Trump rioted on Capitol Hill, says Mitch McConnell

President Donald Trump has caused swarms of his supporters who have stormed the U.S. Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday.

The Senate remarks came as Kentucky Republican and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., worked to clarify details of Trump’s impending impeachment trial. Trump was impeached in the Democratic-led House last week in a 232-197 vote, with 10 Republicans voting in favor of impeachment.

Trump is the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.

“The crowd was fed on lies,” McConnell told the chamber, which two weeks earlier had been evacuated as rioters stormed the building. “They were brought on by the president and other powerful people.”

The GOP leader drew the direct link between the Republican president’s rhetoric and the January 6 riot, which left five people dead, the day before President-elect Joe Biden was sworn in as 46th president.

McConnell fended off pressure from Democrats to hold the impeachment trial before Trump leaves office, but he told colleagues he was unsure whether Trump should be sentenced in the Senate for inciting the riot.

McConnell’s remarks also suggested other leaders were responsible for the attack. Critics have called on some lawmakers, especially GOP representatives Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, to resign after opposing the election results of major states.

McConnell had congratulated Biden on his victory in mid-December, more than a month after the November 3 election.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on McConnell’s latest remarks.

Trump, who urged the crowd at a rally outside the White House to “fight like hell” and come to Capitol Hill to cancel the 2020 election, insisted his remarks just before the riot were “very appropriate”.

In that speech, Trump repeated the inflammatory and false claim that he was deprived of his re-election by widespread electoral fraud. He again vowed he would never give in to Biden, and he urged his supporters to come to Capitol Hill to “cheer” on Republican lawmakers who had vowed to oppose the results.

“We are probably not going to applaud so much for some of them because you will never take our country back with weakness. You have to be strong and you have to be strong,” Trump said.

Many of his supporters at that rally walked straight through the National Mall to Capitol Hill, where a joint session of Congress met to confirm Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. Rioters broke through barricades and law enforcement lines and entered the Capitol, forcing Congress into hiding. Among them was Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the event.

After McConnell’s remarks on Tuesday, Schumer told the Senate that “Donald Trump should never again be eligible to run for office.”

“Healing and unity will only come if there is truth and responsibility,” Schumer said.

“There will be an impeachment trial in the United States Senate, there will be a vote on the president’s conviction for serious crimes and misdemeanors, and if the president is convicted, there will be a vote to ban him from running for office. new, ”Schumer said. .

Trump, who has acknowledged the imminent end of his single term without giving in to Biden, has not called his successor and has not invited the Democratic president-elect to the White House before the nomination.

Last week, Pence called on Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to congratulate her and offer her help ahead of her swearing-in.