Future Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called out Donald Trump for his part in spurring an attempted coup by Trump supporters who refuse to acknowledge his loss in the November elections. After reopening the Senate, outgoing majority leader Republican Mitch McConnell refused to cite Trump’s or his fellow Republicans’ responsibility for stoking the hatred and violence.
Citing FDR’s legendary statement about the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor as a “day that will live in infamy,” Schumer said, “Unfortunately, we can add January 6th, 2021 to that very short list of days in American history that will live forever in infamy.”
Schumer explicitly put the blame in the lap of Trump, who flamed the fires of the conspiracy theorists, calling “the 45th President of the United States undoubtedly our worst.”
“I want to be very clear,” Schumer continued, “those who performed these reprehensible acts cannot be called protesters. No, these were rioters and insurrectionists, goons and thugs, domestic terrorists. They do not represent America.”
“But make no mistake–no mistake, my friends–today’s events did not happen spontaneously,” Schumer stated. “The president who promoted conspiracy theories that motivated these thugs, the president who exhorted them to come to our nation’s Capitol, egged them on. He hardly ever discourages violence, and more often encourages it.
“This president bears a great deal of the blame. This mob was in good part President Trump’s doing, incited by his words, his lies. This violence in good part, his responsibility, his everlasting shame. Today’s events certainly–certainly–would not have happened without him.”
Schumer went on to blast the people who support and parrot Trump, coddling his ego at the sacrifice of the US Constitution.
Given that Trump’s Twitter account has been suspended for twelve hours, he will unlikely make a public statement reacting to Schumer’s words.