STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
You could follow political news for many years and never really even notice the event that took place yesterday. Congress met, as it does every four years, and formally counts the electoral votes sent in by the states from the presidential election. Occasionally, a few lawmakers object. This time, a large bloc of Republicans objected to a Democratic election, protesting Joe Biden s win, which had been affirmed by all 50 states and tested in dozens of lawsuits. Then, in an act of insurrection, pro-Trump extremists swarmed the Capitol and disrupted the work of Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
JOE BIDEN: Our democracy is under unprecedented assault unlike anything we ve seen in modern times, an assault on the citadel of liberty.
On Wednesday (Jan. 6) pro-Trumpers breached the Capitol Building. The act of domestic terrorism interrupted members of Congress during a meeting to confirm the results of the 2020 election. Some Republican Senate and House members intended to oppose President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris’ win, in support of Pres. Donald Trump’s claim of a hoax election result.
Following the massive chaos of barbaric and rambunctious behavior that lead to four deaths and at least 52 arrests and counting, Republican members of Congress retracted their intent. Prior to the Capitol breach, there were months of preparation and encouragement from the US Government’s highest seat of political office. Pres. Trump even provoked his supporters with a speech before yesterday’s breach. He took to his Twitter as well in a number of since-deleted Tweets.
This week, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA-43), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, issued the following statement following the release of President Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the President suggested, pressured, and encouraged Raffensperger to take various actions to help overturn President-elect Biden’s and Vice President-elect Harris’ victory in the state of Georgia.
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In a normal year, a presidential inauguration is a massive event that takes over pretty much all of Washington, D.C., flooding the streets with supporters (and, often, some protestors) and serving as an exhilarating celebration of either the arrival of a new administration or the continuation of an incumbent one. 2021, of course, is not a normal year. With the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have instituted a series of strict safety protocols to protect potential attendees at their
January 20 ceremony, which is themed Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union.