‘The President bears responsibility’ for Capitol riot, GOP Sen. Burr of NC says
U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina said President Donald Trump “bears responsibility” for Wednesday’s Capitol riots by “promoting the unfounded conspiracy theories that have led to this point.”
Burr issued a statement about 7 p.m. Wednesday, hours after the U.S. House and Senate were evacuated as rioters who support Trump broke into the Capitol, interrupting the planned certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. One woman was fatally shot, but details about who shot her have not been released, The New York Times reports.
Burr, a Republican, called the day’s events an “attack” on our democracy.
“Let me be clear: these actions are not a defense of this country, but an attack on it,” Burr said in a statement. “It is past time to accept the will of American voters and to allow our nation to move forward.”
Burr and Sen. Thom Tillis voted not to accept the objection to Arizona’s electoral votes on Wednesday night. The objection was defeated 93-6 in the Senate and 303-121 in the House, meaning the votes from the state will be counted.
Both chambers were debating the certification of Arizona’s election results when the Capitol building was breached by rioters who smashed glass and broke through locked doors. At least one reached the Senate floor and sat in the same seat occupied minutes earlier by Vice President Mike Pence.
The House and Senate resumed the certification process Wednesday night after the Capitol was cleared and bomb-sniffing dogs had inspected it.
“I want to say to the American people: The United States will not be intimidated,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, as the session resumed. “We will not be kept out of this chamber by thugs, mobs or threats. We will not bow to lawlessness or intimidation. We are back at our posts. We will discharge our duty under the Constitution and for our nation.”
Biden will become president on Jan. 20, but one North Carolina Democrat called for Trump’s removal sooner than that, joining a growing group of lawmakers calling for Trump’s impeachment.
“Whether through the 25th Amendment or impeachment, President Trump must be removed from office immediately. He is unfit to lead our nation,” Rep. Kathy Manning, a Greensboro Democrat, wrote on Twitter Wednesday night.
NC Congressional members react
North Carolina Rep. David Price, a 17-term Democrat from Chapel Hill, and Rep. Deborah Ross, a first-term Democrat who represents Wake County, were not in the House chamber when it was evacuated. Representatives were discouraged from congregating on the House floor due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and both were in their offices.
“I know it was abrupt, when the barricades were breached and the chamber needed to be vacated,” Price said about 4:25 p.m. in a phone interview with The News & Observer, as the chaos continued. “People were told to crouch down safely and the speaker (Nancy Pelosi) was rushed off to safety.”
Price watched a Trump flag go by as he looked at his window. What he witnessed wasn’t normal, he said.
“It never occurred to me that armed insurrectionists would storm the U.S. Capitol,” Price said. “I don’t know anybody who did.”
Ross said she locked the door as instructed by law enforcement.
“Our president egged it on,” Ross said in a telephone interview late Wednesday. “We have lost the foundation of a peaceful transfer of power because of people who were encouraged to come to Washington, D.C., with the wrong intent.
“Where we are as a country is deeply divided with leaders who are putting salt in the wound and instigating violence.”
Members of North Carolina’s delegation took to Twitter to condemn the violence and praise Capitol Hill police. Those members included lawmakers who planned to object to the certification.
More than 100 Republican lawmakers had planned to support challenges to the election results in at least one state. That included seven of North Carolina’s eight Republican U.S. House members: Reps. Madison Cawthorn, Ted Budd, David Rouzer, Richard Hudson, Greg Murphy, Dan Bishop and Virginia Foxx.
“The lawlessness witnessed at the Capitol today is despicable and should be condemned in the strongest possible way. This is not who we are as a nation,” said Rouzer, a Wilmington Republican. “A vigorous debate and differences of opinion should never — ever — be an excuse for lawlessness and violence.”
Tillis, who announced earlier in the day that he would not support overturning the results of the election, tweeted that it was “a national disgrace to have a mob attacking Capitol Police and engaging in anarchy.”
Electoral College counting resumes
Price said he’s confident that Congress will be able to “get through this” and certify the election result.
“Violence or not, this has always been a test of our fidelity to the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power and respecting these elections,” Price said. “The notion that we would be assembling today to overturn that is just totally contrary to our history and what we stand for.”
On the House floor Wednesday night during the debate over Arizona’s votes, Bishop said Democrats had a “coordinated” plan “aimed at displacing state legislative control.”
“Courts are changing the rules of the upcoming elections at the last minute,” Bishop said. “This was a political operation masquerading as a judicial one.”
In a speech a few hours after the breach, Biden called the violence “an assault on the most sacred of America’s undertakings.”
Biden called on Trump to “go on national television” and call for an end to the riots on the nation’s Capitol. Trump had previously tweeted asking his supporters to “remain peaceful,” and minutes later posted a video telling his supporters you “have to go home now,” two hours after the Capitol was locked down.
N.C. Congressional members’ condemn violence
Cawthorn, Rouzer, Foxx, Budd, Bishop and North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry took to Twitter to condemn the violence.
Budd tweeted later in the evening that he didn’t plan on backing down from his objection.
Murphy tweeted that “meaningful dialogue” about the election “has now been destroyed and marred by this violence. This is not how America operates. I am ashamed of this horrible behavior.”
Hudson said on Twitter that violence would “not change the outcome.”
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 4:01 PM with the headline "‘The President bears responsibility’ for Capitol riot, GOP Sen. Burr of NC says."
