Contact: Johanna Kichton, 202.660.0605, press@peoplesaction.org
WASHINGTON, D.C.—People’s Action Director George Goehl today released the following statement in response to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building yesterday and reports that Congress would adjourn until after the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden:
“The Republican Party has played with fire for years, aiding and abetting an authoritarian, racist President. Now, they and the whole country have been burnt.
“Vice President Pence and the cabinet must immediately use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power. If they don’t have the guts, Congress should impeach the president and bar him from ever running for federal office again. We are glad to see Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer express support for these actions and urge them to act quickly.
“The attack against the Capitol is exactly where we have been headed since Trump was elected. Trump pulled the trigger, but there were many fingers on the gun, including Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Republican Party donors, Fox News, Facebook, and Twitter. Anyone who spread Trump’s claims of a stolen election was complicit in yesterday’s attack.
“Like the coward he is, Trump whipped up a seditious mob and then hid in the White House while his supporters did his dirty work with little resistance from complicit Capitol Police. In the past, Capitol Police responded to peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience by multi-racial groups of people with immediate arrests. Yesterday, an armed mob who violently broke into the building was escorted out. The double standard, and the racism behind it, show that we have much more to do to overturn America’s racial caste system.
“We must confront facism. Elected officials who want to simply turn the page are failing to rise to the crisis. We applaud Reps. Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush for taking the first steps toward removing Trump and his cronies from power. Every member of Congress should support their efforts.”
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People’s Action is a national network of 37 state and local grassroots, power-building organizations united in fighting for justice. We operate the largest progressive rural organizing project in the country. People’s Action and its member organizations coordinated one of the biggest distributed organizing programs in rural areas this election season.