Joe Biden says President Trump is guilty of "trying to use a mob to silence the voices of nearly 160 million Americans‚" who voted in the November election.
President-elect Joe Biden has called the violent group that descended on the US Capitol "domestic terrorists" while accusing US authorities of treating pro-Trump protesters more leniently than anti-racism demonstrators who were forcibly dispersed by police in Washington last year.
"No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday... they wouldn't have been treated very, very different than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol," Biden said on Thursday.
"We all know that's true, and it is unacceptable."
Laying the blame for the violence squarely at President Donald Trump's feet, Biden said people should not call the hundreds of Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol protesters.
Rather, he said, they are " a riotous mob – insurrectionists, domestic terrorists."
READ MORE: Experts ponder how Trump supporters managed to invade US Capitol
During remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said Trump is guilty of "trying to use a mob to silence the voices of nearly 160 million Americans‚" who voted in November.
Biden said the president has "made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of claw clear in everything he has done," and unleashed an "all-out attack on the country‚" democratic institutions that ultimately led to the violence on Wednesday.
"Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It's that basic. It's that simple."
— TRT World (@trtworld) January 7, 2021
US President-elect Biden commented on how he feels the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol Building should be referred to pic.twitter.com/7oTA4Bvusx
Pelosi calls for Trump's immediate removal
In her weekly press conference at the US Capitol, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for President Trump's immediate removal from office through the 25th Amendment.
"Yesterday, the President of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America," Pelosi told reporters at the US Capitol, adding that Trump committed a "seditious act."
US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, holds her weekly press conference at the US Capitol on January 7, 2021, in Washington, DC.
'Do they stand by these actions'
Senior Trump administration officials raised the possibility of invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, the forceful removal of Trump from power by his own Cabinet.
Pelosi said she is waiting for a decision from Vice President Mike Pence and other Cabinet officials.
She challenged several of them by name, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
"Do they stand by these actions?" Pelosi asked.
"Are they ready to say that for the next 13 days this dangerous man can do further harm to our country?"
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