The US Senate has reconvened after the Capitol was locked down as Trump supporters stormed the building after the President urged them to fight against the ceremonial counting of the electoral votes that will confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
DC police confirmed that a woman has died after being shot in the chest on the Capitol grounds and an explosive device was reportedly found during the fracas.
The White House also revealed the US National Guard had been called in by Mr Trump following clashes between rioters and Washington DC police, while a curfew has been ordered across the city.
Both chambers of Congress in Washington DC were abruptly recessed as they debated Mr Biden’s election win when the violence flared.
Democrat senator Jeff Merkley said that officials had “rescued” Electoral College ballots from the Senate floor during the fateful session of Congress.
“If our capable floor staff hadn’t grabbed them, they would have been burned by the mob,” he posted on Twitter.
US Vice President Mike Pence was ushered out of the Senate chamber to a secure location as protestors entered the Capitol building.
In a televised address following the incident, Mr Biden said America’s democracy was “under unprecedented assault” as he condemned the “small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness” who had brought “chaos” to the US Capitol.
“This is not dissent, it’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition and it must end, now,” he added.
“I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.”
The president-elect also called on President Trump to go on national television to “defend the constitution” and “demand an end to this siege”.
Mr Trump however chose to post a minute-long video to his Twitter account.
He did not explicitly condemn the scenes of violence, but urged those who had gathered at the US Capitol to disperse.
“I know your pain, I know your hurt – we had an election that was stolen from us,” he said.
“It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side.”
Calling on his supporters to leave the US Capitol, the president added, “You have to go home now, we have to have peace, we have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order.
“We don’t want anybody hurt, it’s a very tough period of time – there’s never been a period of time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us.
“From me, from you, from our country.”
Democrats flip US Senate in Georgia Elections
Electoral experts and statisticians have projected that Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have won runoff races in the southern state of Georgia, giving Democrats control of the US Senate for the first time in a decade.
With their victories, Democrats will control the House of Representatives, the White House and now the Senate in 2021, allowing President-elect Biden to enact his agenda with less resistance from Republicans.
While the chamber will have 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats (including two independent legislators who caucus with Democrats), Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will serve as tie-breaker.
The elections of both candidates are historic. Mr Warnock, 51, who serves as pastor for the same Atlanta church that civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr once led, will become the first Black senator from Georgia in history and the first Black Democrat ever from the American South.
Ossoff will become the first Jewish senator from Georgia. At 33 years old, he will be the youngest senator and the first of the millennial-generation in the chamber.
