WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – Former President Barack Obama said in a statement Wednesday that the mob of angry Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol were “incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election.”
Obama said history will remember the violence, during which a woman was shot and killed, as “a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation.”
He added that people should not be surprised that it happened, however.
“For two months now, a political party and its accompanying media ecosystem has too often been unwilling to tell their followers the truth – that this was not a particularly close election and that President-Elect Biden will be inaugurated on January 20,” Obama said in the statement. “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.”
The nation’s 44th president called on Republican leaders to make a choice “made clear in the desecrated chambers of democracy” – to keep “stoking the raging fires” or choose American and start “extinguishing the flames.”
Obama added that he was heartened to see members of the GOP speak up forcefully against the actions of the rioters, adding that it’s “up to all of us as American’s, regardless of party, to support” President-elect Biden’s efforts to “restore a common purpose to our politics.”