President-elect Joe Biden savaged President Donald Trump over the riot that broke out Wednesday at the Capitol but stopped short of voicing support for or opposition against invoking the 25th Amendment during his Thursday press conference.
Biden, who ignored shouted questions from reporters about the 25th Amendment while arriving at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, opened by stating he would not “speak on” that subject today. (RELATED: Biden Calls On Rioting MAGA Mob To Leave The Capitol — ‘It’s Not Protest. It’s Insurrection’)
He proceeded to call Wednesday’s riot on Capitol Hill “one of the darkest days in the history of our nation” and an “unprecedented assault on our democracy.”
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: A protester yells inside the Senate Chamber on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building during mass demonstrations in the nation’s capital. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“All of us here grieve the loss of life, grieve the desecration of the people’s house, but what we witnessed yesterday was not dissent,” Biden continued. “It was not disorder, it was not protest. It was chaos.”
The president-elect claimed that Trump “over the past four years has made his contempt for our democracy — our Constitution, the rule of law — clear in everything he has done.”
“He unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of democracy,” Biden stated. “Yesterday was what the culmination of that unrelenting attack.”
WATCH:
Multiple lawmakers, including Republican Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have all called for Trump’s removal via the 25th Amendment.