SC’s Clyburn says Trump is trying to start a ‘race war’ after Capitol riot
South Carolina’s senior congressman accused President Donald Trump of trying to start a “race war” days after the president’s supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol, and reiterated calls for Trump to be removed from office before the end of his term.
“This is an attempt by a racist president to do his part to start what would be tantamount to a race war in this country,” U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, told reporters on a conference call Friday.
Clyburn decried the assault, which disrupted the formal count of the Electoral College results of November’s presidential election, sending members of Congress into hiding as rioters ran loose in the Capitol for hours.
Trump spoke to a “Save America” rally of his supporters on the National Mall, repeating false claims that the election had been stolen from him and urging them to march on the Capitol building where Congress was meeting to finalize the election results.
“We witnessed an unprecedented disruption of that process by a group of thugs reacting to an unprecedented request from our president,” Clyburn said.
The congressman said expected to see a security presence at least as strong as during this summer’s demonstrations in Washington against police brutality and racial injustice, “when the building was protected from peaceful demonstrators,” Clyburn said, repeating “peaceful” for emphasis, “not bringing Molotov cocktails, backpacks full of firearms (and) lead bombs.”
Clyburn is one of many who have claimed race is the reason for the difference in police presence during protests on racial issues that include many Black people, and a march of mostly white conservatives.
“There was a total failure of leadership,” Clyburn said. “It’s almost as if they were getting their leadership teachings from the president of the United States.”
Clyburn on Friday also called for Vice President Mike Pence to lead the president’s Cabinet in invoking the 25th Amendment, which would strip Trump of his presidential powers until Congress acted on the declaration — something that may not occur before the president’s term expires at noon on Jan. 20.
Other congressional Democrats have also called for the amendment to be invoked. On Thursday, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Pence to urge him to take action to remove Trump from office, but that the vice president declined to take their call.
Other South Carolina leaders, including Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Henry McMaster, have rejected calls for Trump’s removal even as they criticized the president’s rhetoric and denial of the election results in contributing to the violence.
Clyburn had previously said he believed a House vote on impeaching Trump before the end of his term would be appropriate after this week’s attack on Congress. Trump was already impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019 for abuse of his power, but the Senate acquitted the president last January in a largely party-line vote.
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 2:32 PM with the headline "SC’s Clyburn says Trump is trying to start a ‘race war’ after Capitol riot."
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