NEW YORK CITY (NBC) – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer held a briefing Thursday in New York to discuss the dramatic events that occurred at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday.
He had harsh words for President Trump and directly blamed the president for the riots that took over the building.
“What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States incited by President Trump,” Schumer said. “The president promoted conspiracy theories that motivated these thugs. He exhorted them to come to our nation’s Capitol. He told them to march down Pennsylvania Avenue and he said, ‘You will never take back our country with weakness.’ President Trump’s lies fed the crowd. He directed their anger at Capitol Hill and his demagoguery whipped them into a frenzy.”
Calling the participants insurrectionists and domestic terrorists, he asserted his desire to have them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But he also wants President Trump to be held accountable by calling on the vice president and the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove the president saying if they didn’t, then Congress must move to impeach him because he was dangerous.
He expressed concern that people weren’t taking the chaotic scene at Congress seriously enough and warned if we, as a nation, became apathetic to such scenes, it could cost us our democracy.
He also conveyed his disgust at how lax security was at the Capitol and said he would remove the sergeant at arms the day he becomes the Senate majority leader on January 21st if McConnell doesn’t act. “He must go,” Schumer said. “He did a terrible, terrible job.”
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