This breaking news report will be updated as events continue to unfold.
Responding to outgoing President Donald Trump’s call to disrupt the counting of electoral votes that would confirm his defeat, hundreds of his supporters broke into the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, forcing Congress to halt its work and Vice President Mike Pence to be evacuated as the mob overcame token resistance from the police.
Whoa: Trump supporters going at it with the police on the steps of the Capitol as Congress counts the Electoral College ballots inside https://t.co/LiQhaa5KkQ
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 6, 2021
This video of the siege of the Capitol on TikTok is crazy and different than I had seen pic.twitter.com/JXwvKVLjxB
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) January 7, 2021
The assault on Congress came immediately after Trump urged protesters gathered outside the White House to march on the Capitol to support challenges to the electoral count and suggested that he would accompany them. “After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you,” the president said. “We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women.”
Trump supporters break into the U.S. Capitol Building after storming the police line here in Washington #DC #Trump #DCRally #BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/Q8jdQjqNla
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) January 6, 2021
Trump supporters breach the line of police, now having opened the Capitol on the front and back side as outside crowds rush into the building #January6th #Capitol #DC #WashingtonDC pic.twitter.com/qUobYiubT7
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) January 6, 2021
The chaos entered the House chamber with a loud shout from the hall outside as Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, was reciting a litany of false claims about the validity of the vote count in his state as part of a planned series of bogus objections to the certified results from Trump supporters in Congress.
Robert Moore, a British foreign correspondent for ITV News, was with the rioters as they burst into the Capitol.
Watch @robertmooreitv's report from inside the Capitol building as the extraordinary events unfolded in Washington DChttps://t.co/krCQf1uQbx pic.twitter.com/SiWbzF5Nzs
— ITV News (@itvnews) January 6, 2021
Within minutes, congressional reporter shared images of windows being smashed by the mob, and Trump supporters marauding through the halls, eventually seizing the Senate chamber, and facing off with armed officers at the door of the House.
Holy shit pic.twitter.com/dofEG2SmqP
— Jim Newell (@jim_newell) January 6, 2021
Protestors have entered the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/dzaDGn5MoC
— Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) January 6, 2021
Here’s the scary moment when protesters initially got into the building from the first floor and made their way outside Senate chamber. pic.twitter.com/CfVIBsgywK
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 6, 2021
Members of Congress shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) pic.twitter.com/0iULwIr24Q
— Andrew Harnik (@andyharnik) January 6, 2021
The Senate pic.twitter.com/ooJZ6qNATe
— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) January 6, 2021
This photo was the one that made me sit quietly for a moment tonight. https://t.co/diCdP5fe5M
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@SIfill_) January 6, 2021
The far-right YouTuber Elijah Schaffer, who was embedded with the pro-Trump mob, shared footage of the police losing control of the Capitol to the president’s vigilantes.
BREAKING: Trump supporters have breached the Capitol building, tearing down 4 layers of security fencing and are attempting to occupy the building — fighting federal police who are overrun
This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Thousands, police can’t stop them pic.twitter.com/VVdTUwV5YN
— E (@ElijahSchaffer) January 6, 2021
As the Capitol police were overwhelmed, a source in the Defense Department gave conflicting accounts to reporters as to why a request from Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, for the National Guard to be deployed was not immediately met.
https://twitter.com/thejaydenxander/status/1347066713788002305
Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia announced that he was responding to a request from the mayor to send “members of the Virginia National Guard along with 200 Virginia State Troopers” to the Capitol.
“As we figured out during the BLM protests,” Charlie Savage of the New York Times observed on Twitter, “the thing about calling out the National Guard to quell this riot is that because D.C. is not a state, the commander of those troops would not be Muriel Bowser, D.C.’s elected leader. They would instead be controlled by… Donald Trump.”
At a news conference on Thursday, Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, told reporters that he had tried to deploy Maryland’s National Guard to defend the Capitol after a frantic call for help from House and Senate leaders hiding from the mob, but the Pentagon had repeatedly refused to grant authorization for 90 minutes after the request was made.
Here's video of @GovLarryHogan saying Maryland's National Guard was repeatedly denied authorization to deploy to defend Congress on Wednesday during the 90 minutes after a panicked phone call from senior House and Senate leaders who were hiding from the president's mob https://t.co/EQOHyl1c0P pic.twitter.com/Fsf31LwUwP
— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) January 8, 2021

A member of a pro-Trump mob dropped to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday.
Later in the afternoon, a defense official told Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post, “The entire D.C. National Guard will be activated today, putting about 1,100 guardsmen on duty tonight.”
Defense officials told the New York Times that the belated order to deploy the National Guard had been approved by Pence, not Trump.
ABC News reported later that “President Trump rebuffed efforts for quite some time to call in the National Guard Wednesday afternoon as chaos escalated at the U.S. Capitol, and steps weren’t made until a few White House officials intervened for ‘the sake of the country.'”
Even when the Capitol police attempted to retake the building from the mob, the officers seemed generally reluctant to use force.
Here's the latest from the scene in Washington where a mob of Trump supporters broke windows and stormed barriers, leading to a lockdown and lawmaker evacuations
The effort to secure the Capitol is still underway https://t.co/FXOsoMM55K pic.twitter.com/TJJxNvcXDg
— Bloomberg (@business) January 6, 2021
As many observers noted on social networks, the restraint demonstrated by the police during the initial storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters stood in stark contrast to the far greater levels of violence routinely inflicted on racial justice protesters over the past year and the mass deployment of the D.C. National Guard in June to protect the Lincoln Memorial days after the killing of George Floyd.
Imagine if Black Lives Matter protesters had done this. Curious if you can…#DC #democracy pic.twitter.com/6yPSxvWShb
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) January 6, 2021
Correction: this is the Lincoln Memorial across from the Capitol. But yes I'm aware this is the Natl Guard. Honestly, both of those facts make this worse. This show of force at the Lincoln Memorial is a SPECIFIC kind of symbolic/mnemonic violence.
— El Norte Recuerda (@Vanessid) January 6, 2021
Trying to get into a car vs. Breaking into the U.S. Capitol
Two Americas.
(Image from U.S. Capitol — Saul LOEB, Win McNamee/Getty Images) pic.twitter.com/GXBbJZMg5U
— Eric Cox (@EricCoxTV) January 6, 2021
An empty federal courthouse in Portland became a warzone where citizens supporting BLM had to do battle with un-ID'd men in camo who were throwing people into unmarked vans. Conversely, in DC a pre-meditated right-wing attack on our capital continues unabated. Unreal. https://t.co/07R9C7Rp9h
— Donovan Farley (@DonovanFarley) January 6, 2021
Dre Miller, an activist in Portland, Oregon, who took part in racial justice protests last year, told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he was shocked by how lax the policing was in Washington. “Every night, we were met by violence: tear gas, batons, arrests right away. And that would just be for us out there yelling and vocalizing our frustrations of us being killed,” he said. “But today it wasn’t like that. It was vacant. It was available for them to actually overthrow the Capitol. It’s just wild how different the response is.”
Amid the chaos inside the Capitol building, there was at least one act of deadly violence. One witness tweeted graphic video of a woman wearing a Trump flag bleeding heavily after being shot in a barricaded Capitol hallway.
https://twitter.com/realjaydenx/status/1347056697899163648
While the exact circumstances have not yet been confirmed, video of the incident recorded from another angle appeared to show that the woman was climbing through a window that had just been shattered by rioters when she was shot from the other side of a locked door.
Later on Wednesday, NBC News reported that the woman who was shot had died. The woman was later identified by her family in San Diego as Ashli Babbitt, a 14-year Air Force veteran who was a Trump supporter and shared QAnon conspiracy theories online.
After the shooting, dozens of rioters in Trump regalia were filmed casually making their way out of the federal building they had broken into and sacked, past a police officer who held the door open for them. None were arrested. The words “Murder the Media” were scrawled on the door they exited through.
A line of people exit the Capitol building. One bloodied in the head and more came out who previously stormed the building. pic.twitter.com/0MF2aAp3Ly
— Matthew Miller (@mattmiller757) January 6, 2021
Speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, President-elect Joe Biden called on Trump “to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”
BREAKING: President-elect Biden: “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.” pic.twitter.com/17PAHy3zK0
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 6, 2021
Late Wednesday afternoon, Trump did make a halfhearted effort to end the attempted coup he had requested, tweeting a video statement in which he reiterated his false claim that he won the election in a landslide but calling for his supporters to “go home now.”
In the video — which was later removed from Twitter for what the social network called “severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy” — the president was careful not to condemn the mob, however, telling them, “I know how you feel,” and “We love you. You’re very special.”
The Washington Post reported that a man with a megaphone told a crowd of hundreds outside the Capitol: “Hey, everyone, Donald Trump says he wants everyone to go home.”
He was met with loud booing.
The president’s call for “peace” appeared not to reach his supporters outside the Capitol, who attacked reporters and destroyed their equipment.
Mob of Trump supporters destroy media equipment outside the capitol building #CapitolHill pic.twitter.com/PYsXDH93tb
— Elad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) January 6, 2021
Just witnessed an alarming scene with @mjcontrera outside the US Capitol. A group of TV reporters were swarmed and chased away from their cameras, which a mob of President Trump’s supporters trashed.
Here’s the aftermath: pic.twitter.com/rB8QULwm5y
— Katie Mettler (@kemettler) January 6, 2021
Early Wednesday evening, Rep. James Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat, confirmed that Congress planned to return to the business of counting the electoral votes once the building was secured.
I have faced violent hatred before.
I was not deterred then, and I will not be deterred now.
Tonight, Congress will continue the business of certifying the electoral college votes.
— James E. Clyburn (@RepJamesClyburn) January 6, 2021
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi confirmed that plan a short time later, in a note to colleagues calling the mob attack “a shameful assault” on American democracy, “anointed at the highest level of government.”
In a statement, Sen. Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican who voted to remove Trump from office last year, called on his colleagues to put aside any further objections to the electoral count when the joint session of Congress resumes. Earlier, as lawmakers and reporters were rushed to a secure location, Romney told Jonathan Martin of the New York Times, “This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection.”
Among the elected officials disgusted by the assault on Congress was Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, who called it “an unacceptable attack on our democracy” and demanded that Trump “resign or be removed from office by his Cabinet, or by the Congress.”
Rep. Cori Bush, a newly elected progressive Democrat from Missouri, tweeted a draft resolution calling for the expulsion of Republican colleagues who she said had “incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election.”
I believe the Republican members of Congress who have incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election must face consequences. They have broken their sacred Oath of Office.
I will be introducing a resolution calling for their expulsion. pic.twitter.com/JMTlQ4IfnR
— Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) January 6, 2021
Shortly after 8 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, reopened the Senate debate on the counting of the electoral votes and denounced the riot. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who will soon be the new majority leader after the Democratic sweep in Georgia’s special election, said that January 6 will now take its place in American history, along with December 7, 1941, as “a day that will live forever in infamy.”
During the ensuing debate, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican who lost her seat to Democrat Raphael Warnock on Tuesday, announced that she had changed her mind and decided not to object to the count in Arizona as she had pledged to do on the eve of the election.
Pelosi restarted the House debate shortly after 9 p.m. local time.
After objections to the votes from Arizona were overwhelmingly defeated in both chambers, the counting of electoral votes proceeded until Republicans also objected to the certified returns from Pennsylvania. During a debate over those objections, Rep. Conor Lamb, a Pennsylvania Democrat, chastised his Republican colleagues for inciting violence with their baseless claims of fraud.
“These objections don’t deserve an ounce of respect. Not an ounce! A woman died out there tonight, and you’re making these objections, Lamb said, looking to the Republican side of the chamber.
After Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) said the mob attack materialized from lies told by Republicans, Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) objected to Lamb’s words.
Moments later, a fight almost broke out on the House floor between the two parties.
No punches were thrown, per pool report. pic.twitter.com/7UJRiKcZX0
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) January 7, 2021
“We know that that attack today, it didn’t materialize out of nowhere,” he continued. “It was inspired by lies, the same lies you’re hearing in this room tonight, and the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves. Their constituents should be ashamed of them.”
After the debate, the House and the Senate overwhelmingly defeated the objection and Pennsylvania’s electoral votes were counted.
The complete tallying of the electoral votes was completed, making Biden’s election official, at 3:40 a.m.
Minutes after Pence declared that Biden would become president in two weeks, Trump — who was temporarily suspended from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for inciting violence — tacitly accepted the end of his presidency, saying “there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” in a message tweeted by his social media aide and former caddy Dan Scavino.
…fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
— Dan Scavino Jr.??? (@DanScavino) January 7, 2021
Last updated: Thursday, January 7, 10:19 p.m. EST