Joe Biden, Jay Inslee denounce Trump-incited terrorist attack on the United States Capitol

Fol­low­ing today’s hor­ri­fy­ing and entire­ly pre­dictable ter­ror­ist attack on the Unit­ed States Capi­tol, Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden and Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee each spoke out in the strongest pos­si­ble terms against the vio­lence and called for the insur­rec­tion to be put down as swift­ly as possible.

Here’s what they each had to say.

President-elect Joe Biden

Remarks as pre­pared for delivery:

At this hour, our democ­ra­cy is under an unprece­dent­ed assault.

An assault on the Capi­tol itself.

An assault on the people’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives, on the police offi­cers sworn to pro­tect them, and the pub­lic ser­vants who work at the heart of our Republic.

An assault on the rule of law.

An assault on the most sacred of Amer­i­can under­tak­ings: The doing of the people’s business.

Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capi­tol do not reflect the true America.

This is not who we are.

What we are see­ing is a small num­ber of extrem­ists ded­i­cat­ed to lawlessness.

This is not dis­sent. It is dis­or­der. It is chaos. It bor­ders on sedition.

And it must end. Now.

I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democ­ra­cy to go forward.

You’ve heard me say this in dif­fer­ent con­texts: the words of a Pres­i­dent mat­ter, no mat­ter how good or bad that pres­i­dent is.

At their best, the words of a pres­i­dent can inspire.

At their worst, they can incite.

There­fore, I call on Pres­i­dent Trump to go on nation­al tele­vi­sion, now, to ful­fill his oath and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion and demand an end to this siege.

To storm the Capi­tol, to smash win­dows, to occu­py offices, and to threat­en the safe­ty of duly elect­ed offi­cials is not protest.

It is insurrection.

The world is watch­ing — and like so many oth­er Amer­i­cans, I am shocked and sad­dened that our nation, so long a bea­con of light, hope, and democ­ra­cy has come to such a dark moment.

Through war and strife, Amer­i­ca has endured much. And we will endure here and pre­vail now.

The work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restora­tion of democ­ra­cy and the recov­ery of respect for the rule of law, and the renew­al of a pol­i­tics that’s about solv­ing prob­lems — not stok­ing the flames of hate and chaos.

Amer­i­ca is about hon­or, decen­cy, respect, and tolerance.

That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been.

The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Elec­toral Col­lege votes is sup­posed to be a sacred rit­u­al in which we affirm the majesty of Amer­i­can democracy.

Today is a reminder, a painful one, that democ­ra­cy is fragile.

To pre­serve it requires peo­ple of good will, lead­ers with the courage to stand up, who are devot­ed not to pur­suit of pow­er and per­son­al inter­est at any cost, but to the com­mon good.

Think of what our chil­dren who are watch­ing are think­ing. Think of what the rest of the world is look­ing at.

For near­ly two and a half cen­turies, we the peo­ple, in search of a more per­fect union, have kept our eyes on that com­mon good.

Amer­i­ca is so much bet­ter than what we’re see­ing today.

Watch­ing the scenes from the Capi­tol, I was remind­ed of Abra­ham Lincoln’s words in an annu­al mes­sage to the Con­gress whose work has today been inter­rupt­ed by chaos.

Pres­i­dent Lin­coln said: “We shall nobly save or mean­ly lose, the last best hope of earth….The way is plain, peace­ful, gen­er­ous, just — a way which, if fol­lowed, the world will for­ev­er applaud, and God must for­ev­er bless.”

Our way is plain here, too. It is the way of democ­ra­cy, of law­ful­ness, and of hon­or — respect for each oth­er, and for our nation.

Notwith­stand­ing what we’ve seen today, I remain opti­mistic about the incred­i­ble opportunities.

There has nev­er been any­thing we can’t do when we do it togeth­er. And this God-awful dis­play today is bring­ing home to every Repub­li­can, Demo­c­rat, and Inde­pen­dent in the nation that we must step up.

This is the Unit­ed States of America.

Pres­i­dent Trump, step up.

May God Bless America.

May God pro­tect our troops and every­one at the Capi­tol who is try­ing to pro­tect the order.

Governor Jay Inslee

Remarks:

Good evening.

First, I just want to say that Tru­di and I are at the res­i­dence tonight and we’re doing just fine. Thank you to all those who expressed con­cern, but we are doing quite well. Thank you.

Today has been a very tumul­tuous day for Amer­i­cans and Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, for obvi­ous reasons.

On a day in our nation’s cap­i­tal, where we were to effec­tu­ate the most impor­tant act of our democ­ra­cy — the peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er — was force­ful­ly inter­rupt­ed by those who refuse to accept ver­dicts of the peo­ple, the courts and the truth itself.

Here in our cap­i­tal on a day that was to be ded­i­cat­ed to prepar­ing for the open­ing day of our leg­isla­tive ses­sion, so that we could address our chal­lenges, includ­ing the pan­dem­ic, that work was force­ful­ly inter­rupt­ed by sim­i­lar acts of attempt­ed intimidation.

But I have good news to share with my fel­low Washingtonians.

Those acts of intim­i­da­tion will not suc­ceed in any way shape or form. We will con­tin­ue the work we are doing to pro­tect the health of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans. In D.C., Con­gress will fol­low the will of the Amer­i­can peo­ple and take yet anoth­er step on the long march to pro­tect­ing people’s right to self-gov­ern­ment that has so far suc­ceed­ed through cen­turies of fre­quent ten­sion in our politics.

I know we are going through a moment of great tur­moil. Pas­sions are high, in part because we have suf­fered ser­i­al and con­stant untruths being told to cit­i­zens from the high­est office of the land. I am con­fi­dent we will over­come this, as we have in the past, and we will restore the abil­i­ty to per­pet­u­ate self-governance.

I am con­fi­dent that our work here in the state’s cap­i­tal will be sim­i­lar­ly pro­duc­tive begin­ning next week when the leg­is­la­tors, Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats, meet to try to fash­ion joint res­o­lu­tions to our challenges.

I revile these acts of sedi­tion and intim­i­da­tion that we have seen in our coun­try today. I call on all elect­ed lead­ers to con­demn this. I espe­cial­ly encour­age the Repub­li­can Par­ty to do some soul search­ing. It’s time to stop pan­der­ing to falsehoods.

This is about more than one failed pres­i­den­cy: Every­one has a role to play in get­ting dis­in­for­ma­tion out of our civic discourse.

Togeth­er, that spir­it will lead to suc­cess­ful efforts here in our state’s cap­i­tal and in our nation’s capital.

I would like to thank our brave mem­bers of the State Patrol for what they had to deal with today and for their role in pro­tect­ing democ­ra­cy. I’ve also been made aware that jour­nal­ists were threat­ened with vio­lence on the Capi­tol cam­pus today, and I want to thank them for their per­sis­tence in cov­er­ing today’s events and giv­ing peo­ple the objec­tive truth of what has happened.

I want to express a per­son­al sen­ti­ment that I felt today, and I think that many feel, and that is a sense of out­rage and frankly anger at the sight of peo­ple seiz­ing the citadel of democ­ra­cy, show­ing oafish behav­ior in the cham­ber of the U.S. Sen­ate, where so many Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers have par­tic­i­pat­ed in great debates. Today was no debate of ideas, it was juve­nile and dan­ger­ous intimidation.

I know that we have to find a way to work togeth­er to the ben­e­fit of all our cit­i­zens, Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats alike. And I think it would do us well to harken back to what Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln said dur­ing anoth­er time of nation­al tension.

He said this: ‘Though pas­sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affec­tion. The mys­tic chords of mem­o­ry, stretch­ing from every bat­tle-field, and patri­ot grave, to every liv­ing heart and hearth­stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the cho­rus of the Union, when again touched, as sure­ly they will be, by the bet­ter angels of our nature.’

In this day of great assaults on democ­ra­cy, let us all seek that high­er plane which calls us to seek com­mon ground even in the face of out­ra­geous con­duct. This is a most dif­fi­cult task, but we are all called to it tonight.

Be well. We’re going to get through this. Thank you, and goodnight.

We thank Gov­er­nor Inslee and Pres­i­dent-elect Biden for their lead­er­ship in these extreme­ly dif­fi­cult and dis­turb­ing circumstances.