Live Updates
Our live coverage of today’s events has moved here.
Following a formal affirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, President Trump said the decision “represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history.”
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said in a statement.
“I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again,” Trump said while repeating false claims about the election that incited a mob to storm the Capitol.
CNN’s Kaitlin Collins has more:
Senate Chaplain Barry Black delivered a powerful prayer just moments after Congress had affirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, condemning the “desecration” of the Capitol building and reminding lawmakers of the weight of their words and actions.
“We deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol Building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy,” he said.
“These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the power of life and death is in the tongue,” he continued. “We have been warned that eternal vigilance continues to be freedom’s price.”
Read his prayer:
“Lord of our lives and sovereign of our beloved nation, we deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy.
These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the power of life and death is in the tongue. We have been warned that eternal vigilance continues to be freedom’s price.
Lord, you have helped us remember that we need to see in each other a common humanity that reflects your image.
You have strengthened our resolve to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies domestic as well as foreign.
Use us to bring healing and unity to our hurting and divided nation and world. Thank you for what you have blessed our lawmakers to accomplish in spite of threats to liberty.
Bless and keep us. Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to do your will and guide our feet on the path of peace. And God bless America. We pray in your sovereign name, amen.”
Watch:
Congress has just affirmed President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump.
The counting of Vermont’s three electoral votes put Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris over the 270-threshold needed to win the presidency.
Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the count conducted by a joint session of Congress, announced that Biden had won the Electoral College vote after the House and Senate easily defeated Republican objections lodged against the votes sent by two states, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
“The announcement of the state of the vote by the President of the Senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected President and Vice President of the United States, each for the term beginning on the 20th day of January 2021 and shall be entered together with the list of the votes on the journals of the Senate and the House of Representatives,” Pence said following the count of all of the state’s Electoral College votes.
The certification comes after pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol earlier Wednesday.
The joint session of Congress, which is normally a ceremonial step, was halted for several hours when rioters breached the Capitol.
Proceedings resumed at about 8 p.m. ET with Pence, bringing the Senate session back into order.
“Let’s get back to work,” Pence said.
Watch the moment Pence announced the results:
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that an objection to Arizona’s electoral votes did not reach debate. It did reach debate.
Congress has reconvened in a joint session to continue to count electoral votes after the Senate and House rejected objections to throw out Pennsylvania’s votes for President-elect Joe Biden.
Four lawmakers designated as “tellers” — two from the House and two from the Senate — will continue to read the certificates of vote from each state. There are 12 states to go.
The votes are read in alphabetical order.
We expect Wisconsin to be challenged in the House, but there will not be a senatorial signatory to it.
Track the electoral vote count here.
The House voted to reject an objection to throw out Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden. The challenge failed by a vote of 282-138.
The measure was also dismissed in the Senate, with a 92-7 vote tally.
The House and the Senate will now reconvene in a joint session to continue to count the remaining Electoral College votes. Track the electoral vote count here.
Pennsylvania will be the last state that will be debated. We expect Wisconsin to be challenged in the House, but there will not be a senatorial signatory to it.
There are 12 states to go.
Remember: Any further objections must be made in writing and backed both by a member of the House of Representatives and a senator, from any state.
Objections that are entertained by the chair — that’s Vice President Mike Pence, whose duties include serving as president of the Senate — will force both the House and Senate to withdraw for debate in each chamber, which will be capped at a maximum of two hours.
GOP Rep. Jake LaTurner of Kansas has announced via Twitter that he has Covid-19. He is not experiencing any symptoms, according to the tweet.
He voted in person four hours ago on the House floor per this vote tally.
See his tweets:
The House just wrapped up its debate over an objection on Pennsylvania’s electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden.
The objection is expected to fail. It already failed in the Senate, the vote was 92-7.
Two members of the House confronted each other on the House floor over a push to strike another members’ remarks from the record.
It began when Rep. Morgan Griffith, a Republican from Virginia, objected to what Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Conor Lamb said during the Pennsylvania Electoral College challenge debate.
This is what Lamb said that led to GOP members objecting:
“Enough has been done today here today already to try to strip this Congress of its dignity and these objectors don’t need to do anymore. We know that that attack today, it didn’t materialize out of nowhere, it was inspired by lies, the same lies that you’re hearing in this room tonight. And the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves, their constituents should be ashamed of them,” he said.
Rep. Andy Harris and Rep. Colin Allred yelled at each other to “sit down” “no, you sit down!” from across the floor.
They both then confronted each other in the aisle. At least a dozen other members bench cleared from their sides. Rep. Al Lawson of Florida, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and a senior Democratic staffer helped break up the confrontation.
According to CNN’s Kristin Wilson, who was in the room, the situation diffused fairly quickly but tensions were high.
The deputy Sergeant-at-Arms showed up in the scrum.
Watch the moment:
Former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent expressed his disgust Wednesday over rioters who stormed the US Capitol building and President Trump’s rhetoric that helped sparked the unrest.
In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, the former Pennsylvania lawmaker conveyed his anger with a pro-Trump rioter carrying a Confederate flag inside the Capitol building, calling it a “desecration.”
“I always proudly took my constituents to a plaque right by the east-front Capitol, right by the front door. It’s a plaque dedicated to the honorary first defenders from Allentown, Pennsylvania, in Redding, Pennsylvania … who went to the Capitol, at the call of Abraham Lincoln, to defend the Capitol during the Civil War. … The confederates never got there. They were there to protect against the rebellion. And here we are, watching Confederate flags running through the Capitol. To see this desecration to me, it’s so upsetting as an American, as a Republican. How could this happen?”
Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean on Thursday joined calls for President Trump’s removal from office by means of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment.
“I certainly hope it is [possible],” the Pennsylvania lawmaker said speaking on CNN. “…I think this President has proved himself day after day, month after month, year after year to be unstable and unfit.”
“In these waning days of this disgraceful presidency I hope we will be able to invoke the 25th Amendment,” she continued.
If not now, “when would you do it?” Dean asked.
Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, said that today “we hit bottom,” before suggesting that the President Trump’s rhetoric led to the attack on the Capitol.
“You get that many people together and get them stirred up, you simply can’t control them,” the Texas Republican said. “And I don’t know what the crowd’s composed of – that’s one reason why you don’t stir people up and say ‘go up and tell the people in the Capitol what you think about it,’ because you’re gonna get some people potentially infiltrating those groups that are gonna do things that you’re not gonna want them to do.”
Asked whether Trump hurt himself among rank-and-file Republicans with today’s actions, Cornyn said he doesn’t know because of Trump’s strong support, but added that he thinks “this will, this will open up, I think, some backlash, because I don’t think anybody accepts this as a satisfactory outcome.”
White House Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger resigned in response to President Trump’s reaction to a mob of his supporters breaching the US Capitol, a person close to Pottinger confirmed to CNN.
He told people there was very little for him to consider.
CNN reported Wednesday night that several of President Donald Trump’s top aides, including national security adviser Robert O’Brien and deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell, were considering resigning.
The US Capitol Police have sent out a message that the security threat has been cleared for all buildings within the complex following the violent riots.
Here’s what they said:
“All buildings within the Capitol Complex: The USCP has cleared the external security threat incident located within the Capitol Complex. The USCP will continue to maintain a security perimeter.”
What happened today: Four people are dead — including one woman who was shot — after supporters of President Trump breached one of the most iconic American buildings, engulfing the nation’s capital in chaos after Trump urged his supporters to fight against the ceremonial counting of the electoral votes that will confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
The stunning display of insurrection was the first time the US Capitol had been overrun since the British attacked and burned the building in August of 1814, during the War of 1812, according to Samuel Holliday, director of scholarship and operations with the US Capitol Historical Society.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, said he talked to Vice President Mike Pence about President Trump’s criticisms of him, and Pence “was very upset with him.”
Inhofe also called Trump’s comments “regrettable.”
Pence on Wednesday publicly broke with Trump, saying he cannot submit to demands he overthrow the results of the election.
Pence formalized his views in a letter to lawmakers, declaring he has no “unilateral authority to decide presidential contests” and could not change the results of the election.
“It is my considered judgement 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,” he wrote.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this report.
Michigan Democrat Rep. Dan Kildee tonight issued a strong condemnation of his Republican colleagues whose rhetoric helped foment the attack the US Capitol on Wednesday, saying their names should be remembered forever.
This was “whipped up by politicians… the President of the United States himself and some of my colleagues who know better,” said Kildee, speaking on CNN this morning.
“Those members of Congress who supported this specious attack on the Electoral College vote will have their names permanently written in ink and everyone should know those names,” said Kildee.
“I will never look at my colleagues who voted for these challenges, who fueled this insanity… the same, and that includes some of my Michigan colleagues who I could not look in the eye today when we were huddled in a safe place,” he said.
“I hope we remember those names forever,” he concluded.
Watch the moment:
An objection to certify Pennsylvania’s electoral votes failed in the Senate tonight, with a 92-7 vote.
Here are the seven Republican senators who voted to sustain the objection:
The Senate is voting on the objection of Pennsylvania’s Electoral College vote count now.
Lawmakers yielded their time allocated for debate, and are expected to reject the attempt to throw out the state’s votes for President-elect Joe Biden.
The objection was presented by Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry and Sen. Josh Hawley.
Vice President Mike Pence has accepted Pennsylvania’s objection to its electoral results.
“I have a written objection, signed by a senator and 80 members of the House of Representatives,” GOP Rep. Scott Perry said early Thursday morning in his objection.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley joined the objection as well.
Because the objection has been signed by both a congressman and a senator, the Senate will now reconvene and both it and the House will debate the objection. Each chamber will then vote on whether to sustain the objection.
CNN’s Phil Mattingly has more:
Vice President Mike Pence rejected an objection presented by Republican Rep. Mo Brooks to Nevada’s electoral votes after their bid failed to include a signature from a senator.
The congressman said they objected to Nevada’s electoral votes “in order to protect the lawful votes of Nevada and all other American citizens.”
He noted, however, that “unfortunately” no senator had joined in their effort.
Nevada’s votes were certified for President-elect Joe Biden.
Remember: Each objection must be put in writing and signed by both a congressman and senator in order for the joint session to be paused and the House and Senate adjourn to separately consider it.
Watch the moment:
A bid by Republicans to object to Michigan’s electoral results, which certified President-elect Joe Biden’s win, failed tonight in a joint session of Congress.
The objection was raised by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who confirmed that it was in writing but had not been signed by a senator.
Because the objection lacked the signature, Vice President Mike Pence rejected the action.
“In that case, the objection cannot be entertained,” Pence said, drawing applause from members of Congress.
And as a result, the objection failed.
Watch the moment:
Republican lawmakers objected to Georgia’s electoral results, which certified President-elect Joe Biden’s win, tonight on Capitol Hill.
GOP Rep. Jody Hice, of Georgia, objected to the election results in the state claiming they were “faulty and fraudulent.”
When asked by Vice President Mike Pence whether these objections were presented in writing and signed by one senator, Hice said: “Mr. President, prior to the actions and events of today, we did, but following the events of today, it appears that some senators have withdrawn their objection.”
Hice’s response drew vigorous applause from other lawmakers.
“In that case, the objection cannot be entertained,” Pence said in response.
Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler had indicated earlier today that she would object, but withdrew it after protestors stormed the Capitol Wednesday saying, “I cannot now object to the certification of these electors.”
Georgia’s votes are now certified for President-elect Joe Biden.
Remember: Each objection must be put in writing and signed by both a congressman and senator in order for the joint session to be paused and the House and Senate adjourn to separately consider it.
Watch the moment:
The joint session of Congress is counting the electoral ballots.
Four lawmakers designated as “tellers” — two from the House and two from the Senate — are reading the certificates of vote from each state.
They are doing this in alphabetical order. The teller just read the votes from Maine.
Track the electoral vote count in Congress here.
The House and Senate has reconvened the joint session and will resume counting the electoral ballots.
According to a Senate GOP leadership aide, when the Senate returns to the chamber to debate the objection to Pennsylvania, expected to be triggered by GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, they will not hold two hours of debate but will go straight to a roll call vote on the objection.
This will allow many senators to leave the Capitol while the House debates, possibly for two hours, and then votes on the Pennsylvania objection.
It’s unclear right now if the House would yield back time and not use the full two hours.
There will not likely be any more objections but after Pennsylvania is dealt with, the joint session will have to reconvene and complete counting of the ballots.
CNN’s Phil Mattingly has more:
DC Police Chief Robert Contee announced this evening that three people died from medical emergencies during today’s insurrection at the Capitol.
Contee did not specify if these people were involved in any way with the overtaking of the Capitol building.
“One adult female and two adult males appear to have suffered from separate medical emergencies, which resulted in their deaths. Any loss of life in the District is tragic and our thoughts are with anyone impacted by their loss,” he said.
DC Fire and Emergency Medical services transported people to area hospitals with injuries ranging from cardiac arrest to multiple fractures after falling from scaffolding on the West front of the Capitol building. However, city officials did not say whether any of these people are the ones now deceased.
Pro-Trump rioters – who overtook the Capitol Wednesday and stormed past police barricades – took the nameplate from above the door to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Aides also said the rioters shattered a big mirror in her office.
CNN reported earlier that a photo from inside her office suite shows a folder with the words “we will not back down” written on it.
The folder was found after rioters stormed the US Capitol as members of Congress were meeting to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.
It also appears that the Office of the Senate Parliamentarian was ransacked during today’s violence.
The House voted to reject an objection to throw out Arizona’s Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden. The measure was also dismissed in the Senate.
The effort failed in the House by a final vote of 303 to 121. A majority of Republicans voted to reject the electors, 121-83.
The House and the Senate will now reconvene in a joint session to continue to count the Electoral College votes.
Remember: Any further objections must be made in writing and backed both by a member of the House of Representatives and a senator, from any state.
Objections that are entertained by the chair — that’s Vice President Mike Pence, whose duties include serving as president of the Senate — will force both the House and Senate to withdraw for debate in each chamber, which will be capped at a maximum of two hours.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley still plans to object to Pennsylvania’s results, a spokesman said, which would force a second round of debate and votes on the objection.
Metropolitan police made in excess of 52 arrests as a result of the violence at the US Capitol today, said Chief Robert Contee said at a news conference.
Twenty-six of the 52 arrests were made on US Capitol grounds, Contee said.
Here’s a breakdown of the arrests, according to the chief:
Authorities also recovered a pipe bomb from the Democratic National Committee and another pipe bomb from the Republican National Committee. A cooler from a vehicle along with a long gun that also included Molotov cocktails on the grounds of the United States Capitol were also recovered.
Former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said that Wednesday’s riot at the US Capitol building was “beyond awful.”
“It was the most awful feeling I have had a long time,” Flake told CNN’s Don Lemon. “I was on Capitol Hill during 9/11. I was on the baseball field being shot at. I can tell you, neither of those experiences would have been like this.”
Flake, a CNN political commentator, who endorsed Joe Biden for president, went on to call on Congress to move certify the election results without objection.
“Congress is doing exactly what they should be doing right now, certifying the results and then waiting for January 20th,” Flake said. “I hope that Congress will take up some of the nominees that the President-elect has put forward and hold those hearings so that we can hit the ground running on January 20th.”
Watch the moment:
Two GOP senators who had initially planned to object to the Electoral College vote counts with Sen. Ted Cruz explained why they didn’t, pinning the blame on the riots that took place at the US Capitol today.
Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana said: “I didn’t feel comfortable with today’s events even though I do believe that election integrity is still a valid issue. Many of us can still pursue it. … When today’s events unfolded, I could not dignify it even by withholding something I objected to.”
Asked why she didn’t vote to throw out Arizona’s election results, freshman Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis pointed to “the activities of the day.”
But both Braun and Lummis declined to blame Trump for the violence and destruction in the Capitol.
The other senators who had initially signed onto Cruz’s effort but voted to reject the objection to Arizona: Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Steve Daines of Montana and James Lankford of Oklahoma.
GOP Sen. Mike Rounds, who didn’t sign on to Cruz’s effort and opposed the efforts to throw out the results, said of Trump’s rhetoric: “He most certainly did not help.”
The South Dakota senator added: “If anything, he urged in a very emotional situation very inappropriate action by people that appear to be his supporters.”
Rep. Nancy Mace said the last few days quickly transformed from the greatest in her political career to the worst.
Mace said her excitement from being sworn in on January 3, as the first Republican woman to be elected to Congress from South Carolina, quickly turned to horror as pro-Trump mob descended on the US Capitol.
“This has been the best and worst week of my life as an elected official,” she told CNN’s Don Lemon this evening.
“My worst fears came true today, this is a sad day for our nation,” she continued. “I’m heartbroken, I’m disgusted and I’m angry and enough is enough.”
“This needs to stop,” she added. “It needs to stop right now tonight. We need to end it.”
Watch the interview:
The US Secret Service is significantly ramping up coverage and bringing additional agents from the region to the White House, Naval Observatory, and USSS headquarters after today’s unrest, a source familiar with the situation said.
A USSS official also told CNN that Secret Service was the first federal agency deployed when the US Capitol Police asked for assistance from local and federal law enforcement.
The agents on detail for Vice President Mike Pence and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were present today and worked in their roles focused on securing their protectees, but when Capitol Police put out the call for assistance, USSS sent additional uniformed division and special agents to Capitol Hill to assist. They were subsequently joined by other law enforcement agencies, the official said.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced she is extending the public emergency to 15 days, as a result of rioters overtaking the US Capitol building earlier today. This will take the emergency declaration until the day after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The mayor says that the people who stormed the Capitol, “sought to disrupt the Congressional proceedings relating to the acceptance of electoral college votes.”
“Persons are dissatisfied with judicial rulings and the findings of State Boards of Elections, and some persons can be expected to continue their violent protests through the inauguration.”
On the floor of the House, New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Republican, echoed President Trump’s claims that poll watchers were banned from counting locations or otherwise prevented from observing the count and denied the access they legally deserved.
According to Zeldin, “There were poll watchers denied the ability to closely observe ballot counting operation.”
Facts First: There have been no reports of systematic irregularities with poll watchers anywhere in the US. There is no evidence supporting claims that poll watchers were shut out of the process.
You can read more about what happened with poll watchers in specific states here.
The House has finished debating the objection to Arizona’s electoral votes.
Rep. Jim Jordan asked for a recorded vote and members are voting now.
The objection already failed in the Senate.
The objection raised against Arizona’s electoral votes failed overwhelmingly in the Senate, 93-6.
Here are the six Republican senators who voted to sustain the objection:
Safety precautions put in place to protect members of Congress amid the pandemic are likely to add even more time to the Electoral College vote count process tonight.
The whole process was already delayed today after riots at the Capitol interrupted the counting and certification of elector votes.
Since the start of the pandemic, the House and Senate have both attempted to limit the number of members congregating on the floor during votes and have done so in a way that means voting now takes longer than it did previously in both chambers.
As a result, it is expected that each challenge could add roughly three to four hours to the proceedings this afternoon.
In the House, voting now typically proceeds by groups of members as opposed to allowing all members to vote at one time. In the Senate, votes are now usually held open longer in an effort to discourage crowding. Even with those precautions, though, there are frequently still crowds of members on the floor when votes happen.
In a memo obtained by CNN, official guidance from the Sergeant At Arms and the House physician informed members that they should only physically go to the joint session of Congress this afternoon if they are going to speak — another effort to try to cut down on crowding on the floor.
Following the Senate vote on Arizona’s electoral college votes, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said they must now wait on the House of Representatives to vote later tonight.
“We have a few more speakers now as we wait for the House to finish their debate and vote. Expect the House to finish voting on Arizona between 11:30 p.m. and midnight,” McConnell said.
Here’s a breakdown of what is happening tonight:
The Senate just voted on the objection raised against Arizona’s electoral votes. It failed overwhelmingly, 93-6.
Remember: At each objection put in writing and signed by both a congressman and senator, the joint session is paused and the House and Senate adjourn to separately consider it.
Following this vote, Congress will now return to a joint session and continue to count the Electoral College votes.
Watch the moment:
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been a staunch supporter of President Trump, vigorously defended to certify the electoral votes on the Senate floor.
Graham said he believed voting to object the results are a “uniquely bad idea to delay this election.”
“Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view he’s been been a consequential president. But today, first thing you’ll see. All I can say, is count me out, enough is enough,” Graham said.
Graham defended his stance by citing a number of cases in which Trump had lost, including the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision on election results.
“We’ve got to end it. Vice President Pence, what they’re asking you to do you won’t do, because you can’t,” he said.
Graham ended his remarks by fully backing the election results. “It is over… [Biden] won. He’s the legitimate President to the United States… Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected and will become the President and the Vice President of the United States on January 20,” he said.
Watch Graham speak:
GOP Rep. Tom Reed of New York rose to object to the Arizona electoral college challenge currently being debated on the House floor.
“I rise to object to the challenge,” he said to applause from the Democrats in the chamber, and then walked away from the lectern set up on the Republican side and crossing the center aisle to the Democratic side to finish his remarks from that side.
Reed told the Democrats that he would almost certainly disagree with them on policy in the future, but “I will stand with you tonight and send a message to all Americans that what we saw today was not American.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who was one of the first lawmakers to announce his objection to the certification of Joe Biden for president, condemned Wednesday’s riot at the US Capitol, but reaffirmed his decision to object to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes going to the President-elect.
“Pennsylvania, which is a state that I have been focused on, as an example, as to why people are concerned,” Hawley told lawmakers on the Senate floor. “Millions of Americans are concerned about our elections integrity.”
Hawley, 41, who was elected to represent Missouri in 2018, did not claim any allegations of fraud, but called out Pennsylvania lawmakers over enacting new procedures regarding mail-in ballots.
“Last year, Pennsylvania elected officials passed a whole new law that allows universal mail-in balloting,” Hawley said. “And did it irregardless of what the Pennsylvania Constitution says. And then when Pennsylvania and (its) citizens tried to go and be heard on the subject, before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, they were dismissed on grounds of procedure, timeliness in violation of that Supreme Court’s own precedent.”
Facts First: After the state decided last fall to allow “no excuse” absentee ballots for this election, Pennsylvania Republicans attempted to change the state’s law so that processing could begin earlier and the number of days after the election that counties could receive ballots would be limited. However, they were unsuccessful, and the status quo remained.
Hawley will formally object to Pennsylvania electoral vote tonight, according to his office.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley still plans to object to Pennsylvania tonight, according to his office.
“Senator Hawley spoke during the debate on the Arizona objection, but he will object to Pennsylvania once Congress returns to the joint session, and when the Senate and House go back to their chambers for the debate on Pennsylvania, he will yield his speaking time to move towards a vote,” his office says.
The House and the Senate are currently separately debating the Arizona objection, and after a bipartisan majority rejects the objection, the joint session of Congress will resume counting Electoral College votes in the House.
Some context: An objection has to be raised in writing and endorsed by a congressman and senator. Then the two chambers — House and Senate — adjourn to consider the objection.
These sessions, which could have the feel of a sort of trial as lawmakers make their cases, can only last for a maximum of two hours. Each lawmaker can be recognized for up to five minutes of talking, although they can yield to their time to other lawmakers. Then, both chambers separately vote.
Watch Hawley speak:
Members of the House Judiciary Committee are urging Vice President Mike Pence and members from President Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution and remove Trump from office, according to a statement released Wednesday night by the committee members.
“Even in his video announcement this afternoon, President Trump revealed that he is not mentally sound and is still unable to process and accept the results of the 2020 election. President Trump’s willingness to incite violence and social unrest to overturn the election results by force clearly meet this standard. So too are his recent Tweets, which Twitter has since deleted, saying the election was ‘stolen’ and that today’s riots ‘are the things and events that happen,’” the members said in the statement.
CNN reported earlier that some Cabinet members are holding preliminary discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment, according to a well placed GOP source.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney condemned today’s attack on the Capitol as an “insurrection” and pleaded with his Republican colleagues to drop their objections against the Electoral College votes and inform their constituents of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
“Now we gather due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of supporters who he had deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning. What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States,” said the junior senator from Utah, speaking from the Senate floor.
Romney then warned his GOP colleagues, who have continued to mislead about the 2020 election, that they were endangering the health of the American democracy and tarnishing their own legacies.
“Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit on an unprecedented attack against our democracy,” he said. “…They will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode, in American history. That will be their legacy.”
Romney said lawmakers carry a responsibility to stand up for the truth regardless of the political cost.
“The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth,” he said.
“I urge my colleagues to move forward with completing the electoral count, to refrain from further objections and to unanimously affirm the legitimacy of the presidential election,” Romney concluded.
Watch Romney speak:
President Trump told people he banned Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short from the West Wing today, according to multiple people.
Short was seen going into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building Wednesday, which is on the White House campus but is a separate building from the White House and where Pence has his Vice Presidential Office, but Short has otherwise spent the day on the Hill.
Some Cabinet members are holding preliminary discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment to force President Trump’s removal from office, a GOP source said.
The discussions are ongoing but it’s unclear if there will be enough Cabinet members to result in Trump’s removal.
The conversations have reached the Hill where some senators have been made aware of the discussions, the source said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck a defiant tone returning to the House chamber tonight, saying rioters had failed in their mission and assuring they would face justice.
The Democratic leader then assured Americans that the House would continue to be about the people’s business, starting tonight with certifying the election of President-elect Joe Biden.
“Despite the shameful actions of today, we still will do so,” said Pelosi. “We will be part of a history that shows the world what America is made of.”
“Congress has returned to the Capitol,” she said. “We always knew that this responsibility would take us into the night. We will stay as long as it takes.”
Watch Pelosi speak:
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker condemned efforts by rioters to disrupt Congress’s electoral vote process.
Booker noted that he could only recall two moments in US history when individuals laid siege on the country’s Capitol: The War of 1812 and today.
“What’s interesting about the parallel between the two is, they both were waving flags to a sole sovereign, to an individual, surrendering democratic principles to the cult of personality. One was a monarch in England and the other with the flags I saw all over our Capitol — including in the hallways and in this room. To a single person named Donald Trump. The sad difference between these two times is, one was yet another nation in the history of our country that tried to challenge the United States of America. But this time, we brought this hell upon ourselves,” Booker said.
Booker blasted those who were spreading conspiracy theories and false claims about voter fraud perpetuated by President Trump.
“It is unprecedented that he’s fanning the flames of conspiracy theory to create a smokescreen in this nation. To cover what he is trying to do, which is undermine our democratic principles. But it is not just that. The shame of of this day —it’s being aided and abetted by good Americans who are falling prey, who are choosing Trump over truth,” Booker said.
Watch:
After violent pro-Trump protesters stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, a growing number of Republican leaders told CNN that they believe Donald Trump should be removed from office before Jan. 20. Four of them called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked, and two others said the President should be impeached.
“He has to be impeached and removed,” said one current Republican elected official.
A former senior official said the President’s actions were egregious enough to remove him even with such a short time left in his tenure.
“I think this has been huge a shock to the system,” said the former official. “How do you keep him in place for two weeks after this?”
By impeaching and removing Trump, even at this late stage of his term, the Senate could subsequently vote to disqualify Trump from ever holding federal office again. On the other hand, invoking the 25th Amendment would require Vice President Mike Pence and a majority of the Cabinet to vote to remove Trump from office due to his inability to “discharge the powers and duties of his office” — an unprecedented step.
Several of President Trump’s top aides, including national security adviser Robert O’Brien, are considering resigning in the wake of his response to a pro-Trump mob breaching the US Capitol today.
O’Brien, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, and deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell are all considering resigning as soon as tonight, according to multiple sources familiar. Pottinger’s resignation appears to be imminent while others could sleep on it.
Earlier Wednesday, O’Brien took the unusual step of defending Vice President Mike Pence as Trump has been more consumed by his refusal to do his bidding today than the mob that breached Capitol Hill. O’Brien says he showed courage today as Trump lambasted him.
“I just spoke with Vice President Pence. He is a genuinely fine and decent man. He exhibited courage today as he did at the Capitol on 9/11 as a Congressman. I am proud to serve with him,” O’Brien said.
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse this evening took to the Senate floor to ask his fellow Americans to remember what is great about their country, even after the day’s harrowing events.
“I don’t think we want to tell our kids that America’s best days are behind us because it is not true,” said Sasse. “That’s not who we are.”
“There is a lot that’s broken in this country but not anything that is so big that the American people cannot rebuild it,” he continued. “That freedom, and community, and entrepreneurial effort and that neighborhoods can’t rebuild, nothing that is broken is so big that we cannot fix it.”
“America, is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world and the Constitution is the greatest political document that has ever been written,” he said.
Sasse concluded with a call for Americans to love each other.
“Most importantly, love your neighbor,” he said.
Watch:
White House social secretary Anna Cristina “Rickie” Niceta has resigned her role, effective immediately, a White House official tells CNN.
Niceta served as the Trump administration’s sole social secretary, assuming the post in February 2017.
Niceta becomes the second senior East Wing staffer to resign her job in the wake of today’s violent protests at the Capitol.
Stephanie Grisham, the former White House communications director and press secretary and current chief of staff for first lady Melania Trump, submitted her resignation Wednesday afternoon.
Some background on Niceta’s role: The social secretary conducts and oversees all events at the White House, from small meetings in the West Wing, to the annual Easter Egg Roll, Halloween, state visits and Congressional picnics and galas.
Prior to becoming social secretary, Niceta was an executive with Washington, D.C., catering company Design Cuisine. Melania Trump hired Niceta after being impressed with the food at the inaugural luncheon in the US Capitol building.
Several of President Trump’s top aides, including national security adviser Robert O’Brien, are considering resigning in the wake of his response to a pro-Trump mob breaching the US Capitol today.
O’Brien, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, and deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell are all considering resigning, according to multiple sources familiar. Pottinger’s resignation appears to be imminent while others could sleep on it.
Earlier Wednesday, O’Brien took the unusual step of defending Vice President Mike Pence as President Trump has been more consumed by his refusal to do his bidding today than the mob that breached Capitol Hill. O’Brien says he showed courage today as Trump lambasted him.
“I just spoke with Vice President Pence. He is a genuinely fine and decent man. He exhibited courage today as he did at the Capitol on 9/11 as a Congressman. I am proud to serve with him,” O’Brien said
O’Brien, Pottinger and Liddle did not immediately respond to request for comment.
President Trump is urging senators to push ahead with the protest on the certification of Joe Biden as President, according to a source familiar with the discussions, and the source says it sounds like Sen. Josh Hawley will continue his push for an objection.
As CNN reported earlier, Hawley would not answer when asked what his plans are following the protests today, and whether he would still object to Pennsylvania.
Sen. Roger Marshall also would not answer a question about whether he still planned to object to Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Congress reconvened their joint session tonight after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. Lawmakers are currently debating an objection to Arizona’s electoral votes.
CNN’s Manu Raju contributed reporting to this post
Republican Sens. Steve Daines and James Lankford say they will now vote to certify the election results.
Calling Wednesday’s insurrection “a sad day for our country,” the two senators said, “We now need the entire Congress to come together and vote to certify the election results.”
“We must stand together as Americans. We must defend our Constitution and the rule of law,” they said.
President Trump, who has proven over the past year to be eager to deploy the National Guard when violence breaks out, initially resisted doing so on Capitol Hill today as a mob of his supporters breached the building, according to a source familiar.
Vice President Mike Pence was on the phone with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, according to another source, and encouraged a much quicker deployment of the National Guard to the Capitol to help quell the rioters who were breaking through security barriers and overwhelming Capitol Police.
However, the source notes, Pence does not have authority over the National Guard.
As reported earlier, a White House adviser said some aides around Trump were furious that the President didn’t do more to stop the insurrection at the Capitol. The adviser said aides have been all but begging Trump to come out and make a statement to begin to calm the situation.
A White House official said aides to the President went to Trump to have him make the order to deploy the national guard to the US Capitol. The official said aides also asked that Trump record a video calling for an end to the siege on the Hill.
A source familiar with the situation said White House staffers are “horrified” by the violence at the Capitol and are worried there will be more trouble on the streets tonight.
“He doesn’t want to” to do more than what he is doing right now, the adviser said.
“If we could throw him to the angry mob, we’d throw him to the angry mob now,” the adviser said.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler changed her mind about objecting to Georgia election results in the aftermath of today’s riots.
“I cannot now object to the certification of these electors,” Loeffler said.
It’s unclear if anyone else will object to Georgia.
Her colleagues applauded after her speech.
CNN projected last night that Loeffler will lose the Senate Georgia runoff election to Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock.
At the request of the US National Guard, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is deploying 1,000 members of the New York National Guard to Washington, DC, “to aid and facilitate peaceful transfer of power,” Cuomo said in a statement Wednesday.
“For 244 years, the cornerstone of our democracy has been the peaceful transfer of power, and New York stands ready to help ensure the will of the American people is carried out, safely and decisively,” Cuomo said in the statement.
The troops will be deployed for up to two weeks. The decision was made at the request from the US National Guard. Cuomo said the deployment “will not impact our state’s ongoing efforts to contain and combat the Covid virus.”
Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, vowed tonight to work together with fellow members of Congress “to be able to set a peaceful example for the days ahead.”
Lankford acknowledged that Congress will certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win tonight.
“The peaceful people of Oklahoma want their questions answered, but they don’t want this what happened today,” he said, referring to the rioters who stormed the US Capitol today. “They also want to do the right thing, and they also want to do it the right way. They want to honor the constitutional process but they also want to have debate about the election security because they want to make sure it is right. Transparency and government does not seem like a bad idea.”
He continued: “Obviously the commission that we have asked for is not going to happen at this point and I understand that. We are headed towards tonight towards the certification of Joe Biden being the president of the United States and we’ll work together in this body to be able to set a peaceful example for the days ahead.”
Lankford took the floor after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted President Trump in fiery remarks from the floor.
“Make no mistake, make no mistake my friends. Today’s event did not happen spontaneously… This President bears a great deal of the blame,” Schumer said.
Watch the moment:
The Kansas City Star called Republican Sen. Josh Hawley in an editorial today, and said he “deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed”
Hawley, who was elected to represent Missouri in 2018, announced his intentions last week to object when Congress counts the Electoral College votes.
It’s not yet clear whether Hawley will drop those objections following today’s violence on Capitol Hill. Hawley did not respond to questions about his plans on the way back to the Capitol.
The Kansas City Star writes:
“No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway.
This, Sen. Hawley, is what law-breaking and destruction look like. This is what mobs do. This is not a protest, but a riot. One woman was shot and has died, The Washington Post reported, while lawmakers were sheltering in place.
No longer can it be asked, as George Will did recently of Hawley, ‘Has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment?’ Hawley’s actions in the last week had such impact that he deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed.”
Lawmakers have resumed debate on an objection to Arizona’s Electoral College vote count, picking back up where they were when both chambers were forced to recess.
Republicans were debating the objection before rioters stormed the US Capitol and prompted the proceedings to halt.
A group of House and Senate Republicans had planned to object to at least an additional two states’ election results on Wednesday, but it’s not clear if they will follow through forcing those votes in the wake of the riots at the Capitol.
While they were waiting for the Senate chamber to be readied for debate to resume, senators tried to cajole the Republicans who had planned to object to Georgia and Pennsylvania to back down after they finish debate over Arizona’s election results, two Senate sources familiar with the conversations told CNN.
“We’re trying to expedite matters,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, predicting the counting would be finished Wednesday evening.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer this evening delivered a powerful condemnation of the events that transpired in the US Capitol today and lay the blame for the violence on President Trump.
“This temple to democracy was desecrated,” he said, speaking moments after the Senate had reconvened following the violence. “…This will be a stain on our country not so easily washed away, the final terrible indelible legacy of the 45th oresident of the United States, Undoubtedly, our worst.”
Schumer – who will lead the Senate starting on January 20 after Democratic victories in this week’s Georgia runoffs gave his party control – then spoke directly about President Trump’s role in the mob’s attack on the Capitol.
“Make no mistake my friends, today’s events did not happen spontaneously,” said Schumer. “This President bears a great deal of the blame. This mob was in good part President Trump’s doing… his responsibility, his everlasting shame. Today’s events, certainly, certainly would have not happened without him.”
“Now January 6 will go down as one of the darkest days of recent American history, a final warning to our nation about the consequences of a demagogic president,” he added.
Watch:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lambasted rioters who breached the US Capitol and caused Congress to pause its electoral vote count.
“We will not bow to lawlessness, or intimidation. We are back at our posts, we will discharge our duty under the Constitution, and for our nation. And we are going to do it, tonight. ” McConnell said.
McConnell added that Congress will continue the certification process despite the “failed insurrection” attempt.
“The United States and the United States Congress have faced down much greater threats than the unhinged crowd we saw today. We have never been deterred before, and we will be not deterred today. They try to disrupt our democracy, they failed. They failed. They failed to attempt to obstruct Congress. This failed insurrection only underscores how crucial the task before us is, for our republic,” he said.
McConnell ended his remarks by stating that Congress will certify “the winner of the 2020 presidential election.”
Hear McConnell speak:
Vice President Mike Pence reconvened the joint session to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win tonight following violent rioting at the US Capitol today.
“We defended our Capitol today. We’ll always be grateful. The men and women who stayed at their post to defend this historic place,” Pence said. “Those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. This is still the people’s house. As we reconvene in this chamber, the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy.”
Watch the moment:
Former President Barack Obama has issued a statement following today’s violence on Capitol Hill where he implored Republicans to “choose reality and take the first steps toward extinguishing the flames.”
Obama added: “I’ve been heartened to see many members of the President’s party speak up forcefully today. Their voices add to the examples of Republican state and local election officials in states like Georgia who’ve refused to be intimidated and have discharged their duties honorably. We need more leaders like these — right now and in the days, weeks, and months ahead as President-Elect Biden works to restore a common purpose to our politics. It’s up to all of us as Americans, regardless of party, to support him in that goal.”
The Attorney General for the District of Columbia Karl Racine called on Vice President Mike Pence to organize the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office.
“Whether you like Vice President Pence or not, the fact is he is more fit for office… we need a commander-in-chief that will fulfill his constitutional responsibilities,” he told CNN tonight.
“I would ask the vice president, please go the next step,” continued Racine. “Do your constitutional duty. Protect America, stand up for democracy, and invoke the 25th Amendment.
“That requires Vice President Pence to move and get a majority of the Cabinet or majority of the Congress to immediately remove the President because he so clearly is not fit for office,” said Racine, earlier in the conversation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is back in his office and both he and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said they will make statements on the Senate floor when it comes back into session.
Some senators have already returned to the floor.
Per McConnell’s press secretary Doug Andres, he will deliver remarks on the floor at 8 p.m. ET.
Neither leader would say if there is an agreement to expedite the ballot objections.
There are many heavily armed Department of Homeland Security Police who have taken up positions around the Senate chamber on the second floor.
President Trump’s first Secretary of Defense James Mattis called the riots in Washington, DC, today a “violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule” and said it “was fomented by Mr. Trump.”
Mattis said Trump has used “the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo-political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”
A big group of senators from both sides of the political aisle left the secure spaces of the Capitol grounds, and Sen. John Hoeven told CNN they are working “on an expedited process” to consider objections to state vote counts. It hasn’t been finalized yet, he said.
CNN asked Sen. Mitt Romney what his message is to the country, and he said, “Come together with a new president.”
Asked about the next steps, Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham said they are to “finish the constitutional work of confirming Biden and Harris.”
Sen. Josh Hawley would not answer when asked if he would still object to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, and Sen. Roger Marshall would not answer if he still planned to object to Georgia and Pennsylvania’s presidential election votes.
Former President Bill Clinton denounced the violence at the US Capitol, saying in a statement “Today we faced an unprecedented assault on our Capitol, our Constitution, and our country.”
“The assault was fueled by more than four years of poison politics spreading deliberate misinformation, sowing distrust in our system, and pitting Americans against one another. The match was lit by Donald Trump and his most ardent enablers, including many in Congress, to overturn the results of an election he lost,” Clinton said.
He went on to say that the peaceful transfer of power must be completed.
“The election was free, the count was fair, the result is final. We must complete the peaceful transfer of power our Constitution mandates.
I have always believed that America is made up of good, decent people. I still do. If that’s who we really are, we must reject today’s violence, turn the page, and move forward together—honoring our Constitution, remaining committed to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” Clinton said.
Vice President Mike Pence has returned to the Senate, his press secretary tweeted Wednesday evening.
“Vice President Mike Pence has returned to the Senate. He never left the Capitol. @VP was in regular contact w/ House & Senate leadership, Cap Police, DOJ, & DoD to facilitate efforts to secure the Capitol & reconvene Congress. And now we will finish the People’s business,” his press secretary said.
The US Secret Service wanted Pence to leave the Capitol complex, and everything was in place, but Pence wanted to remain on site, a source familiar said.
The source says Pence’s Secret Service detail remained with him through the entire ordeal.
A separate source said regarding the resumption of tonight’s joint session of Congress, “he’s going to do his duty.”
Democratic Rep. Adam Smith said he quickly realized that extremism in the US is the true threat, as he learned the US Capitol building, which he was in, was being stormed by a violent pro-Trump mob.
“What was going through my mind is… extremism is an enormous problem in this country, and Donald Trump is just throwing matches all over the powder kegs,” he said, speaking with CNN’s Erin Burnett this evening.
“The rest of the country that enabled him is what we really need to work to fix,” continued Smith, who is the the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “You need to understand the dangers of extremism. We have gotten to the point we don’t understand rule of law matters.”
“It isn’t that you get your way all the time and if you don’t get your way you have to fight until you do.” he continued. “…You play by the rules and when it’s over, you accept the outcome and you govern this country.”
“We need to push back on the extremism,” he concluded.
But Smith also reserved harsh words for President Trump.
“Donald Trump, is a narcissistic psychopath, let’s just be clear about that,” said the congressman. “He stumbled his way into the presidency. What he believes from a policy standpoint is irrelevant. He is an egotist, cares about himself, period.”
Stephanie Grisham, the former White House communications director and press secretary and current chief of staff for first lady Melania Trump, submitted her resignation Wednesday afternoon, a White House official tells CNN.
Grisham’s resignation is effective immediately. The official says Grisham’s decision was motivated by today’s violent protests carried out by supporters of President Trump.
Grisham was one of the longest-serving Trump administration officials, having begun her tenure working for then-candidate Donald Trump in 2015 as a press wrangler on the campaign trail.
Grisham entered the White House as deputy press secretary under Sean Spicer, but in March 2017, she was identified by Melania Trump as someone who could be helpful to her scant East Wing staff. Trump hired Grisham away from her husband’s West Wing to become her East Wing communications director. Grisham quickly became the first lady’s most prominent staffer, acting as defender, enforcer and, often, protector.
CNN’s Kate Bennett reports:
House Republican Whip Steve Scalise outlined how he expects the Electoral College vote count will move forward tonight in a message to GOP members.
The House will resume its debate on the objection to Arizona’s electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden, according to Scalise. Republicans were debating the objection before rioters stormed the US Capitol and prompted the proceedings to halt.
Here’s more from Scalise:
“Members are advised that as soon as the House Sergeant at Arms confirms that the Capitol Building is safe and secure, the House is expected to reconvene and resume debate on the objection to the state of Arizona’s electoral votes.
After debate, the House will vote on the objection. Following the vote, the Joint Session will reconvene.
Members and staff should remain on the Capitol complex until they are notified by the United States Capitol Police.
Members are advised that votes are expected in the House tonight, and they could occur late into the evening. Further information about the exact timing of votes will be announced as soon as it becomes available.”
Twitter said Wednesday it has locked President Trump’s account for 12 hours, and warned for the first time that it may suspend him permanently.
The temporary lock reflects Trump’s violation of the Twitter rules, the company said.
“We have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity Policy,” Twitter said. “This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.”
Twitter added that “future violations… will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”
The announcement marks a major escalation by Twitter against Trump’s account and responds to calls by civil rights groups for Trump to be banned from the platform.
The House and Senate chambers are being cleaned so the full Senate and House can resume proceedings as soon as the 8 p.m. hour, Hill sources said.
It’s unclear if the House and Senate plan to go through the night or how long the proceedings will go.
In a letter to colleagues this evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said leaders of Congress have decided to resume the joint session tonight once the Capitol is “cleared for use.”
The House clerk is now returning to the chamber, according to pool reports.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington state, will reverse her position on challenging the presidential election results.
“We must have a peaceful transfer of power. The only reason for my objection was to give voice to the concern that governors and courts unilaterally changed election procedures without the will of the people and outside of the legislative process. I have been consistent in my belief that Americans should utilize the constitutional tools and legal processes available to seek answers to their questions about the 2020 election. What we have seen today is unlawful and unacceptable,” McMorris Rodgers said in a statement today.
McMorris Rodgers added: “I have decided I will vote to uphold the Electoral College results and I encourage Donald Trump to condemn and put an end to this madness.”
Read the statement:
Twitter on Wednesday removed several of President Trump’s tweets reacting to the violence at the US Capitol.
Among the tweets that were removed was a video that Trump posted Wednesday afternoon addressing his supporters. Also deleted was Trump’s tweet saying Vice President Mike Pence lacked the “courage” to do what was necessary.
The removal comes after Facebook and YouTube removed Trump’s video to supporters, and amid calls by the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP for Trump’s social media accounts to be suspended outright.
The last time Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado, experienced the level of violence seen at the US Capitol today was when he was serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, he told CNN this afternoon.
Crow was photographed comforting Rep. Susan Wild, a fellow Democrat from Pennsylvania, while rioters entered the Capitol.
“That was a very, very difficult time. I haven’t been in a situation like that since frankly I was in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army ranger. We were actually trapped in the House chamber at that time. A mob had descended and broke through the security cordon of the Capitol. They had already evacuated the leadership and the members who were on the floor. But those of us who were up in the gallery watching the debate had been trapped because the mob closed off the stairwells and had surrounded the chamber,” Crow said.
CNN’s Dana Bash spoke with Rep. Jason Crow. Watch:
Responding to President Trump’s tweet calling his supporters who violently stormed the US Capitol earlier Wednesday “great patriots,” House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney said the President is “abusing the trust of the American people and abusing the trust of the people who supported him.”
“Our job in the Capitol is to count the votes. We will count the votes, but there are serious questions about the President’s involvement and responsibility for what happen here tonight, here today at the Capitol and it cannot be tolerated,” she said in a phone interview on Fox News.
The No. 3 House Republican said she does expect for lawmakers to return to the House floor Wednesday evening to continue their joint session to count Electoral College votes and affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had said the same earlier.
“I think there is agreement that we must do that,” Cheney said, adding it was important to send a message to the country and world that America is “not ruled by mob violence.”
“We have this tremendous history of the peaceful transfer of power. Something that we take for granted but Ronald Reagan said it was miraculous. And I think what we’ve seen today demonstrates how fragile it is. And the obligation and the responsibility of everybody in a position authority to step up, make sure that we are abiding by our oath and make sure that this insurrection is not allowed to proceed and that we are not going to be ruled by the violence,” Cheney said.
She said the fact that members of law enforcement were injured amid the violence was “absolutely unacceptable,” and that Trump’s response has been “completely intolerable.”
In a letter to colleagues, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced leaders of Congress have decided to resume the joint session tonight to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win once the Capitol is “cleared for use.”
“In consultation with Leader Hoyer and Whip Clyburn and after calls to the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the Vice President, we have decided we should proceed tonight at the Capitol once it is cleared for use. Leader Hoyer will be sending out more guidance later today,” she said.
The crowds at the US Capitol have started to disperse following the enforcement of a 6 p.m. ET curfew enacted in Washington, DC.
Large crowds of people were seen walking away from the Capitol as of 6:25 p.m. ET.
CNN’s Alex Marquardt reports:
Ahead of the 6 p.m ET curfew, CNN reported that police were successfully clearing crowds from the lawn on the West side of the US Capitol, moving them back toward the Capitol reflecting pool.
The CNN team there didn’t see any signs of violence, although people in the crowd were yelling at the officers even as they moved back as instructed.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who has condemned GOP attempts to subvert the will of the voters in the presidential election, released a statement Wednesday night containing remarks he would have said in the US Senate before the insurrection in the US Capitol.
“We gather today due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of his supporters whom he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning. What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States. Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. They will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode in American history. That will be their legacy,” Romney said.
Romney went on to say, “I urge my colleagues to move forward with completing the electoral count, to refrain from further objections, and to unanimously affirm the legitimacy of the presidential election.”
The main Senate objectors are privately meeting to strategize about whether they plan to press ahead with their objections. The discussions come as leaders are planning to continue with the House and Senate session sometime tonight, but pressure is building on the senators to limit their objections and show unity after the raucous and violent display in the Capitol today.
Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and a few others were seen meeting in a separate room together outside of the bigger room where all senators are being held.
Braun was asked by reporters if they’ve reached any resolution, he replied, “Not yet.”
When CNN’s Manu Raju asked if his GOP colleagues should drop objections and just finish Electoral College certification tonight, GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska replied, “I think the way to get this done, the quickest way to show that our constitutional order is intact is, would be a good path forward.”
Senators are indicating they hope to return to session Wednesday night and finish the Electoral College ratification.
Manchin said he thinks it will happen in the Capitol but didn’t know for sure.
Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly echoed Manchin’s remark, saying “I expect that to be done.”
GOP Sen. Roger Wicker said “We’re gonna go forward.”
“The goal would be to expedite the objections, to have the debate make it so people who have to still make their points,” Wicker said. But he reiterated he’s not involved in those negotiations. As CNN noted, until the leadership says so, it’s still uncertain.
When asked if it would be done tonight, Wicker replied, “We’re gonna try to do it on the date it is called for.”
The Mississippi Republican also said the mood in the room where the senators are being held is “concerned” and “not upbeat.”
Moments ago, the Sergeant-at-Arms announced that the Capitol is now secure.
There was minimal damage apparent in the Capitol, debris on the floor, but no major damage. The floor was chalky with what we were told from one officer was smoke bombs. The smell of what appeared to be smoke bombs filled the Capitol hallways.
US diplomats overseas have been told to suspend all social media posts given the mob assault on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, three diplomatic sources told CNN, a step normally only taken during a terrorist attack and major natural disaster.
The Under Secretary for Public Affairs sent a note to US diplomatic posts overseas ordering them to “pause any planned context from your social media accounts” and remove any scheduled content set for release on Facebook, Hootsuite, and Twitter until further notice.
The message, a copy of which was provided to CNN, also said that planned social media from flagship State Department accounts are also being frozen.
That message was followed by a second note to staff that said the freeze was happening at the direction of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s office and should be implemented in all bureaus. A social media freeze of this sort is commonly ordered by department leadership when there is a terrorist attack or an earthquake and they do not want US missions posting about off-topic issues, a strong possibility since many offices schedule pre-planned posts.
Despite the directive, Pompeo himself has been “conspicuously silent” as rioters stormed Capitol Hill, one diplomat pointed out.
The situation has left US embassies – which are receiving multiple requests for comment – with nothing they can say about the riots, two US diplomats said. In some instances they have relied on the tweets of Vice President Pence saying that the violence must stop, diplomats said.
A current Trump White House aide tells CNN that many of his colleagues worked remotely on Wednesday ahead of anticipated protests and road closures in Washington, and like former colleagues, is casting blame on President Trump.
“Never did we think this would happen,” the aide said, adding that it is “indefensible.”
“The blame lies squarely with the President,” the aide said.
The aide said he does not plan to go back to work tomorrow and hasn’t decided whether to resign or stick out the next two weeks until President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“I haven’t made a decision. Problem is, if I resign, it looks disingenuous — you were willing to stick around for four years, but this is what did you in?” the aide said.
President Trump is now defending the actions of his supporters who stormed and vandalized the Capitol.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away,” he tweeted.
Trump concluded the tweet, rather stunningly, with “Remember this day forever!” There is no proof of widespread election fraud and the election was not stolen from Trump.
At the end of the tweet, Trump also called on the rioters to “go home with love & in peace.”
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer discusses the tweet with presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. Watch:
The woman who was shot inside US Capitol during riots Wednesday afternoon was pronounced dead at an area hospital, a spokesperson with the Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to CNN.
“Yes, the adult female that was shot inside of the Capitol was pronounced at an area hospital,” said spokesperson Dustin Sternbeck with the Metropolitan Police Department
Sternbeck said, “additional details will be forthcoming as this remains an active MPD investigation.”
CNN’s Pamela Brown reports:
Former President George W. Bush has released a statement condemning the storming of the US Capitol building this afternoon, describing it as “sickening” and “heartbreaking.”
While Bush does not mention President Trump by name, there is a clear reference in his statement to both Trump and other Republican officials when the former president said:
CNN’s John King reads Bush’s statement:
Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen issued a statement Wednesday evening calling the violence at the US Capitol “an intolerable attack on a fundamental institution of our democracy.”
The US Capitol Police was initially protecting the building when protesters had surrounded the Capitol and the building was in lockdown.
A citywide curfew for the District of Columbia began at 6 p.m. ET and will continue until 6 a.m. ET tomorrow.
Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the curfew earlier today after Pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol, where members of Congress were meeting to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
During the hours of the curfew, according to a statement, “no person, other than persons designated by the Mayor, shall walk, bike, run, loiter, stand, or motor by car or other mode of transport upon any street, alley, park, or other public place within the District.”
The curfew does not apply to essential workers, including people working in the media with their outlet-issued credentials.
Here is the mayor’s statement:
The Sergeant-at-Arms announced that the US Capitol building is now secure, according to press pool reporters. Rioters still remained outside the building.
Facebook has now removed President Trump’s video from earlier Wednesday addressing his supporters, company spokesperson Andy Stone told CNN.
In the video, Trump had urged Capitol rioters to “go home” but struck a sympathetic tone and reiterated his debunked claims of election fraud.
In a tweet Wednesday, Facebook’s VP of integrity Guy Rosen called this “an emergency situation,” adding that Facebook is “taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”
Congressional leaders are pushing to finish the verification process tonight, multiple sources familiar told CNN.
And as senators wait to get back on the Senate floor and resume the certification process, some senators are using the time to push and cajole the GOP senators who planned to object to states like Georgia and Pennsylvania to back down after they finish debate over Arizona’s election results, two senate sources familiar with the conversations told CNN.
It is unclear whether the efforts would be successful. It would require Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, for example, to back down in a very public way.
A 24-year-old male who was climbing the scaffolding on the west front of the US Capitol building fell more than 30 feet.
He is being taken to the hospital in critical condition, according to a source familiar.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said he is issuing a state of emergency as well as setting a 6 p.m. ET curfew for the Arlington and Alexandria areas neighboring Washington, DC.
Read Northam’s tweet:
The first 150 DC Guardsmen are expected to arrive at the US Capitol at any moment, according to a senior Defense official.
These guardsmen are part of the new Guard forces activated today.
These Guardsmen are wearing protective gear and carrying riot equipment, but they have no lethal or non-lethal weapons, the source said.
Their sole purpose right now is to back up Capitol police and to help re-establish a perimeter around the Capitol. They will stay as long as is needed, based on the conditions on the street. They are not doing any law enforcement activities – and that will also be true of the remaining Guardsmen as they are ready to head for the Capitol.
There are no plans to bring in active duty troops at this point, the official said.
The original 340 Guardsmen that were requested earlier in the week remain in their positions and on the streets and are also not armed.
Approximately 20 people were seen in plastic hand-ties being put in the back of a Capitol Police van after exiting the Russell Senate Office Building.
Those people were seen being put in the back of a Capitol Police van on Delaware Avenue near Constitution Avenue shortly after 5:30 p.m. this evening.
The Sergeant-at-Arms has announced that the US Capitol building is now secure, according to press pool reporters.
While leaving a secure location with other senators, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told CNN there’s a belief that Congress will finish the Electoral College certification tonight.
“These thugs aren’t running us off,” Manchin said.
He said he thinks it will happen in the Capitol but didn’t know for sure.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the Trump allies helping lead the effort to object to the Electoral College votes, tweeted this afternoon that Congress “must get back to work and finish its job.”
CNN reported earlier that leadership wants the situation to be brought under control first before making a decision on reconvening.
“The Capitol is being cleared. When it is safe, we will return to complete our Constitutional responsibilities. This is the United States. We will not allow mob rule to undermine the rule of law,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a member of leadership, told reporters.
Police are moving rioters away from the west front of the US Capitol and shouting, “move back!”
CNN reporters have witnessed chemical irritants and flashbangs being used.
CNN’s Alex Marquardt and Donie O’Sullivan report. Watch:
Facebook condemned the violent riots at the US Capitol on Wednesday, but stopped short of saying President Trump would be blocked from the social media platform.
“The violent protests in the Capitol today are a disgrace,” said Facebook spokesman Andy Stone in a statement to CNN. “We prohibit incitement and calls for violence on our platform. We are actively reviewing and removing any content that breaks these rules.”
Facebook’s policies on incitement do not carry exemptions or loopholes for elected officials, Stone added.
In accordance with Facebook’s approach to content labeling, users who attempt to share Trump’s labeled posts must click through an interstitial prompt.
But Facebook’s decision not to suspend Trump, at least for now, is likely to generate more criticism from groups such as the Anti-Defamation League. The group on Wednesday called for Trump’s removal from social media platforms over his role in fomenting violence.
Despite the statement, Facebook has not removed Trump’s post suggesting Vice President Mike Pence lacked the “courage to do what should have been done.”
It also has not removed Trump’s latest video message to supporters.
At least 13 people were arrested amid the siege of the US Capitol by Pro-Trump rioters, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee said Wednesday.
“We were looking at just above, just above 13 arrests, I should add very important note here that none of the arrest that occurred, were of DC residents, all the individuals who were arrested. All were from out of, out of the area,” he said.
Contee said several officers are being treated for injuries and authorities have confiscated several weapons as riots have unfolded outside the US Capitol.
“We have reports about that there are several MPD officers that are, that are injured. But these officers are being tended to and still engaged in the fight to regain control of the Capitol although they are injured. They are still working and they’re working very hard to regain control of the Capitol,” Contee said.
Contee said there were approximately “five weapons that have been recovered.”
A law enforcement source told CNN’s Pamela Brown that they are still clearing out rioters from inside the Capitol building and also clearing them off the inauguration stage and bleachers.
Sen. Jeff Merkley tweeted a photo of the electoral ballots on the Senate floor. Merkley noted that Senate staff “rescued” the ballots before rioters entered the Senate floor.
He speculated, “if our capable floor staff hadn’t grabbed them, they would have been burned by the mob.”
As night begins to fall on Capitol Hill following a day of unprecedented unrest, Rep. Ilhan Omar said she is drawing up articles of impeachment against President Trump.
“Donald J. Trump should be impeached by the House of Representatives & removed from office by the United States Senate,” Omar tweeted this afternoon. “We can’t allow him to remain in office, it’s a matter of preserving our Republic and we need to fulfill our oath.”
This decision comes roughly 11 months after the Senate voted to acquit Trump on two articles of impeachment.
Read the tweet:
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris took to Twitter following President-elect Biden’s remarks Wednesday afternoon to call for an end to the violence at the Capitol
“I join President-elect @JoeBiden in calling for the assault on the Capitol and our nation’s public servants to end, and as he said, ‘allow the work of democracy to go forward,” she tweeted.
Harris was in Congress when the riots began but was safely evacuated.
President Trump’s first homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, is one of many former officials condemning his response to the mob chaos on Capitol Hill.
“This is beyond wrong and illegal. It’s un-American,” Bossert tweeted. “The President undermined American democracy baselessly for months. As a result, he’s culpable for this siege, and an utter disgrace.”
Bossert added: “Despite of him, not because of him, police will regain control and prosecute those involved.”
Former Washington, DC, police chief Charles Ramsey told CNN today that authorities must urgently clear the US Capitol building and anyone who breached the building ought to be arrested.
“They have to reestablish a perimeter,” said Ramsey, speaking on CNN as an unknown number individuals continued to occupy the US Capitol hours after a pro-Trump mob stormed it.
“Anybody inside that building … ought to be face-down in handcuffs right now,” said Ramsey. “They need to be locking them up … but first they have to gain control and right now they do not have control.”
As to why authorities have been unable to secure the US Capitol complex grounds so far, Ramsey said officials may be staging for a coordinated operation.
“Maybe they are assembling somewhere trying to get their battle plan together in terms of how they are going to handle it,” said Ramsey, who led the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia for nearly 10 years.
“They have to reestablish a perimeter and get them out of the building,” he said. “They need to get started as soon as they possibly can.”
See more:
Rioters continue to face off with law enforcement at the US Capitol building after they forced their way inside earlier.
CNN’s Alex Marquardt described the scene as a “stand-off” with rioters still surrounding the edge of the building. He reported that to a “small extent,” law enforcement were pushing back the mob.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser imposed a 6 p.m. curfew, but Marquardt said, “There’s no indication right now that these protesters have any inclination of going anywhere. There’s no indication that they heard the message from the President to go home.”
CNN’s Pete Muntean described a similar scene and said that law enforcement seemed to be “outnumbered” by the mob.
CNN’s Brian Todd reported seeing smoke grenades being deployed to disperse crowds. He said some parts of the Capitol have been cleared.
Todd added that the crowd is thinning out “a little bit” but it’s by their own volition “they’re not leaving because police are pushing them out.”
Riot police have since moved in.
GOP Sen. Rand Paul has tweeted out a thread that he describes as “the speech I’ll be giving today from an undisclosed location” on the now-halted Electoral College vote count.
In it, he comes out against voting to overturn election results. Paul had previously not said where he stood on the issue.
In the lengthy thread, Paul says in part,
“The vote today is not a protest; the vote today is literally to overturn the election! Voting to overturn state-certified elections would be the opposite of what states’ rights Republicans have always advocated for. This would doom the electoral college forever. It was never intended by our founders that Congress have the power to overturn state-certified elections. My oath to the Constitution doesn’t allow me to disobey the law. I cannot vote to overturn the verdict of the states.”
You can read the full thread here.
As rioters continue to occupy the grounds of the US Capitol building, CNN’s Van Jones cautions Americans to take a step back and analyze this moment in history and asked, “Is this the end of something or the beginning of something?”
“Is this the death throes of something ugly in our country, desperate, about to go away and then the vision that Biden talked about is going to rise up or is this the birth pains of a worse disorder? Jones asked. “That’s where we are right now tonight. And I think the country has got to make a decision.”
Jones, a former adviser in the Obama administration, went on to call out the election fraud claims that sparked pro-Trump rioters to occupy the Capitol building.
“I don’t want to be partisan,” Jones said. “I understand some of these people, their social media feed is only showing them example of example of anecdotes of vote threat, statistical, magical thinking that says that the election was impossible, so they’ve been bombarded with that. And because they’ve been bombarded with that, they’re angry. Fine. You have a right to be angry. You don’t have a right to insurrection. You don’t have a right to sedition. You don’t have a right to break into buildings and to hurt police officers. There has to be a line.”
Watch:
A White House official told CNN that aides to the President went to Trump to have him make the order to deploy the National Guard to the US Capitol.
The official said aides also asked that Trump record a video calling for an end to the siege on the Hill.
In other words, these were not decisions Trump made on his own. Aides went to him to get him to do it.
A source familiar with the situation said White House staffers are “horrified” by the violence at the Capitol and are worried there will be more trouble on the streets tonight.
Smaller protests at Capitol buildings across the US have popped up, including in Salem, Oregon; Atlanta, Denver, and Topeka, where President Trump’s supporters gathered.
Video from CNN affiliate KATU showed several hundred people at demonstration in front of the Oregon Capitol, standing in the drizzle. At one point, they interrupted a series of speakers to play Trump’s Twitter message to the rioters in Washington.
“That was the President. We’re not going home here; we’re just getting started,” a rally leader said.
In Atlanta, dozens of people stood across from the Capitol, many holding flags. In Denver, hundreds of people gathered outside the Colorado Capitol.
Authorities say a pro-Trump protest inside the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka was permitted and peaceful.
“There are no known issues that I am aware of,” Lt. Terry Golightly, a spokesperson for Kansas Capitol Police, told CNN. The demonstration was permitted for an hour and had ended, he said.
Congressional leaders are being evacuated from the Capitol complex and will be taken to Fort McNair, according to a federal law enforcement official.
McNair is a nearby Army base in Washington, DC.
The evacuation is still underway, the source said.
Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum issued a powerful rebuke to the mob that stormed the US Capitol, and to those who are supporting them, calling today’s events “heartbreaking.”
“If you love America, you understand the greatness of our country is the great institutions we have and we defend those institutions, you defend our Constitution,” he said, speaking on CNN this afternoon. “We don’t try to overturn through violence and protests the things that you say you value.”
Santorum said that as a Republican he understands the frustration many supporters of President Trump feel after losing the 2020 election, but said it is unimaginable to him that they have lost faith in the institutions of this country to this extent.
“I would just say that you are adding to the hopelessness of people and you’re not doing anything to restore the greatness of America by tearing it down,” he said.
Watch the moment:
There are no clear answers yet on when the joint session will resume to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win, multiple sources familiar tell CNN.
Leadership wants the situation to be brought under control first.
Where things stand: Congress had certified just two states — Alabama’s nine Electoral College votes and Alaska’s three — before the riots at the US Capitol broke out earlier today. All 12 of those votes went to President Trump.
The process of certifying the electoral votes works alphabetically, with lawmakers starting with Alabama and then working through the states in alphabetical order.
There are 538 electoral votes in total, one for each congressperson and senator plus three for Washington, DC.
After the riots broke out, Congress went into recess and the Capitol went in lockdown.
A number of leaders from around the world turned to Twitter this afternoon to condemn the violent mob that stormed the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
Here’s what they said:
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
European Parliament President David Sassoli
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon
GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, who was one of the architects on the Senate-side challenging the presidential election results, released a statement on Twitter saying, “The violence must end, those who attacked police and broke the law must be prosecuted, and Congress must get back to work and finish its job.”
Pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol this afternoon, interrupting a joint session of Congress where lawmakers were set to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.
The process of certifying the electoral votes works alphabetically, with lawmakers starting with Alabama and then working through the states in alphabetical order.
Congress had certified just two states — Alabama’s nine Electoral College votes and Alaska’s three — before the riots broke out. All 12 of those votes went to President Trump.
Former Attorney General William Barr said the violence at the Capitol building is “outrageous and despicable. Federal agencies should move immediately to disperse it.”
Barr spokesperson Kerri Kupec gave that message in a tweet on Wednesday.
Barr resigned Dec. 23, 2020. His departure was announced by President Trump on Twitter moments after counting in the Electoral College put President-elect Joe Biden over the 270 votes needed to formally secure the presidency.
A photo from inside Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office suite shows a folder with the words “we will not back down” written on it, according to CNN’s Manu Raju.
“I want to direct you to that manila folder right there, as you can see, look in there, it says, ‘we will not back down.’ Someone leaving a message for the House Speaker in her suite,” Raju reported.
The folder was found after pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol as members of Congress were meeting to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College wi##
President Trump addressed rioters in a video message where he told them “to go home” while simultaneously falsely stating that the election was “stolen.”
“Now, we brought that to you because President Trump on the tape says to his supporters who are right now conducting an armed insurrection non the US Capitol, he tells them to go home, but I also want to note that in that video he lies about the election being stolen and pours more fuel on the fire. He continues his shameful behavior of lying to his supporters about what happened. It is absolutely disgraceful. I hope they listen to the part in which he said for them ‘to go home,’ but to be completely frank, there are mixed messages in that video,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said.
“I want people to remember how they feel watching these images of the United States Capitol being taken over and these clear acts of sedition and violence and terrorism by Trump supporters, because there’s going to be an attempt to white wash and pretend this didn’t happen,” Tapper added.
See the moment:
Pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol this afternoon, interrupting a joint session of Congress where lawmakers were set to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.
The process of certifying the electoral votes works alphabetically, with lawmakers starting with Alabama and then working through the states in alphabetical order.
Congress had certified just two states — Alabama’s nine Electoral College votes and Alaska’s three — before the riots broke out. All 12 of those votes went to President Trump.
There are 538 electoral votes in total, one for each congressperson and senator plus three for Washington, DC.
Lawmakers were in the process of discussing Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes when the riots broke out. Several GOP lawmakers had objected to the votes, which were for Biden, prompting both the House and Senate to retire to their chambers to debate the objection.
After the riots broke out, Congress went into recess. It’s not clear when they could reconvene to continue the certification process.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has described scenes in Washington, DC — where rioters have breached the US Capitol — as “disgraceful,” calling for a peaceful transfer of power.
“Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress,” Johnson tweeted Wednesday.
“The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power,” he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the British government has “full confidence” that the US checks and balances system will ensure that the outcome of the election is “properly decided, determined and then respected.”
At least two suspected pipe bombs have been rendered safe by law enforcement — one at a building that houses Republican National Committee offices and one in the US Capitol complex, a federal law enforcement official tells CNN
The official said these were real explosive devices and they were blown up to be rendered safe.
George Washington University’s home men’s basketball game against the University of Massachusetts has been postponed. George Washington stated in a tweet that the game was called off due to the 6 p.m. ET curfew now in place in Washington, DC.
In a statement by the University of Massachusetts, the school says the protests and the curfew were to blame for the postponement and that their basketball team is vacating the area.
“The Minutemen are currently leaving Washington D.C. and will travel back to Massachusetts tonight.”
The Atlantic 10 Conference says it will reschedule the game to a later time.
Twitter moved Wednesday to restrict engagement with tweets by President Trump and others that have been labeled “due to a risk of violence.”
The announcement comes after hours of silence as violent rioters descended on the US Capitol, and amid mounting calls by the Anti-Defamation League and others for Trump’s Twitter account to be suspended outright.
Twitter did not directly address those calls, but said that the restrictions on sharing and engagement are part of its efforts to monitor the “ongoing situation in Washington.”
Likes have been disabled on Trump’s tweet that claimed Vice President Mike Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done,” and those wishing to retweet Trump’s tweet are being prompted to add a comment rather than simply amplifying the content.
“In regard to the ongoing situation in Washington, D.C., we are working proactively to protect the health of the public conversation occurring on the service and will take action on any content that violates the Twitter Rules,” Twitter said.
“Threats of and calls to violence are against the Twitter Rules, and we are enforcing our policies accordingly. In addition, we have been significantly restricting engagement with Tweets labeled under our Civic Integrity Policy due to the risk of violence. This means these labeled Tweets will not be able to be replied to, Retweeted, or liked,” the company added.
Twitter is still considering other “escalated enforcement actions,” it added.
CNN’s Manu Raju described the scene while being evacuated at the US Capitol after rioters breached the building.
There are police officers in riot gear and gas masks, and the smell of tear gas is throughout the building, Raju reported.
“These rioters have clearly … breached all elements of this building. You’re seeing debris, trash, all in the elevators, things knocked down, posts knocked down, and this is clearly a sign of how they are gone into all parts of this building,” he said.
He did not see any rioters currently inside of the building, he said.
See Manu Raju’s report:
President Trump’s first chief of staff Reince Priebus is one of several former staffers speaking out more forcefully about the pro-Trump riots taking place at the US Capitol than Trump.
“Many of these folks are nothing but domestic terrorists,” he tweeted. “And many are criminals and trouble makers all acting in a manner opposite of patriotism. These violent people have no respect for democracy. Pure insanity and disgusting.”
Smoke grenades are being deployed on the Senate side of the US Capitol, as Capitol police work to clear the building of rioters.
Windows on the west side of the Senate have been broken, and hundreds of officers are amassing on the first floor of the building.
CNN reporters working in the US Senate, have been told by the Capitol Police that they are being evacuated from the Senate, to an undisclosed location.
The Capitol Police also say the Senate won’t be in session in the Capitol building today or anytime soon, saying the building was “trashed.”
While the officers appear to be speaking with authority, CNN has not independently confirmed that the Senate leadership has made that decision.
A source close to the White House who is in touch with some of the rioters at the Capitol said it’s the goal of those involved to stay inside the Capitol through the night. It’s a potential disruption that would further delay the constitutional process that was interrupted by the violence on the Hill.
As reported earlier, a White House adviser said some aides around President Trump are becoming furious that the President won’t do more to stop the insurrection at the Capitol. The adviser said aides have been all but begging Trump to come out and make a statement to begin to calm the situation.
“He doesn’t want to,” to do more than what he is doing right now, the adviser said.
“If we could throw him to the angry mob, we’d throw him to the angry mob now,” the adviser said.
President-elect Joe Biden addressed the pro-Trump riots happening right now at the Capitol, saying the work of the next four years will be rebuilding democracy.
“The work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy – of decency, honor, respect, the rule of law. Just plain, simple decency,” Biden said.
The President-elect said he is “shocked and saddened” that the country has come to “such a dark moment,” but added that like other moments in history, America will prevail.
“Through war and strife, America’s endured much. And we will endure here and we will prevail again and we’ll prevail now,” Biden said.
“Today’s reminder, a painful one, that democracy is fragile and to preserve it requires people of good will,” he said.
Rioters stormed the US Capitol building earlier today while members of Congress were meeting to certify Biden’s win.
Watch:
At least one officer was pepper sprayed and taken to an area hospital, according Douglas Buchanan, chief of communications for the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services.
Buchanan also said others have been treated and taken to hospitals throughout the day – ranging from cardiac arrest to someone who suffered multiple fractures after falling from scaffolding on the West end of the U.S. Capitol.
President-elect Joe Biden called on President Trump to appear on national television and condemn his supporters who breached the US Capitol.
“The words of a president matter, no matter how good or bad that president is. At their best, the words of a president can inspire. At their worst, they can incite. Therefore, I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Biden said in an address to Americans.
Biden called the mob an “insurrection.”
“Threatening the safety of elected officials, it’s no protest. It’s insurrection,” Biden said. “The world’s watching. Like so many other Americans, I am shocked and saddened that our nation, so long the beacon of light and hope for democracy, has come to such a dark moment.”
“President Trump: Step up,” Biden added.
Watch:
The headquarters for the Republican National Committee were cleared Wednesday after a suspicious device was found nearby, committee communications director Michael Ahrens told CNN.
The headquarters are just a few blocks from the US Capitol. The evacuation happened roughly an hour ago, Ahrens said.
An RNC official told CNN that a pipe bomb was found on the ground outside, along the wall of the headquarters. The device was safely detonated by the police, the RNC official said.
The Democratic National Committee was also evacuated on Wednesday after a suspicious package was being investigated nearby, a Democratic source familiar with the matter tells CNN.
The party preemptively closed the building ahead of the protests, the source said, but a few security and essential personnel were evacuated.
President-elect Joe Biden addressed the riots that erupted at the US Capitol building, calling it an “assault” on democracy.
“At this hour, our democracy’s 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 and the Capitol Hill police, sworn to protect them. And the public servants who work at the heart of our Republic… Let me be very clear. The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America. Do not represent who we are. What we’re seeing are 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.
Watch:
It’s been more than two hours since a chaotic mob of rioters surrounded and breached the Capitol.
Despite many calls from both Republican and Democrats for President Trump to demand his supporters leave the Capitol building, the President has not yet done so.
Even Vice President Mike Pence has been more forceful, tweeting that an attack on the Capitol “will not be tolerated,” and calling for rioters to leave.
Trump did send out a couple of tweets urging people to be “peaceful” but has not asked them to leave.
A White House adviser said some aides around President Donald Trump are becoming furious that the President won’t do more to stop the insurrection at the Capitol.
The adviser said aides have been all but begging Trump to come out and make a statement to begin to calm the situation.
“He doesn’t want to” to do more than what he is doing right now, the adviser said.
CNN’s Van Jones called on Republicans and conservatives to denounce the riots at the US Capitol building today.
“I don’t think that Republicans and conservatives can look at this and say, ‘this is okay,’” he said.
“I’m calling on all of my conservative friends, my Republican friends to say, what would I do if Black Lives Matter dropped 30,000 Black people on the nation’s Capitol and laid siege to the seat of power in the middle of a joint session of Congress and broke in? What would I say if Black Lives Matter did that? I’m going to say it right now. What if Muslims did it. If Muslims dropped 30,000 Muslims on the seat of government in the middle of a joint session of Congress and ran in there and there was blood on the floor and tear gas, what would we be saying?” Jones pressed.
Jones called for a uniform denunciation, right now, from “top to bottom of the Republican Party of what we’re seeing.”
Watch:
CNN’s Abby Phillip drew a contrast between the response of President Trump to pro-Trump rioters who breached the Capitol today and Black Lives Matter protesters during the summer.
“A few months ago in Washington — where we live and where we work — you couldn’t drive down the street without being stopped by National Guard vehicles, by law enforcement of every type and every stripe,” Phillips said.
“Every block of this city was in lockdown because of Black Lives Matter protesters. Now you have thousands of armed protesters who happen to all be Trump supporters, who are mostly not Black Lives Matter protesters; they’re mostly white, and they’re storming the Capitol with violence, someone has been shot, glasses being broken, lawmakers are in lockdown wearing gas masks, and looking at these pictures, where is law enforcement?” she said.
“Capitol police struggling to control this, and you don’t hear the President saying, ‘we are sending reinforcement.’ You don’t see him saying, ‘we are sending help to protect this federal building, to protect the lawmakers who are inside of it and the people who work there and the people of this city.’ That is incredibly shameful,” she continued.
Trump has so far tweeted for his supporters to “remain peaceful.” Aides are urging Trump to put out a stronger statement in response to the chaos unfolding on Capitol Hill.
Watch CNN’s Abby Phillip:
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a joint statement calling on President Trump to demand the rioters leave immediately.
It says:
“We are calling on President Trump to demand that all protestors leave the U.S. Capitol and Capitol Grounds immediately.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took to Twitter to react to President Trump’s calls for peace after rioters breached the US Capitol building.
The New York Democrat retweeted Trump’s tweet calling for those on Capitol Hill to “remain peaceful” and said “It’s a little late for that. Don’t you think?”
The entire DC National Guard has been activated by the Department of Defense following a pro-Trump mob breaching the United States Capitol.
Jonathan Hoffman, chief Pentagon spokesman, said:
“The D.C. Guard has been mobilized to provide support to federal law enforcement in the District. Acting Secretary Miller has been in contact with Congressional leadership, and Secretary McCarthy has been working with the D.C. government. The law enforcement response will be led by the Department of Justice.”
Police in riot gear have moved into the plaza on the east side of the Capitol.
CNN’s Brian Todd says approximately 50 police are on the east side.
Some rioters have followed behind them, yelling at them.
Tech platforms faced growing calls Wednesday afternoon to suspend President Trump’s social media accounts for his role in instigating riots at the Capitol.
The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement accusing Trump of promoting sedition and inciting violence.
“President Trump has a responsibility to call for an end to this violence and unrest that he has sowed. His campaign of disinformation is a clear and present danger to our democracy,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “But until such time as that happens, social media companies should suspend his accounts ASAP as they would do for anyone else advocating disinformation and promoting violence. It’s time.”
“Why is Trump still allowed to tweet?” asked Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter for the New York Times Magazine.
Trump has called for his supporters to “remain peaceful” but has not called for them to stand down, despite calls by many Republicans for him to do so.
“Condemn this now, @realDonaldTrump – you are the only one they will listen to. For our country!” tweeted Alyssa Farah, Trump’s former communications director.
Facebook and Twitter did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The companies have applied contextual labels to Trump’s tweets in recent days, but since the November election it has become increasingly clear that the labels are inadequate to the task.
Multiple officers have been injured with at least one transported to the hospital, multiple sources tell CNN.
Pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol earlier today, where members of Congress were meeting to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, who is currently on a weeklong diplomatic trip in the Middle East, condemned the situation unfolding at the Capitol, saying in a tweet, “violence in any form is unacceptable.”
“NO one has the right to attack ANY federal institution regardless of motivation. Violent opportunists at the US Capitol grounds must be held accountable. We have a proud history of resolving our differences through peaceful means,” he said.
While retweeting her father, President Trump’s tweet, Ivanka Trump addressed the rioters as “American Patriots.”
She added, “the violence must stop immediately. Please be peaceful.”
Minutes later, after push back on Twitter for calling the rioters “patriots,” she deleted the tweet.
CNN’s Gloria Borger reports. Watch:
White House Press Secretary tweeted that President Trump has directed the National Guard and other “federal protective services” to assist with responding to the rioters at the US Capitol.
“We reiterate President Trump’s call against violence and to remain peaceful,” she tweeted.
Virginia is sending 200 state troopers and mobilizing a unit of the Guard to quell the situation at the US Capitol, according to Clark Mercer, chief of staff for Gov. Ralph Northam.
After rioters stormed the US Capitol building, Vice President Mike Pence is now calling for an end to violence and for people to respect law enforcement and leave the building.
“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,” Pence tweeted.
He continued: “Peaceful protest is the right of every American but this attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Read his tweets:
President Trump’s former acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, called for police to immediately arrest anyone participating in violence at the US Capitol Building, calling such acts “unAmerican.”
Grenell is among a handful of current and former Trump officials who have condemned the violence unfolding at the US Capitol.
While the President has tweeted about the situation, his calls for protesters to “remain peaceful” have been criticized by lawmakers in his own party as insufficient.
Video taken at the US Capitol showed some rioters breaking the glass of a window and then climbing through the shattered pane.
Here’s how CNN’s Dana Bash described the footage:
“We’re actually looking at video right now of these anarchists … these people who were involved in this insurrection. They broke the glass in the United States Capitol and now they are climbing through the window.”
Watch the moment:
Aides are urging President Trump to put out a stronger statement in response to the chaos unfolding on Capitol Hill after his supporters breached security barriers. He has so far declined, beyond his latest tweet, as he is watching coverage from the West Wing.
Earlier this afternoon, White House officials had told CNN that a statement on the ongoing riots in the US Capitol was coming soon.
Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he spoke with President Trump about the rioters who have breached the US Capitol.
“I called him. I think we need to make a statement. Make sure that we can calm individuals down. Now, I don’t know who these people are. Remember, when you have a big crowd, people who can get in to a crowd, I don’t know who they are, I don’t have any reports,” he said.
However, many people in the crowd were seen wearing red MAGA hats, and carrying Trump campaign paraphernalia.
McCarthy made the comments in an interview on FOX News, adding, “Whatever is happening is unacceptable. They came here to protest peacefully. They could be hurt. What is happening right now is unacceptable.”
Asked what the President said when he called him, McCarthy said, “He put out a tweet as well. For people to stay safe and people to not do this. I explained what was going on.”
McCarthy said Trump is “getting reports of what is happening. He did not accept people doing this type of the behavior. I know he’s getting reports as well. I wanted to give him a first hand report.”
The Senate floor has been cleared of rioters, and an officer told CNN that they have successfully squeezed them away from the Senate wing of the building and towards the Rotunda, and they are removing them out the East and West doors of the Capitol.
Things appear to be calm on the Senate side.
It’s uncertain what the situation is in the House.
President-elect Joe Biden is at The Queen theater in downtown Wilmington, Delaware, where he was giving remarks on Covid-19, the economy and the Georgia election results.
An aide tells CNN that Biden has been monitoring and is expected to address the violent protests escalating in Washington.
He had planned to say “it’s time to turn the page,” as he expressed in his morning statement, but his exact words are still being considered.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said riots at the Capitol were fueled by conspiracy theories, calling them “utterly despicable.” He urged Republican leaders to “call it out forcefully” and hold people accountable.
“When you don’t tell people the truth, you end up getting people to believe the conspiracies and the false proof, and you get Capitol storms like the one today. This is absolutely, utterly despicable, and every single Republican leader has got to call this out forcefully and be held accountable,” Kinzinger told CNN.
But Kinzinger said that he believes the democracy will prevail in the end.
“The guardrails of the democracy and the constitution will hold and we will succeed, and I think when this is over, we will look back and realize where this cancer has come from and go after it,” he said.
Watch more:
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, urged rioters to “stop NOW” as they stormed the US Capitol and forced lawmakers to halt the Electoral College certification proceedings.
Cruz spoke earlier today to object to the certification of Arizona’s elections results, which declared President-elect Joe Biden the victor.
Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, a veteran and supporter of President Trump, said pro-Trump rioters storming the Capitol is “insane.”
“I’ve not seen anything like this since I deployed to Iraq in 2007 and 2008,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Gallagher is not in the Capitol but is “hunkered down” in his office, he said.
Watch more:
A woman is in critical condition after being shot in the chest on the Capitol grounds, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The sources could not provide further details on the circumstances of the shooting.
DC Attorney General Karl A. Racine called on President Trump to tell his supporters to immediately “cease and desist.”
Reacting to protesters breaching the US Capitol Building, he issued a statement saying:
“We call on President Trump to immediately tell his supporters, who are trampling on the District of Columbia and have breached the U.S. Capitol, to cease and desist and return from whence they came in a peaceful manner.
The United States of America is the world’s greatest democracy, and that rests on a peaceful transition of power.
We urge President Trump to do what he has not yet done, but what he must do: order his supporters to leave the District of Columbia and fully embrace the transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
In the midst of this unrest, all District residents must remain at home. Under no circumstances should anyone travel downtown nor be in the vicinity of federal buildings.”
President Trump tweeted urging his supporters to remain “peaceful” but has not asked them to leave.
See Racine’s tweet:
Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, said countries around the world are watching the storming of the Capitol play out in real-time and laughing at the US.
“If we don’t think other countries around the world are watching this happen right now, if we don’t think the Chinese communist party is sitting back and laughing, then we’re deluding ourselves.”
To Trump, Gallagher said, “Call it off! It’s over. The election is over.”
Dozens of local police officers from Montgomery County, Maryland, just arrived at the US Capitol in riot gear.
They started pouring out of several vans and at least one armored vehicle on Constitution Ave. and are moving toward to the North side of the Capitol building.
CNN is reaching out to Montgomery County Police.
Amid a chaotic scene where protesters breached US Capitol building, CNN’s Jake Tapper reports that lawmakers texted that they’re “stunned” by the scene.
The building is currently under lockdown.
“I’m getting texts, as I’m sure Dana and Abby are as well, members of Congress, Trump supporters, Biden supporters, Democrats, Republicans, who are stunned. They have been told by Capitol police they have to shelter in place in their office. Is it because of a terrorist attack on the United States? It’s because Trump supporters are violently in some cases forcing themselves into the United States Capitol, stopping the constitutional proceedings of the counting of the electoral votes for Joe Biden, the President-elect,” Tapper said.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, tweeted calling it a “coup attempt.” He also denounced the protesters actions in a series of tweets and directly responded to President Trump. “You are not protecting the country,” Kinzinger tweeted at Trump.
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace tweeted that she had to evacuate her office. In a follow-up tweet Mace wrote, “This. Is. Insane.”
Here are more reactions from Congress members about the breach and unrest:
House and Senate leadership are safe and in an undisclosed location, according to a person familiar.
A separate lawmaker says House members have been evacuated to a location that this source would not disclose.
The US Capitol Police are working to secure the second floor of the Capitol first, and will then expand from there.
Outside the Capitol, the DC Metropolitan Police Department continues to mass, however no major move has been made yet toward the crowd.
A photo taken by pool reporter Igor Bobic shows a protester inside the Senate chamber.
The Capitol is currently on lockdown, and police are trying to contain the escalating protests.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King discuss. Watch:
Pro-Trump protesters have stormed the US Capitol, as members of Congress were meeting to certify the Electoral College results of the 2020 presidential election.
Video from inside the Capitol showed Trump supporters marching through Statuary Hall. The US Capitol Police is asking for additional law enforcement for assistance in containing the protests, including federal authorities, per a source familiar.
The protests and the breach are ongoing, but here’s what we know so far:
Acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli cautioned demonstrators on Twitter, saying:
“If you are entering the Capitol Building against police orders, you must leave. There is a proper venue to resolve grievances. This is not it.”
Cuccinelli premised his tweet by citing the protests last summer in Portland that the Trump administration repeatedly condemned, placing blame on leftist organizations.
“For months over the summer we rightly condemned Antifa for storming federal buildings in Portland,” he said.
It’s unclear whether Cuccinelli was suggesting whether Antifa was involved in the escalating situation unfolding at the Capitol.
Earlier today, DHS spokesperson Alexei Woltornist said: “The Department of Homeland Security has stood up the DHS Virtual Situation Room to facilitate department and interagency communication and coordination as we do for many large events in DC.”
CNN has reached out to DHS for updates, in light of recent developments.
House members are being given gas masks that were under the seats, according to a pool reporter on the House floor.
“Rules Committee Chair McGovern is telling members there is tear gas in the rotunda and Grabbing mask under seats and be prepared to put on. Everyone is freaking out. Members are all holding the gas masks,” the pool reporter said.
Everyone in the House chamber is being told to relocate to cloakroom.
There are about 100 people inside the chamber, that reporter said.
The White House is an elevated security posture, CNN’s Peter Morris reports.
White House staff and journalists are able to come and go, but uniformed division officers are now armed with assault rifles and patrolling the grounds.
Also, after President Trump returned to the White House following his rally earlier, the Marine guard was present outside of the West Wing. That Marine has since gone inside, indicating that Trump is not currently in the Oval Office.
Charles Ramsey, the former chief of the DC Metropolitan Police, called the breach of U.S. Capitol Wednesday afternoon by Pro-Trump protesters “as close to a coup attempt as this country has ever seen.”
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper what President Trump should do, Ramsey said, “What I would want the President to do is shut the hell up and get out of the way.”
“I mean, the guy is — he’s like a cancer, you know,” Ramsey added.
“He stirred them up and got the whole thing going. This is as close to a coup attempt as this country has ever seen. That’s what you’re looking at, folks, that’s what you’re looking at and it’s absolutely ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, and a lot of people are responsible for this.”
Watch:
President Trump has urged protesters to support police and law enforcement in a tweet this afternoon as they breached the US Capitol.
Earlier in the day, Trump encouraged his supporters to protest at the US Capitol in the hours before the building was breached.
Despite promising he would join them, Trump retreated to the White House in his SUV and watched on television as the violence unfolded on Capitol Hill.
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And 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,” he said at his rally on the Ellipse.
As he was concluding, Trump again claimed he would join his supporters as they marched to the Capitol.
“We’ll walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said.
For more than 40 minutes, the White House has refused to comment on the chaos unfolding involving Trump’s supporters on Capitol Hill, who have now breached the area where Vice President Mike Pence is currently inside. Despite repeated requests, Trump’s spokesperson have declined to say anything or deliver any message from the President on what’s ongoing.
A lawmaker confirms to CNN that the House floor is being evacuated.
There’s an armed standoff at the House front door, and police officers have their guns drawn at someone who is trying to reach the front door.
Protesters, who breached the Capitol building, were reportedly heard banging on the doors of the House floor moments before the floor evacuation began.
CNN’s Manu Raju reports. Watch:
Federal and local law enforcement are responding to reports of possible pipe bombs in multiple locations in Washington, DC.
It’s unclear if the devices are real or a hoax, but they’re being treated as real.
The Office of the Vice President-elect will not comment on the whereabouts of Kamala Harris, but add that she is “safe,” according to a Harris aide.
She was set to attend the Electoral College vote certification this afternoon on Capitol Hill.
A lawmaker confirms to CNN that the House floor being evacuated.
Protesters, who breached the Capitol building, were reportedly heard banging on the doors of the House floor.
CNN’s Jake Tapper called the throngs of protesters surrounding the Capitol building an attempt at a coup.
“It’s an absolutely shameful, disgusting situation that we’re witnessing here,” Tapper continued, slamming the President for encouraging protests by refusing to accept the election results.
Watch the moment:
Vice President Mike Pence has been evacuated from the US Capitol, where he was there for the Joint Session of Congress.
The Electoral College certification vote has been paused after protesters breached the Capitol building.
The officer in the House chamber just told lawmakers they may need to duck under their chairs, adding that there are protestors in the rotunda of the US Capitol.
Lawmakers have been told to “be prepared” to relocate to cloakrooms, but “at this point in time there is no threat to the chamber.”
The doors are barricaded.
Amid a breach of the U.S. Capitol by Pro-Trump protesters, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, tweeted calling it a “coup attempt.”
Here’s the tweet:
The Electoral College certification vote has been paused and the Capitol is on lockdown, according to Capitol police officers.
Washington, DC, will be under a 6:00 p.m. ET curfew, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced in a tweeted statement. It will remain in effect until 6:00 a.m. Thursday.
The Electoral College certification vote has been paused after protesters incited by Trump breached the Capitol building.
“During the hours of the curfew, no person, other than persons designated by the Mayor, shall walk, bike, run, loiter, stand, or motor by car or other mode of transport” within the district, the statement said.
Here’s her full statement:
The US Capitol Police is asking for additional law enforcement for assistance, including federal authorities, per a source familiar.
The source said there are several suspicious devices outside the Capitol Building.
A separate law enforcement source says the DC Metropolitan Police Department has sent more resources to assist the Capitol Police, including CDU platoons or Civil Disturbance Units.
CNN’s Pamela Brown reports. Watch:
CNN’s Alex Marquardt reports from the western side of the US Capitol that throngs of protesters are climbing the steps and terrace of the building in a “significant escalation.”
“I can see at least half a dozen protesters scaling, literally, climbing the walls of the Capitol to get up to where their fellow protesters are,” he said.
Police have fired several rounds of tear gas, he reported.
Marquardt said he did not see “any sort of sign of law enforcement” from where he stood.
The US Capitol is currently on lockdown, according to Capitol police officers.
The US Capitol has been breached during a tense situation with demonstrators, according to Capitol police officers.
The House doors have been locked and an emergency alert from the Capitol police just transmitted the same thing:
Capitol Hill police are also blocking anyone from moving from Senate office buildings into the US Capitol building. There are underground tunnels that link the office buildings with the Capitol building that senators, staff, and journalists use to travel back and forth.
Watch more:
Donald Trump Jr. condemned protesters outside the Capitol building, saying “this is wrong and not who we are.”
In a tweet, he urged demonstrators to be peaceful “and use your 1st Amendment rights, but don’t start acting like the other side. We have a country to save and this doesn’t help anyone.”
Hundreds of pro-Trump protesters have gathered on the House side of the US Capitol.
Moments ago, Capitol police officers said the building has been breached.
Congress is now in recess and the electoral certification process has been paused.
Here’s a look at the scene on Capitol Hill right now:
Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy is urging demonstrators outside of the US Capitol to “remain peaceful.”
The US Capitol is currently on lockdown, according to Capitol police officers. Congress is in session right now to count and certify the Electoral College votes for president and vice president.
See his tweet:
Watch:
Shortly after 1 p.m. ET pro-Trump protesters pushed through barriers set up along the perimeter of the US Capitol Building. They tussled with officers in full riot gear, some calling officers “traitors” for doing their jobs.
Protesters could be seen pushing against metal fences, and police using the fences to push protesters back, while other officers reached over the top to club people trying to cross their lines.
Flash bangs could be heard near the steps of the Capitol as smoke filled the air. In some instances officers could be seen deploying pepper spray.
Teargas has been deployed, but it’s not clear whether by protesters or police, and people wiped tears from their eyes while coughing.
Trump supporters chanted “USA” and waved American flags as well as flags reading “Don’t Tread on Me.”
Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Pat Toomey criticized his GOP colleagues’ objections to Arizona’s electoral results.
He added:
“If Congress gets to decide which states get to vote in the electoral college, then clearly Congress is selecting the President, not the people. Whichever party controls both houses of congress would control the presidency. The public would never tolerate Congress picking the president.”
Toomey emphasized that Congress has no authority under the US Constitution to overturn the results of an election.
“I voted for President Trump. I publicly endorsed President Trump. I campaigned for President Trump. I did not want Joe Biden to win this election. But there’s something more important to me than having my preferred candidate sworn in as the next president and that’s to have the American people’s chosen candidate sworn in as the next president,” he concluded.
As US Capitol police said the Capitol is on lockdown amid a tense situation with demonstrators outside, Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria tweeted that she had to evacuate her office.
“I don’t recognize our country today and the members of Congress who have supported this anarchy do not deserve to represent their fellow Americans,” Luria added in another tweet.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, pushed back against Sen. Ted Cruz’s claims that the election was fraudulent, saying he didn’t make the same arguments for lawmakers who were elected on the same ballots.
“I did not see Senator Cruz over at the swearing-in of the House of Representatives last Sunday asking for an audit. He did not stop their swearing in, because there was no fraud. He did not ask for an audit, because we had a fair election,” she said during the debate on the Senate floor on an objection to Arizona’s electoral votes.
The senator also pointed out several lawsuits that were dismissed by courts in Arizona.
“What matters is not our futures, not our own short-term destinies. What matters is our democracy’s destiny, because, I think many of us know, people will not know who we are 100 years from now, or 200 years from now, but what they will know is this – they will know what we did today, how we voted today, and that is more important than who we are,” Klobuchar said.
The US Capitol is on lockdown during a tense situation with demonstrators outside the building, according to Capitol police officers.
A CNN employee tried to leave the building and couldn’t because police said the building is on lockdown.
Congress is currently in session to count and certify the Electoral College votes for president and vice president.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz objected to Arizona’s electoral votes, despite no evidence supporting claims of voting irregularities and fraud.
Cruz is leading the efforts by some GOP lawmakers in objecting to electoral results from battleground states where President-elect Joe Biden won.
“Let me be clear, I’m not arguing for setting aside the election,” Cruz said. Instead Cruz appealed to both Democrats and Republicans to opt for Congress to create an electoral commission, similar to one that was used in the 1876 election.
“Five house members, five senators, five supreme court justices, examined the evidence and rendered a judgment. And what I would urge of this body is that we do the same. That we appoint an electoral commission to conduct a 10 day emergency audit. Consider the evidence and resolve the claims. For those on the democratic aisle who say there is no evidence they’ve been rejected, then you should rest in comfort if that’s the case, an electoral commission would reject those claims,” Cruz said.
Cruz ended his remarks by urging his colleagues to not take “the easy path, but instead act together, astonish the viewers and act in a bipartisan sense to say we will have a credible and fair tribunal, consider the facts, consider the claims, consider the evidence.”
Remember: There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and there is no evidence that electors from the electoral college were fraudulently chosen, as all states have certified their elections.
The objections during today’s formal count of electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia will not change the results of the election. Every Democrat and some Republicans will reject the challenges in both chambers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Criticizing GOP objections to Arizona’s electoral results, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said a peaceful transition of power “is extolled by school children in the second grade but not by some here.”
He added:
“As we speak, the eyes of the world are on this chamber questioning whether America is still the shining example of democracy, the shining city on the hill. What message will we send today to our people, to the world that has so looked up to us for centuries? What message will we send to fledgling democracies who study our constitution, mirror our laws and traditions in the hopes that they, too, can build a country ruled by the consent of the governed.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the “United States Senate has a higher calling than an endless spiral of partisan vengeance” as he dismissed GOP lawmakers’ challenge to Electoral College results.
McConnell warned against actions that would “guarantee the delegitimatizing efforts after 2016 is a permanent, new routine for both sides.”
“Framers built the Senate to stop short-term passions from boiling over and melting the foundations of our republic. So I believe protecting our constitutional order requires respecting the limits of our own power. It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and the states on this extraordinarily thin basis,” he added.
McConnell closed with this statement: “I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.”
WATCH:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said those lawmakers who are objecting to Electoral College votes are “in the minority” and “will lose.”
“The American people elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be the next President and Vice President of the United States. And yet, a number of our colleagues have organized an effort to undermine and object to that free and fair election. They are in the minority. They will lose. They know that,” he said.
He added, “They are going to object to the counting of the vote any way. And in the process they will embarrass themselves, they will embarrass their party, and worst of all they will embarrass their country.”
Schumer said that Congress does not determine the outcome of elections — “the people do.”
“They have no evidence of widespread voter fraud upon which to base their objections,” Schumer said.
WATCH:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cautioned against overturning the election results due to “mere allegations” from the other side. He said if that happened, “We’d never see the whole nation accept an election again.”
“Every four years would be a scramble for power. At any cost. The electoral college, which most of us on this side have been defending for years would cease to exist. Leaving many of our states with no real say at all in choosing the President. The effects would go even beyond the elections themselves. Self government, my colleagues, requires a shared commitment to the truth and a shared respect for the ground rules of our system,” McConnell said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his remarks during the Senate debate on Arizona’s electoral results said failing to certifying the results “would damage our republic forever.”
“The Constitution gives us here in Congress a limited role. We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on steroids. Voters, courts, states have all spoken. They’ve all spoken. If we overrule them it would damage our republic forever,” he said Wednesday.
WATCH:
The US Capitol Police have ordered staff to evacuate House Cannon building and the James Madison Memorial Building which is part of the Library of Congress. No further information at this time beyond it’s needed due to police activity, per multiple sources.
USCP sent an alert to staff alert to staff about a suspicious package in the 300 Block of First Street SE, advising staff to avoid the area.
Read the alert:
The USCP is continuing to investigate a Suspicious Package in the 300 Block of First Street SE. Staff and other personnel are directed to AVOID THIS AREA until further notice.
The following road closures are in effect due to the investigation: The following road closures are in effect due to the investigation:
-First Street between C and D Streets SE
-New Jersey Avenue between Ivy and D Streets SE
-D Street between New Jersey Avenue and Second Street SE
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed President Trump’s allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, saying:
“Every election we know features some illegality and irregularity and of course that’s unacceptable. I support strong state-led voting reforms. Last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures must not become the new norm. But my colleagues, nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election. Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence.”
“We cannot simply declare ourselves a national board of elections on the voters, the courts, when all states have all spoken,” he continued.
“They’ve all spoken. If we overrule them it would damage our republic forever. This election actually was not unusually close. Just in recent history, 2000 and 2004 were all closer than this one. The electoral college margin is almost identical to what it was in 2016,” he continued.
McConnell noted in his remarks that he supported Trump’s “right to use the legal system.”
“Dozens of lawsuits received hearings in courtrooms all across our country. But over and over, the courts rejected these claims including all-star judges whom the President himself has nominated,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his opening remarks during the Senate debate on Arizona’s electoral results said that his vote today would be the “most important he ever cast.”
“This will be the most important vote I’ve ever cast. President Trump claims the election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations to constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories,” he said.
WATCH:
Following the objection to Arizona’s Electoral College votes, lawmakers are headed to the House and Senate chambers to debate.
These debates can only last for a maximum of two hours.
Each lawmaker can be recognized for up to five minutes of talking, although they can yield to their time to other lawmakers. Then, both chambers separately vote on whether to accept or reject the objection.
An objection has to be raised in writing and endorsed by a congressman and senator.
All of today’s objections will be voted on, and are expected to fail.
Even as Vice President Mike Pence formalized his position that he cannot overturn the results of the election, President Trump continued to pressure him to break the law and decertify electoral college votes.
“Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you,” Trump said on the Ellipse, moments before Pence released his letter declaring he had no “unilateral” authority to reverse the results.
Trump acknowledged Pence was not likely to follow his demands.
“I’m not hearing good stories,” Trump said.
Pence wrote to members of Congress saying:
“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,” Trump continued holding out hope.
“So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do and I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to,” Trump said.
Rep. Paul Gosar objected the the counting of the electoral votes in Arizona. He was joined by other representatives and senators.
Several lawmakers applauded after Gosar announced the objection.
What happens now: The objections will extend the normally ceremonial process of counting Electoral College votes into Wednesday evening and possibly beyond.
For each state where a House member and senator object, the two chambers will separately recess and debate the matter for up to two hours, followed by a vote on whether to accept or reject the objection.
Remember: While some GOP lawmakers are expected to object to several states’ electoral results, those objections will not change the results of the election.
Every Democrat and some Republicans will reject the challenges in both chambers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
WATCH:
Trump claimed that, in Pennsylvania, there were “205,000 more ballots than you had voters.”
Facts First: False. There were not more votes than registered voters in Pennsylvania; state officials and fact checkers have repeatedly explained that this claim is false. Trump appeared to be invoking an incorrect figure from a Republican state legislator who had relied on incomplete data.
The four lawmakers who will serve as “tellers” who will read aloud the electoral votes from every state are Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Republican Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois and Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California.
Blunt is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and Klobuchar serves as the ranking member, or top Democrat, on the panel. Lofgren is the chair of the House Administration committee and Davis is the ranking member, or top Republican, on that panel.
Blunt is a prominent Senate Republican and a member of Senate Republican leadership as GOP policy committee chairman.
Klobuchar’s national profile was elevated last year when she ran for president herself during the 2020 election cycle in the Democratic primary, but she ended her presidential bid in March of that year and endorsed Joe Biden, whose electoral votes she’ll be reading today.
Lofgren has served in high-profile roles before during major congressional events. In 2020, she was one of the impeachment managers from the House who presented the case from that chamber during the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
Davis has served in the House representing the thirteenth congressional district of Illinois since 2013.
Trump claimed that the election “was over at 10 o’clock in the evening” on Election Night, when he had leads in the vote counts in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but then “explosions of bulls—” occurred.
Facts First: It is obviously false that the election was over at this early stage of the counting process. There is a simple explanation for Trump’s big initial leads in some states he ended up losing, including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan: he led because many mail-in ballots had not yet been counted. There is no indication he lost the leads for any suspicious reason.
Media outlets and political analysts had noted for weeks prior to Election Day that we were likely to see a “red mirage” in which Trump would initially appear to be up big in some states that counted mail-in ballots last. Mail-in ballots favored Biden so heavily in large part because Trump had regularly discouraged his own supporters from voting by mail.
In a number of states, legislatures disallowed election officials from processing votes early, leading to delays.
According to Trump, “if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.” He added, “all Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to re-certify,” which Trump claimed Pence has “the absolute right to do.”
Facts First: This is totally false. There’s nothing in the law about Pence doing anything but calling on tellers and announcing the results. The Constitution only gives him the power to count the votes.
According to CNN contributor and law professor Steve Vladeck, Trump’s claim is “just not true.”
Vladeck pointed to the 12th Amendment which outlines the Vice President’s traditional role in the certification process as largely ceremonial. The Vice President, in his or her role as President of the Senate, is given the power to “open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.”
“There’s no discretion on [the Vice President’s] part, nor has any Vice President previously claimed the power to reject any properly formatted certificates,” Vladeck told CNN.
Even the President’s longtime attorney Jay Sekulow has said Pence doesn’t legally have the authority to trigger such an outcome.
“Some have speculated that the Vice President could simply say, ‘I’m not going to accept these electors,’ that he has the authority to do that on the Constitution. I actually don’t think that’s what the Constitution has in mind. If that were the case, any vice president could refuse any election,” Sekulow said on his radio show this week, adding that Pence’s role is “more of a ministerial procedural function.
The joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote results and affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s win has begun.
What comes next: Four lawmakers designated as “tellers” — two from the House and two from the Senate — will read off the certificates of vote from each state. They’ll do it alphabetically starting with Alabama.
The process usually takes about an hour, but this year it could go many hours because some Republicans plan to object to certain states — a step that will force up to two hours of debate for each state.
All of those objections will be voted on, and are expected to fail.
Vice President Mike Pence just released a statement on his role at today’s joint session of congress, where lawmakers will certify the electoral results of the presidential election.
President Trump has pressured Vice President Mike Pence and Republican lawmakers to overturn the election results – something they cannot do.
Here’s his full statement:
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be on hand today as Congress counts the Electoral College votes in a joint session.
In her role as senator of California, Harris will be voting today, but she is not planning to speak during today’s proceedings, a source familiar with the plans said.
Harris was slated to attend a classified Senate intelligence committee hearing this morning, before turning to the electoral business later in the day.
“The American people did their job and today she will be there to do hers,” a Harris Senate aide said.
The Senate is convening as lawmakers get ready to count and certify the Electoral College votes for president and vice president today in a joint session.
Republicans in both chambers plan to object to the count in at least three states.
Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen. Chuck Schumer won’t speak until debate over the first objection starts.
Senators who plan to attend the joint session will gather on the floor over the need few minutes and then join a procession led Vice President Pence to march to the House.
Trump peppered his rally speech with his usual series of wildly false claims about the presidential election he lost – claiming that “we won it by a landslide,” that the election was “so corrupt,” that unnamed people “rigged” the process, and that Joe Biden got “80 million computer votes” rather than legitimate votes.
Facts First: That is all false. Trump lost a free and fair election to Biden – 306-232 in the Electoral College.
Biden earned more than 81 million legitimate votes, exceeding Trump’s total by more than 7 million. There is no evidence the election was rigged in any way.
Congress is just about to meet in a special joint session to certify the votes of the Electoral College.
The process is largely ceremonial, but lawmakers will have the ability to raise objections about the vote — just like some Democrats did in 2017. But while those objections were dismissed easily in 2017, Republican senators could, if they choose, drag the process out this year, and force the House and Senate to vote on individual points.
CNN’s Zach Wolf is answering your questions on the process and what to expect. Click on the link below to submit your questions.
Watch live:
Sen. Amy Klobuchar welcomed President-elect Joe Biden’s expected decision to nominate Judge Merrick Garland as attorney general. Garland’s appointment will “bring credibility back to the Justice Department,” she said.
The Democratic senator, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said she expects Garland to have a smooth confirmation process.
“I think that there are many of my colleagues — despite what happened to him in the Supreme Court process — that have showed respect to him in the past on both sides of the aisle, and that will help him to see a smooth confirmation,” she told CNN.
She added:
“He’s someone that knows the law. He’s someone that — to me, one of the things that’s really important — will bring credibility back to the justice department and improve morale, get people to see it as a lawyer’s job, which it is. Your job is your fidelity to the Constitution and to the law, not being the personal lawyer of the president. I think a judge gets that.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said in a statement Wednesday that he will not oppose the Electoral College vote certification in Congress.
“I will not oppose the certification of the Electoral College votes, and I will not embolden politicians in the future to appoint our presidents instead of having the American people duly elect them,” his statement said.
President Trump cast his ire at “weak Republicans” less than an hour before Congress begins the formal process of certifying the election for Joe Biden.
He told the crowd of supporters he would be using the term “weak Republicans” going forward.
“There’s so many weak Republicans and we have great ones, Jim Jordan. These guys they’re out there, the House guys are fighting, but it’s incredible. Many of the Republicans, I helped them get in, I helped them get elected. I helped Mitch get elected. I helped, I could name 24 of them, let’s say, I won’t bore you with it. And then all of a sudden you have something like this and it’s like, oh, gee, maybe I’ll talk to the President sometime later,” Trump said.
“Now it’s amazing: the weak Republicans, the pathetic Republicans, and that’s what happens,” he said.
The Republican party, Trump said, is “constantly fighting with their hands tied behind their back… and we’re going to have to fight much harder, and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t that will be a sad day for our country.”
Trump went on to thank the “warriors” who will contest the election results today.
Remember: While some GOP lawmakers are expected to object to some states’ electoral results, those objections will not change the results of the election. Every Democrat and some Republicans will reject the challenges in both chambers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Additionally, Despite Trump’s allegations about the 2020 election, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and there is no evidence that electors from the electoral college were fraudulently chosen, as all states have certified their elections.
Trump also suggested he could join the protesters walking from the Ellipse to Capitol Hill. He named the dozen Senators who will object — “Senators who have stepped up, we want to thank them,” he said.
“We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol. And we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And 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,” Trump said.
President-elect Joe Biden has decided to nominate Judge Merrick Garland as attorney general, people familiar with the matter tell CNN. It’s a long-awaited decision that was moved toward completion Wednesday.
The announcement of the attorney general, along with other senior leaders of the Justice Department, is expected to be made as soon as Thursday as Biden moves closer to filling the remaining seats in his Cabinet before assuming power on Jan. 20.
While Garland has been a top contender for weeks, concerns about the vacancy his selection would create on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia raised alarm bells among Biden and many advisers who believed Senate Republicans would block any nomination to that seat. But with Democrats set to control the Senate after winning two Georgia races, those concerns were allayed.
“Judge Garland will be viewed in a whole new light now,” a top Biden ally tells CNN.
While Republicans in both chambers plan a series of objections that will lead to debate and a vote, sources tell CNN it’s also likely Republicans will attempt to raise objections that line up with some of the fringe theories pushed by President Trump – something that could result in a few fleeting moments of chaos.
Those objections, in whatever form they are made, will be summarily dismissed by Vice President Pence as out of order. The format in which they’ll be presented is still fluid, but it won’t matter. There’s a way to object, as laid out in clear detail by statute, during this process and any effort outside of those guardrails will not be considered.
Among the possible issues that could be raised:
All of these possibilities remain fluid, sources say, but it’s something to watch from House Republicans. And again, they will all fail before they can’t even be considered.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, said he will object to three states today: Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
“That’s absolutely correct,” he told CNN. Other Republican senators have also announced plans to object to those three states.
Marshall also said he would not blame President Trump for Georgia, saying everyone deserves blame.
“I’m not going to blame anybody, you know, I’m an ex-athlete and I’ve learned it’s a team sport,” he said.
A longtime senior Trump adviser says the President’s behavior has become “horrific” as he continues to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and Republican lawmakers to overturn the election results – something they cannot do.
The adviser said multiple aides and associates have explained to Trump on numerous occasions that Pence cannot toss out the results from Nov. 3.
But this source, who has been involved in the election challenge discussions, said Trump is brushing off any counsel to move on and accept defeat and is instead taking his cues from a motley crew of suspect legal advisers, including television personalities at the conservative news outlet, OANN.
This adviser said aides to the president have been mortified by his behavior toward Pence, describing it as “horrific.”
Senate Democrats say they are prepared, should they need to engage during debates over Republican objections to specific states, but they’re more than happy to let Republicans battle amongst themselves.
“If they want to tear each other apart, we’re more than happy to be spectators,” one Democratic senator told CNN. “We’re ready, but the reality is we all know how this ends, it’s just a matter of how long it takes to get there. And that’s up to them, not us.”
Another Democratic senator cautioned that this is the Senate after all, and Senators like to talk, so there’s no guarantee Democrats will sit back for the majority of these debates. But buoyant after the Georgia runoffs, and keenly aware of the rupture inside the Senate GOP conference right now, the caucus is in much more of a “wait-and-see mode” as the start of the joint session looms.
“This is probably the first time I can say I’m looking forward to hearing what Mitch has to say,” the senator said of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who will be the first speaker and has made clear to his colleagues he’s personally deeply opposed to the objections. “After that we’ll see what happens.”
Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said Wednesday he plans to object to Arizona Electoral College results, and “we can go from there.”
He said there’s a possibility he could object to more states, but wouldn’t provide additional details.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz had already planned to object to Arizona’s electoral votes, two sources familiar with the matter have told CNN.
So far there are at least three states, including Arizona, that some senators have signaled said they plan to object to.
Rep. Jim Jordan, a leader of the effort to overturn the elections today, says that he only knows of three Senate objections but that he hopes there are senators who will join House conservatives for all six.
Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia are for certain.
President Trump is scheduled to speak at 11:00 a.m. ET to a crowd of supporters who have gathered in Washington.
The group is gathered just blocks from the White House.
“President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings. The President will depart for the Ellipse at 10:50AM to deliver remarks at a Save America Rally,” his public schedule said today.
Trump may “lash out” at Vice President Mike Pence during the speech, according to a source. Trump has continued to call on Pence to reject the Electoral College vote — something he does not have power to do.
“I think he will lash out pretty quickly” at Pence, the source said of Trump’s speech.
Congress is meeting in a joint session today to count and certify the Electoral College votes for president and vice president.
While Republicans in both chambers plan to object to the count and delay the inevitable certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win — a victory that was affirmed by the Electoral College last month — those objections will not change the results of the election.
While the exact number of objections that will be raised is still unclear, here’s what we know so far:
Remember: There could be objections to more states beyond these three. “We’re doing three but we are hoping for six,” said Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, who is leading the charge on the House. The other three would be Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.
He added they are still having “lots of conversations with senators.”
How this process will work: The objections will extend the normally ceremonial process of counting Electoral College votes into Wednesday evening and possibly beyond. For each state where a House member and senator object, the two chambers will separately recess and debate the matter for up to two hours, followed by a vote on whether to accept or reject the objection.
Vice President Mike Pence is bracing himself for today and has accepted that a rough few days are ahead of him, people familiar with his thinking tell CNN.
Although Pence attempted to soften the blow for President Trump by carefully laying out what he can expect from him on Capitol Hill today, Trump has lashed out at one of his most loyal aides with increasing fervor.
Trump has publicly called on Pence to reject the Electoral College results, but privately his criticism has been more blunt, sources say. Trump has told people he saved Pence’s career by selecting him as vice president and that Pence would be nothing without Trump.
Regardless, there is nothing else Pence can do, one person close to him said. Other Trump staffers are not surprised by Trump’s actions but described them as “shameful” given how closely Pence has remained to him for the last several years.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team are conveying to their caucus that they should keep today low drama – and to make a clean case about why the elections were free and fair and let them embarrass themselves, per sources on the House Democratic whip call this morning.
In essence, she wants members to avoid grandstanding.
“We are dignified in opposition to them,” she said, according to one source. “This is about the Constitution.”
President Trump’s dogged effort to ignore the voters, state election officials, the courts and the Electoral College has come down to his latest wild idea — that he’ll just get Vice President Mike Pence to steal the thing for him.
“The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
What Trump is talking about is the counting of electoral votes during today’s joint session of Congress that convenes at 1 p.m. ET today to accept the votes cast by the Electoral College in December.
Under an 1887 law, Pence will preside over the gathering in his role as president of the Senate. It’s his job to call on a small group of lawmakers known as tellers who will read out the electoral votes sent in by the electors in all 50 states and Washington, DC.
Trump appears to be saying that during this ceremony Pence can unilaterally reject a state’s electoral votes. But just because Trump tweets it does not make it so.
You can read the law here. It’s not the cleanest of language, but it’s pretty clear that only a congressman and senator, together, can object to a state’s electoral votes, and it has to be in writing. There’s nothing in the law about Pence doing anything but calling on tellers and announcing the results.
Any objections — and there could be up to six — lead to a pause in the proceedings while the House and Senate each consider and vote on them. Pence could preside over the Senate during that session. But he can’t vote on anything unless there’s a tie, which he does have the power to break. And given the number of Republicans who have already said they will not support objections to the Electoral College results, there is unlikely to be a tie.
If Pence were to somehow attempt to go rogue, the House and Senate chambers should be able to overturn whatever he does with a vote to appeal the ruling of the chair, former Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin told CNN’s Ted Barrett— though such a thing has never happened before. (Here are the Senate rules on the subject.)
Frumin added that it would be incumbent on Pence to get a majority of the votes backing his position for his ruling to prevail, an unlikely scenario in the Democratic-controlled House and in the Senate, where at this point most Republicans and all Democrats would oppose such a move.
A senior White House official tells CNN what Trump is doing to Vice President Pence in their final days in office is “shameful.”
This official, whose views are closely aligned with the President’s, noted how Pence has stuck by the President since the Access Hollywood days only to witness him turn on him at the very end.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi penned a letter to Democratic colleagues in the House about Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.
In the letter, she wrote:
“There are no speaking roles during the Joint Session except for announcing the votes of the states. If Republicans bring a challenge to a state, we then break into separate House and Senate sessions to debate. ”
She also asked members to “remain in their offices unless called to vote. In the event of a challenge, we may only have 54 Members in the House Gallery, which we hope to accommodate on a rotating basis.” And, “face covers must be worn at all times,” Adding, “These procedures are not a suggestion.”
Pelosi closed with a message about Wednesday, which she said “is about guaranteeing trust in our democratic system. As Members of Congress, we all have a responsibility to uphold the principle: the people are sovereign and that they hold the power to choose their leaders through the ballot box. I am confident that Democrats will honor this responsibility, with unity, patriotism and dignity For The People.”
Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris will be on Capitol Hill today to fulfill her duties in the Senate, per a Harris Senate aide.
She will attend a classified Senate Intel committee hearing this morning then turn to the electoral business with the rest of the senate later on today.
President Trump’s longtime attorney Jay Sekulow weighed in on the constitutionality of Trump’s wishes for Vice President Mike Pence to throw out Electoral College votes when he presides over a joint session of Congress Wednesday.
Sekulow, who represented Trump during his impeachment trial one year ago, said on his radio show this week that Pence does not have the power to declare an alternative winner.
“Some have speculated that the Vice President could simply say, ‘I’m not going to accept these electors,’ that he has the authority to do that on the Constitution. I actually don’t think that’s what the Constitution has in mind. If that were the case, any vice president could refuse any election,” Sekulow said, adding that Pence’s role is “more of a ministerial procedural function.”
He later reiterated:
“There’s also this rumor running around or this theory running around that Mike Pence himself can simply declare the winner and pick the alternate slate. And I just don’t see that in the United States Constitution.”
Sekulow suggested that Sen. Ted Cruz’s plan to call for an election commission was a more effective strategy.
“Folks, at the end of the day, with all of the allegations of fraud and all the issues we’ve dealt with, at the end of the day, we have to abide by the Constitution. We’re a constitutional republic. So, I’m trying to look at what are the legal options here, what are the political options. I think what Senator Cruz is doing is the is a politically constitutional approach,” he said.
Despite the expected challenges to at least some states’ Electoral College votes on Wednesday, leaders in both chambers of Congress do not expect today’s certification to drag on for days.
One person close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expects the whole process to be completed today, not stretch multiple days. This source adds that while there is willingness to object, there is not much enthusiasm over debating it.
And a source familiar with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s thinking told CNN she does not want to recess and that they are prepared for five or six potential objections, although they aren’t totally certain of how many states will ultimately be contested.
These people say the current thinking is that this will all wrap between 3 a.m. ET and 4 a.m. ET
Remember: Ultimately, though, it’s impossible to know how long exactly today’s event it will take as we continue to learn more about how many states will receive objections.
President Trump continues to call on Vice President Mike Pence to reject the Electoral College vote — something he does not have power to do — in a last-ditch Twitter message.
Remember: Despite President Trump’s baseless claims, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Pence’s role in certifying the Electoral College vote is largely ceremonial, something he explained to Trump during a meeting Tuesday. The relationship between the two, CNN has reported, has soured in recent days as Pence intends to follow the Constitution.
Yet Trump continues to call on Pence to send electors back to states to overturn the election results and undermine democracy.
“Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!” he said in the tweet.
Trump is expected to “lash out” at Pence when he speaks this morning on the Ellipse, and Pence begins presiding at 1:00 pm on Capitol Hill.
Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller on Monday approved a request from the mayor of Washington to deploy DC National Guard forces to the city to support local authorities during pro-Trump demonstrations scheduled in the city this week, a defense official told CNN.
Mayor Muriel Bowser made the request Thursday in a letter addressed to Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the DC National Guard, in which she referenced protests in the city in November and December that “resulted in a large influx of participants, violence and criminal activity.”
“No DCNG personnel shall be armed during this mission, and at no time, will DCNG personnel or assets be engaged in domestic surveillance, searches, or seizures of US persons,” Bowser, a Democrat, wrote in the letter.
DC Police Chief Robert Contee told reporters on Monday that the National Guard will assist with “crowd management” and traffic control, freeing the city’s police officers to focus on potential acts of violence and other security issues.
Speaking during a news conference on Monday, Bowser asked protesters to refrain from violence, regardless of their political views, and again urged residents to avoid the downtown area this week, as well as “people who are coming here to look for confrontations.”
The mayor also said that a potential curfew for the city was not off the table, saying it will be “a tool that we will evaluate during the week.”
DC’s attorney general, Karl Racine said, in a statement Monday that while DC respects freedom of speech and the right to protest, “the Constitution does not grant the right to commit violence or vandalize property, and there is certainly no right to engage in acts of hate.”
Racine added, “While we respect their right to protest, we will not tolerate criminal behavior — and we should deny them the opportunity to cause chaos.”
Bowser’s office told CNN that the plan includes the activation of 340 guardsmen, while the total deployment at any given time will be 114. The defense official said the personnel will be deployed to a few dozen points on the streets, accompanied by a DC police officer at each one.
The National Guard will also be deployed to Metro subway stations in the city alongside local officers. Their focus will primarily be on the Metro and traffic, a spokesperson for Bowser said.
A chemical-biological response team will be on standby if needed, the defense official said, which is a standard practice for any large event. Finally, some National Guard members will be activated but on standby should civilian law enforcement be pulled away to respond to a situation.
Seate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to speak first today during the debate over the first objection, according to a person familiar with the matter.
McConnell has made clear to his conference his opposition to opposing the Electoral College votes, so his comments may set the tone for the debate.
He has yet to address the matter publicly but has told his colleagues privately about why he thinks they shouldn’t go down this road.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz plans to object to Arizona’s Electoral College results during the joint session of Congress on Wednesday, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, which will force the first of multiple expected — and futile — votes in the House and the Senate to overturn the results of the election won by President-elect Joe Biden.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has said he plans to object to the results in Pennsylvania. Republicans could also force debates and votes on other key states, with Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia signaling she plans to object to Biden’s win in her state.
The objections on Wednesday during the formal count of electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, however, will not change the results of the election. Every Democrat and some Republicans will reject the challenges, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
But the objections will extend the normally ceremonial process of counting Electoral College votes into Wednesday evening and possibly beyond. For each state where a House member and senator object, the two chambers will separately recess and debate the matter for up to two hours, followed by a vote on whether to accept or reject the objection.
The exact number of objections that will be raised is still unclear. Cruz and a group of GOP senators held a conference call Monday night with several House members to map out a strategy, though no final decisions were made, according to a source involved in the call.
The states’ Electoral College votes are counted in alphabetical order, so Cruz’s objection to Arizona is likely to be the first debated.
Some background: The President has attacked Republicans who have said they will not object to the results, accusing them on Twitter of being part of a “surrender caucus.” Trump has also pushed Vice President Mike Pence, falsely claiming on Twitter Tuesday that Pence could “has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.”
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and there is no evidence that electors from the electoral college were fraudulently chosen, as all states have certified their elections. Pence’s role on Wednesday in certifying the results of the election is largely ceremonial.
Voters voted. States counted the votes. Challenges were heard and rejected. The Electoral College made President-elect Joe Biden’s victory completely official.
The time for President Trump’s repeated baseless allegations of fraud is over, but that doesn’t mean the drama has ended. Lawmakers follow an archaic timeline set out the Constitution and US law to make Biden president.
Just as then-Vice President Biden oversaw the counting of electoral votes that gave Trump the White House in 2017, now it will be Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s loyal soldier these last four years, who will announce the vote tally that officially makes Biden the winner. Read more about that here.
And Republicans will have to choose how deeply they want to follow Trump into his rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.
Lawmakers will have the ability to raise objections about the vote — just like some Democrats did in 2017. But while those objections were dismissed easily in 2017, Republican senators could, if they choose, drag the process out this year, and force the House and Senate to vote on individual points.
Here’s a breakdown of what will take place today:
