seat of American democracy were "very special."
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Taking to his preferred medium, Twitter, Trump later tweeted: "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."
"I know your pain. I know your hurt. But you have to go home now," he said. "We can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You're very special."The Pentagon says about 1,100 DC National Guard members are being mobilized on Wednesday to help support law enforcement as violent supporters of US President Donald Trump breached the US Capitol.
These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2021
Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman said Wednesday afternoon that defense leaders have been in contact with the city and congressional leadership.
A defense official said all 1,100 of the DC Guard were being activated and sent to the city's armory. The Guard forces will be used at checkpoints and for other similar duties and could also help in the enforcement of the 6 p.m. curfew being implemented tonight in the city.
The officials said the D.C. request for National Guard was not rejected earlier in the day. Instead, according to officials, the Guard members have a very specific mission that does not include putting military in a law enforcement role at the Capitol. As a result, the Guard must be used to backfill law enforcement outside the Capitol complex, freeing up more law enforcement to respond to the Capitol.
Hoffman said the law enforcement response to the violence will be led by the Justice Department.
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse directly blamed Trump for the storming of the Capitol by huge, angry crowds of pro-Trump protesters.
The Nebraska lawmaker and frequent critic of Trump said Wednesday evening that the Capitol "was ransacked while the leader of the free world cowered behind his keyboard -- tweeting against his Vice President for fulfilling the duties of his oath to the Constitution."
Sasse says in a written statement, "Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the President's addiction to constantly stoking division."
The ordinarily mundane procedure of certifying a new president was always going to be extraordinary, with Republican supporters of Trump vowing to protest results of an election that they have baselessly insisted was reversed by fraud.
The deliberations inside were still in their early stages when they were overcome by raucous demonstrations outside, as protesters who clashed with police entered the building, shouting and waving Trump and American flags. They abruptly interrupted the proceedings in an out-of-control scene that featured eerie official warnings directing people to duck under their seats for cover and put on gas masks.
With the crowds showing no signs of abating, Trump tweeted, "Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!"
Senators were being evacuated. Some House lawmakers tweeted they were sheltering in place in their offices.
Demonstrators fought with Capitol Police and then forced their way into the building, not long after a huge rally near the White House during which Trump egged them on to march to Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers had convened for an extraordinary joint session to confirm the Electoral College results.
Though fellow Republicans were behind the challenge to Biden's 306-232 Electoral College victory, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sought to lower tensions and argued against it. He warned the country "cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes" with "separate facts."
McConnell declared, "The voters, the courts and the states all have spoken."
But other Republicans, including House GOP leaders among Trump's allies were acting out the pleas of supporters at his huge Wednesday rally up Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House to "fight for Trump."
"We have to fix this," said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the GOP whip.
The last-gasp effort is all but certain to fail, defeated by bipartisan majorities in Congress prepared to accept the November results. Biden i s to be inaugurated Jan. 20.
Still, Trump vowed to he would "never concede" and urged the massive crowd to march to the Capitol where hundreds had already gathered under tight security.
"We will never give up," Trump told his noontime rally.
Vice President Mike Pence was closely watched as he stepped onto the dais to preside over the joint session in the House chamber.
Pence has a largely ceremonial role, opening the sealed envelopes from the states after they are carried in mahogany boxes used for the occasion, and reading the results aloud. But he was under growing pressure from Trump to overturn the will of the voters and tip the results in the president's favor, despite having no legal power to affect the outcome.
"Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!" Trump tweeted Wednesday.
Pence acknowledged Wednesday he did not have the power to throw out the electoral votes that will make Democrat Joe Biden the next president in two weeks.
Under intense pressure from Trump and his allies to overturn the election results before the Jan. 20 inauguration, Pence issued a lengthy statement laying out his conclusion that a vice president could not claim "unilateral authority" to reject states' electoral votes.
"It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not," Pence wrote in a letter to members of Congress before he gaveled in the joint session of Congress.
Despite Trump's repeated claims of voter fraud, election officials and his own former attorney general have said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All the states have certified their results as fair and accurate, by Republican and Democratic officials alike.
Arizona was the first of several states facing objections from the Republicans as Congress took an alphabetical reading of the election results. Then the chaos erupted.
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