Lawmakers were determined to wrap up the electoral college in a demonstration to the country and the world of the country’s continued commitment to upholding the will of voters and the peaceful transfer of power. They pushed through the night with high tensions and the country’s capital on its guard.
Before dawn on Thursday, lawmakers finished their work and confirmed that Biden had won the election.
WATCH: Full coverage of the Capitol chaos
Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the joint session, announced the count, 306-232.
Trump, who had repeatedly refused to admit the election, said in a statement immediately after the vote that there will be a smooth transfer of power on the inauguration day.
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election and the facts confirm me, there will be an orderly transition on January 20,” Trump said in a statement posted by an assistant on Twitter.
The Capitol was under siege on Wednesday as the nation’s elected representatives rushed to squat under desks and put on gas masks, while police tried in vain to barricade the building, one of the most shocking scenes ever set in a seat of US political power . A woman was shot and murdered in the Capitol, and the mayor of Washington imposed a curfew in an attempt to contain the violence.
WATCH: Lawmakers huddle together as officers stand off with the crowd
The rioters were urged by Trump, who for weeks falsely attacked the integrity of the election and urged his supporters to descend to Washington to protest the formal approval of Biden’s victory by Congress. Some Republican lawmakers were objecting to the results on his behalf when the proceedings were abruptly halted by the crowd.
Together, the protests and objections to the GOP election posed an almost unimaginable challenge to American democracy and exposed the depths of the divisions that have traversed the country during Trump’s four years in office. While efforts to prevent Biden from being sworn in on Jan. 20 certainly failed, the support Trump has received for his attempts to reverse the election results has seriously strained the country’s democratic guardrails.
Congress met again in the evening, with lawmakers denouncing the protests that violated the Capitol and vowing to confirm the Electoral College’s vote in Biden’s election, even if it lasted all night.
WATCH: Vice President Pence addresses Congress as Electoral College certification resumes
Pence reopened the Senate and addressed the protesters directly: “You did not win.”
Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the “failed uprising” underscored the duty of the legislature to end the count. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress would show the world “what America is made of” with the outcome.
WATCH: Mitch McConnell breaks with Trump in blistering speech
The president gave his supporters a boost into action on Wednesday morning at a rally outside the White House, urging them to march to the Capitol. He spent much of the afternoon in his private dining room near the Oval Office, watching scenes of the violence on television. At the urging of his staff, he reluctantly sent a few tweets and a recorded video telling his supporters it was time to “go home in peace” – but still said he supported their cause.
Hours later, Twitter shut down Trump’s account for the first time, demanding that he remove tweets apologizing for violence and threatening “permanent suspension.”
SEE ALSO: Twitter Locks Trump Account After Deleting Tweets About DC Protesters
A gloomy president-elect Biden, two weeks from his inauguration, said US democracy was “under unprecedented attacks,” a sentiment echoed by many in Congress, including some Republicans. Former President George W. Bush said he had watched events with “disbelief and dismay”.
WATCH: Joe Biden calls out to Capitol crowd to “ back out, ” urging for decency to be restored
The domed Capitol has been the scene of protests and occasional violence for centuries. But Wednesday’s events were particularly astonishing, both because they unfolded at least initially with the president’s implied blessing, and because of the underlying purpose of reversing the results of free and fair presidential elections.
Tensions were already running high when lawmakers gathered Wednesday afternoon for the constitutionally mandated count of the electoral college results, in which Biden defeated Trump, 306-232. Despite pleas from McConnell, more than 150 GOP lawmakers planned to support objections to some of the results, although there was no evidence of fraud or misconduct in the election.
Trump spent the lead-up to the proceedings publicly hectoring Pence, who had a largely ceremonial role, to support the attempt to discard the results. He tweeted, “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”
But Pence defied Trump in a statement shortly before he became president, saying he could not lay claim to “unilateral authority” to reject the electoral votes that make Biden president.
Images from January 6, 2021
In the aftermath of the siege, several Republicans announced they would drop their objections to the election, including Senator Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., Who lost her bid for re-election on Tuesday.
Previously, protesters had fought past police and forced their way into the building, marching through the halls shouting and waving Trump and American flags, many without masks during the COVID-19 crisis. Lawmakers were told to duck under their seats to take cover and put on gas masks after tear gas was used in the Capitol Rotunda. Some House lawmakers tweeted that they were hiding in their office.
Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., Told reporters he was in the room of the house when rioters started storming it. Security officials “let us all go down, you could tell they were repelling some sort of attack.”
He said they had a piece of furniture against the door. “And they had guns drawn,” said Peters. Glass panes on a front door were shattered.
The woman who was murdered was part of a crowd that broke open the doors of a barricaded room where armed officers stood on the other side, police said. She was shot in the chest by the Capitol Police and taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. City police said three other people died from medical emergencies during the long protest on and around the Capitol.
Employees grabbed boxes of votes from the electoral college when the evacuation took place. Otherwise, said Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., The ballots would likely have been destroyed by the protesters.
SEE ALSO: Rioter enters Nancy Pelosi’s office, takes pictures with feet on her desk
The crowd’s storming of Congress sparked outrage, mostly from Democrats but also Republicans, as lawmakers accused Trump of fueling violence with his relentless lies about electoral fraud.
“Do the math,” said Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C. “Enough is enough.”
Several suggested that Trump would be prosecuted for a crime or even removed under the 25th amendment to the constitution, which seemed unlikely two weeks after the expiration of his term.
“I think Donald Trump should probably be raised with treason for something like that,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., To reporters. This is how a coup started. And so democracy dies. ‘
SEE ALSO: US Lawmakers Respond To Protest In DC That Shut Down The Capitol
Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Who had at times collided with Trump, issued a statement saying, “Lies have consequences. This violence was the inevitable and ugly result of the president’s addiction to continually fueling division. “
Despite Trump’s repeated claims of voter fraud, election officials and his own former attorney general have said there were no problems on a scale that would change the outcome. All states have declared their results fair and accurate by both Republican and Democratic officials.
To underscore their determination, both the House and Senate profoundly rejected an objection to Arizona election results brought forward by Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., And another one from Pennsylvania, submitted by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., And Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. Still, most House Republicans supported the objections. Other objections to results from Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin dropped.
The Pentagon said about 1,100 members of the District of Columbia National Guard were mobilized to support law enforcement in the Capitol. Dozens of people were arrested.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Zeke Miller, Kevin Freking, Alan Fram, Matthew Daly, Ben Fox and Ashraf Khalil in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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