VIDEO: Trump supporters turn Congress into battlefield
Law enforcement officers point their guns at a door in the House Chamber in Washington, DC.
US President Donald Trump pressed his hopeless case for overturning the election to a crowd of supporters on Wednesday, fueling the grievances of a mob that then stormed the Capitol and disrupted the confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
The storming of the US Capitol by supporters of Trump played out on national television and social media in searing fashion Wednesday.
The pictures were stunning: security officials with guns drawn on the floor of the US House of Representatives, people fighting with police in the Capitol Rotunda, rioters smashing windows and streaming into the building where the nation's leaders had gathered to count votes sealing President-elect Joe Biden's victory.
Drawing on baseless conspiracies, Trump unleashed a torrent of misinformation to supporters already convinced that his defeat was unfair, unswayed by the sweeping verdict of election officials, judges and justices and Trump’s own officials in the departments of Justice and Homeland Security that the Nov. 3 election was cleanly run and fairly counted.
Pro-Trump protesters then marched to the Capitol and some bulled their way inside, making for a scene of violent clashes with law enforcement and lawmakers huddling in lockdown.
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Members of Congress inside the House chamber were told by police to put on gas masks after tear gas was dispersed in the Capitol Rotunda amid skirmishes by supporters of President Donald Trump.
Pro-Trump protestors breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, violently clashing with law enforcement as lawmakers were gathered inside to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in November’s presidential election.
Law enforcement instructed lawmakers to retrieve masks from under their seats amid the clashes. The Capitol building was placed on lockdown, as Trump supporters marched through evacuated public spaces in the building.
After egging on protests, Trump tweeted to his supporters to "stay peaceful” as they violently clash with law enforcement and breached the Capitol building.
Protesters supporting Trump swarmed the US Capitol on Wednesday, putting it on lockdown, as Vice President Mike Pence rebuffed the president's demand to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and the Senate's Republican leader denounced a bid in Congress to undo the election outcome.
Trump supporters overturned barricades and clashed with police on the U.S. Capitol grounds and streamed inside the building. The demonstrations flared as lawmakers met inside to formally certify Biden's victory over Trump in the Nov. 3 election. Law enforcement authorities struggled to maintain order.
The Senate and the House of Representatives, which were weighing objections to Biden's victory brought by a band of pro-Trump Republican lawmakers, abruptly and unexpectedly recessed.
Pence, a loyal lieutenant during the four years of Trump's tumultuous presidency, presided over the opening of the joint session of Congress to formally certify Biden's Nov. 3 victory over Trump. A band of Republican lawmakers quickly challenged the results, first from the election battleground state of Arizona won by Biden.
