Anyone who was in Washington could sense just how dramatic a day it was, although it was hard to foresee the absolutely terrifying chaos that would take over Capitol Hill.
This was a sad day for America that we love. An America that is torn and divided. A police officer in the crowd turns to me and asks what I think of all this. America is loved around the world, and now people are watching it the way children look on when their parents fight.
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The policewoman called her fellow officers over and told them how true that is.
Shortly after the congressional meeting on certifying the electors and US President-elect Joe Biden's election victory and after both houses of Congress went into their separate chambers to discuss whether to invalidate Arizona's electors, the protests got out of control. At first, there were reports protesters had made their way into one of the compound's buildings, but later, a few demonstrators broke through the blockades, making it to the US Congress.
The situation led to police imposing a lockdown on Capitol Hill, halting discussions in the US Congress and Senate and stalling the elector vote count. Fox News reported Homeland Security had sent forces to the compound in an attempt to gain control of the chaos that dominated the area. Yet the situation continued to deteriorate as the hours passed and protesters gathered on the Capitol plaza with flags. Some of them even began to commit acts of vandalism and made it to the Senate, and nearly made it into Congress.
As a result, both houses of Congress were evacuated, but not before lawmakers received an order to don the gas masks under their seats to be able to withstand the tear gas. US Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated to safety, according to a report by NBC News. At the same time, The New York Times reported a pipe bomb had been found and destroyed at the Republican National Committee headquarters.
This protest has finally divided Americans in ways that have not been seen for a long time. While the US has had its American Civil War and the Vietnam War, this time, we see two Americas that are incapable of even communicating with one another, and unfortunately, on Wednesday, passions transformed from words into deeds.
For probably the first time ever, the iconic US Capitol was breached in scenes reminiscent of actual revolutions.
At the time of writing, local police have issued a statement saying shots have been fired and a woman was seriously injured. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a curfew. Hundreds of National Guardsmen were dispatched to Washington to restore order.
Ahead of the breach, I even identified some Israeli flags, held up by evangelical Trump supporters.
Both Pence and incoming Vice President Kamala Harris were evacuated to safety and in a tweet, later on, Trump explicitly said, "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!"
Pence, who was responsible for the meeting the protesters managed to disrupt, tweeted, "The violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now. Anyone involved must respect Law Enforcement officers and immediately leave the building."
At the same time, the White House issued a statement saying Trump had ordered the National Guard to Capitol Hill to restore order.
Biden called the events "an assault on the citadel of liberty: the Capitol itself. An assault on the people's representatives and the Capitol Hill police sworn to protect them."
America must not surrender to camps. Voter fraud is bad, but division is no better. "We haven't been this divided since the Civil War," a young man from Ohio tells me. Tod from Florida said, "The door was open, so we entered. We hung Trump signs. We didn't use violence."
The situation on Capitol Hill was out of control, but the restaurants open for business in the surrounding area were evidence that violence was not the main issue during the protest. On the other hand, institutions must be respected, and breaking into Capitol Hill under the auspices of Trump's speech was grave.
Even before the chaos broke out in Washington, Trump delivered a forceful speech at the "Save America" rally organized by his supporters, where he made clear to Pence and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell that they had to invalidate the votes of electors "for the nation and the country."
About an hour before both houses of Congress convened to count the votes, Trump arrived at the rally fashionably late. The goal was to encourage lawmakers to invalidate some of the votes and let the House of Representatives have the final say.
He said his supporters were "not going to take it any longer ... They came from all over the world, actually, but they came from all over our country … The media is the biggest problem we have as far as I'm concerned, single biggest problem … We beat them four years ago …. and this year, they rigged an election. They rigged it like they've never rigged an election before. By the way, last night [in Georgia's Senate elections], they didn't do a bad job either ...All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they're doing and stolen by the fake news media. That's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved … Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election, and we won it by a landslide."
A swarm of people trudged from the White House to the Washington Monument in an impressive show of force. Trump called on the crowd to "walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.
"Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections, but whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country," he said.
Joanne, who came to Washington from Arkansas with her daughter, told me, "I don't believe Pence will abandon Trump. We all owe Trump so much."
After McConnell delivered his speech saying the Senate would not be intimidated by "thugs" and warning "our democracy would enter a death spiral" if Congress overturned the election results, the crowd following his remarks responded with rage. "He's a traitor," one yelled out. He's "an accomplice to the theft," another said.
"So, what, to preserve institutions you can steal an election?" Danny, who came to Washington from Minnesota, asked me. He's a pharmacist by profession. "They're trying to make us look ignorant," he said.
