“This was an insurrection in the United States. This was a coup attempt. The president wanted a mob to storm the Capitol and stop the vote count because he lost the election,” Ryan said during a Wednesday evening virtual press conference.
“You can’t say this is acceptable behavior of the president of the United States,” Ryan said. “I think he needs to be removed from office because we can’t trust him. … It is scary to think Trump will be president for two more weeks.”
Whether Trump would be removed by impeachment or invoking of the 25th Amendment to declare him unable to perform his duties, Ryan said those conversations need to happen.
However, the president isn’t the only one to blame, Ryan said, for the escalation of planned protests that led to one woman’s death and congress members on the House floor to don gas masks.
He called it a lack of professional planning and “strategic missteps” on the part of Capitol police leadership, and not closing off the building to prevent the officers from getting overrun.
“It’s pretty clear there’s going to be a number of people without employment very soon,” Ryan said.
The congressman said he also believes that had the protesters been Black, they would have been treated much differently by police.
How Ryan found out about the breach was by alerts on his cellphone, he said.
He was in his office, and ordered to stay in his office, and to lock it, by police. Later, he and other lawmakers and staff were shepherded into a room for a briefing.
“You can’t impede the constitutional process that we have been following for 200 years,” Ryan said. “It is absolutely appalling. It’s a violation of everything we believe in.”
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