Former President Barack Obama categorically condemned the throngs of thugs that stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., and desecrated the interior of the edifice on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021.
Obama, 59, described the violent insurrection that was inspired by the sitting president as “a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation.”
Political pundits on CNN and MSNBC suggested with, only two weeks left in office, the current occupant of the White House had attempted to pull off a coup d’état, an overthrow of the democratically installed incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden by violent and unconstitutional means.
“History will rightly remember today’s violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election, as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation. But we’d be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise,” Obama penned for his 128 million Twitter followers.
“Their fantasy narrative has spiraled further and further from reality, and it builds upon years of sown resentments. Now we’re seeing the consequences, whipped up into a violent crescendo.”
Obama implored Republican leaders who have been supporting the president’s unfounded election fraud claims to renounce him forcefully and without equivocation in order to salvage democracy.
“Right now, Republican leaders have a choice made clear in the desecrated chambers of democracy. They can continue down this road and keep stoking the raging fires. Or they can choose reality and take the first steps toward extinguishing the flames,” he wrote. “They can choose America.”
Read Obama’s address to the nation in its entirety.
Here’s my statement on today’s violence at the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/jLCKo2D1Ya
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 7, 2021
