DONALD TRUMP HAS for the first time acknowledged his presidency was ending as calls grew for his removal from office for encouraging a mob attack on the US Capitol.
In a video he released on Twitter after a temporary suspension, Trump condemned rioters who rampaged through a congressional session that certified Joe Biden’s victory, although he did not go so far as to congratulate or even say the name of his successor.
“This moment calls for healing and reconciliation,” said Trump, in a jarring shift of tone a day after the Capitol Hill riot.
“We have just been through an intense election and emotions are high, but now tempers must be cooled and calm restored,” said Trump, standing before a lectern with the presidential seal.
“A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power,” he said.
“Serving as your president has been the honor of my lifetime,” Trump said, without explicitly conceding and insisting he was “fighting to defend American democracy”.
Two Cabinet members resign
Two members of Donald Trump’s cabinet resigned last night, with days left in the administration in protest over the storming of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.
The education secretary and transportation secretary – the only two women in Trump’s inner cabinet – both said they could no longer remain in office after the violent rampage on a ceremonial session of Congress that certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a conservative stalwart who had served throughout the administration, said: “That behavior was unconscionable for our country. There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.”
“Impressionable children are watching all this, and they are learning from us,” she said in a letter to Trump. “They must know from us that America is greater than what transpired yesterday.”
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Republican Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell, earlier said it was “a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the president stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed.”
“It has deeply troubled me in a way I simply cannot set aside,” she added.
Others who resigned included Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump chief of staff who had recently been the US envoy to Northern Ireland, and the deputy national advisor, Matt Pottinger, an architect of Trump’s hawkish line on China.
Joe Biden’s address
Biden, who won seven million votes more than Trump in the 3 November election as well as a decisive edge in the vital state-by-state Electoral College, declined to address demands for Trump’s removal but accused him of an “all-out assault on the institutions of our democracy”.
“Yesterday, in my view, was one of the darkest days in the history of our nation,” Biden said at an event to introduce his nominee for attorney general, respected judge Merrick Garland, who if confirmed will quickly need to decide whether to prosecute Trump.
“They weren’t protesters,” Biden said. “They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists.”
“I wish we could say we couldn’t see it coming but that isn’t true,” Biden said. “We could see it coming.”
“The past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of law clear in everything he has done,” he said.
Calls to remove Trump
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows a majority of the cabinet to remove a president deemed unable to discharge his duties.
They threatened otherwise to impeach Trump for an unprecedented second time in hopes that the Senate, where Democrats are projected to have won control after runoff elections Tuesday in Georgia, will now oust him.
“This is an emergency of the highest magnitude,” Pelosi said, describing Trump as a “very dangerous person.”
“By inciting sedition, as he did yesterday, he must be removed from office,” she said. “While it’s only 13 days left, any day can be a horror show for America.
Few Republicans came forward to back such remedies although Representative Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic within his party, said it was time to “end this nightmare” and also called for invoking the 25th Amendment, which has been used previously when presidents undergo a surgical procedure.
“The president is unfit,” Kinzinger said. “And the president is unwell.”
Invoking the amendment would make Pence the acting president for the remaining two weeks the administration has in office.
Pence, loyally by Trump’s side until the final days, rejected Trump’s vocal pressure to somehow intervene in Tuesday’s session, which has taken place every four years for more than two centuries without drama.
In the middle of the night, after hours of delay due to the riots and Trump loyalists’ contesting of the results, it was Pence who formally announced the victory of Biden as the 46th president and Kamala Harris as the next vice president.
Scrutiny on security
Anger from both Democrats and Republicans has been brewing over the failure of law enforcement to prevent the mobs from entering Congress.
During the mayhem in Congress, security forces fired tear gas to drive out the flag-waving crowds and police said a woman, reportedly a Trump supporter from California, was shot by police and killed. Three other deaths were reported on the Capitol grounds.
Steven Sund, the chief of the 2,300-strong Capitol Police, handed in his resignation and lawmakers vowed a thorough investigation on security lapses.
Many questioned how police would have responded had the crowd been not overwhelmingly white Trump supporters but Black anti-racism protesters, who were met with force in nationwide demonstrations last year.
“True progress will be possible only once we acknowledge that this disconnect exists and take steps to repair it,” said former first lady Michelle Obama.
“And that also means coming to grips with the reality that millions voted for a man so obviously willing to burn our democracy to the ground for his own ego.”
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