Seething with anger, mostly unmasked, Donald Trump’s supporters stormed and breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, stoked by his defiant speech claiming the election had been stolen from him. Tens of thousands of supporters braved bone-chilling temperatures to hear him speak at the Ellipse below the White House, then many marched to Capitol Hill and up the steps, pushing their way past Capitol Police, as some of the lawmakers’ office buildings were evacuated, and Washington, DC’s mayor issued a city-wide curfew.
Democrat Rep. Elaine Luria, a Navy veteran, tweeted: “I had to evacuate my office because of a pipe bomb reported outside. Supporters of the President are trying to force their way into the Capitol and I can hear what sounds like multiple gunshots.”
Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut tweeted that lawmakers had been asked to get out gas masks “as there has been tear gas used in the rotunda,” the circular building in the center of the Capitol.
Amid the violence, Trump tweeted pleas to the protestors to “stay peaceful,” adding “No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order.” But the violence continued.
The protestors have come from California, Florida, the Midwest and deep South, united by a fury with many targets: the mainstream media that reports the November U.S. presidential polls were free and fair; poll workers who they believe changed or hid or destroyed votes for Trump; and the Republicans who have acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden’s legitimate win.
They came to answer the call of a lame duck president who is still refusing to recognize he was beaten by Biden. Trump asked his followers to come to Washington to fight the result on the day Congress formally recognizes the results and declares Biden the winner – normally a pro-forma exercise, made historic this time, with a dozen or so Republican Senators vowing to vote against the Biden win.
The pro-Trump demonstrations that started on Tuesday already resulted in a slew of arrests and clashes with counter-protestors — raw evidence of the growing schism in the U.S. body politic, of extremes refusing to compromise, or to believe their side could have lost.
“I come all the way from Idaho to …let my voice be heard that this election was not right,” says a maskless Christie Nicholson, wrapped in a pink Women for America First flag. “President Trump won it fair and square,” she says, adding that the coronavirus pandemic was “BS” and her vote had been robbed.
As President Trump’s motorcade arrived at the Ellipse before noon on Wednesday to address the crowd from a flag-bedecked stage emblazoned with the words “Save America March,” the song “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey blared over the loudspeakers. That was the same message Trump sent to the sea of supporters when he took the stage, though with a dangerous twist: he urged them to believe, against evidence and reality, that he won the election over Biden. “All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical Left Democrats— which is what they’re doing— and stolen by the fake news media,” Trump said. “We will never give up. We will never concede.”
Trump slammed “weak” and “pathetic” Republicans, and called on Vice President Mike Pence to impede Congressional certification of Biden’s win later that day. “If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Trump said. (While Trump was still onstage, Pence released a letter to Congress stating: “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.”)
“History is going to be made,” Trump said. “We’re going to see whether or not we have great and courageous leaders, or whether or not we have leaders that should be ashamed of themselves.” He continued with a warning: “If they do the wrong thing, we should never, ever forget that they did.”
Many protestors, who see today’s certification as a “final stand” and loyalty test to Trump, have already directed their ire at Pence. In widely shared posts, prominent rightwing personalities called him a “traitor,” a “coward” who “stabbed Trump in the back” who should face “execution by firing squad.” Their animosity extended to Republican lawmakers who have been openly critical of Trump. On a flight to Washington on Tuesday, Trump supporters on the plane heading to the protests heckled Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney with chants of “Traitor!”
A popular meme shared tens of thousands of times ahead of Wednesday’s rallies showed Congress deciding between two buttons labeled “Certify Trump” or “Get Lynched by Patriots.” In the days leading up to the protests, posts on pro-Trump forums as well as Parler, a Twitter alternative popular with rightwing activists, had turned to increasingly violent language about civil war, hanging lawmakers and “taking back America by force.” Livestreams by participants in D.C. showed people with megaphones urging “If you don’t get the right answer today, you come back with your rifles!” and “Storm the Capitol!”
Eric Trump, the president’s son, spoke from the flag-spangled stage on the Ellipse, through the crowd, to the party his father is splintering. “Today, Republicans, you get to pick a side,” he said. “Choose wisely.”
Washington police and national guard troops were arrayed throughout the blocked off and mostly empty streets around the White House and National Mall, with shops and offices boarded up, braced for worse to some. As of Wednesday morning, there had been 12 arrests at the rallies that started on Tuesday, according to the DC police department. The charges included carrying a pistol and a rifle without a license, assault on a police officer and unregistered ammunition and firearms.
Florida Republican Rep. Mike Waltz, a staunch Trump supporter, condemned the violence, writing on Twitter, “This is not who we are as a people or as a country. This is wrong and condemnable.”
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace called the violence at the Capitol that followed Trump’s speech “the rule of the mob versus the rule of law and the Constitution,” stoked by the President “filling a crowd with misstatements, with facts that have been absolutely shredded” more than 50 times by Trump judges and his own attorney general, but added there are still many people who will believe him.
After Trump supporters breached the Capitol, amid reports of escalating tensions inside the building, Trump tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!” But he stopped short of calling for the protesters to vacate the building and disperse.
Waiting for Trump to speak earlier in the day, Kira Innis, a 34-year-old who calls herself “a Black millennial, female, Los Angelino” and conservative political activist, says she is convinced the vote was stolen. “A blind man can tell this was as all rigged as all get out,” she says, pulling her mask down to speak. “Between the dead voting, illegals voting, citizens voting more than like 10 times, let alone more than twice…gerrymandering, ballot harvesting, Dominion,” she adds, in a reference to widely disproven reports that voting machines provided by Dominion Voting Systems were somehow hacked or used to falsify votes.
Activists like Innis were joined by Trump backers who embraced more extreme perspectives, like QAnon believer Zach, who would only give his first name. Zach, who came from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to attend the rally, believes the online conspiracy group is a “military-intelligence operation” that’s been “micro-dosing the American public” with hard truths, including the claim that a cabal of Democrats including Biden are working together with pedophiles to traffic children globally.
Zach, his face unmasked and wearing a General Flynn baseball cap in honor of Trump’s former national security advisor Mike Flynn, believes evidence of such criminality lies in Biden son Hunter’s laptop. “The Hunter Biden emails, once they come out, people are gonna start realizing this is not crazy conspiracies. These people traffic children,” he says.
The protests had already started on Tuesday, when several Trump-world celebrities spoke to the crowd, including Flynn, who was recently pardoned by Trump. “We should not accept this,” Flynn said. “Everybody in this country knows who won the election on the 3rd. Who won the election on the 3rd? Donald Trump.”
—With reporting by Tessa Berenson/Washington
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