President Donald Trump incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, as the electoral votes for the presidential election were being counted in what is normally a ceremonial procedure after a federal election. Crowds waved Trump flags and Confederate flags along with white power symbols, hung a noose on the Capitol grounds, sported firearms, desecrated the Capitol by breaking windows, looting desks on the Senate floor, and breaking and entering Congressional offices. Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the joint session of Congress, could be seen rushing out of the Senate chamber amid the sounds of throngs of Trump supporters who surrounded the Capitol. Pence and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Senate president pro tem, were taken to a secure location. A woman was shot inside the Capitol by a member of law enforcement and later died. At least one improvised explosive device was found on the Capitol grounds, law enforcement officials said. Congress evacuated the Capitol, and the National Guard was activated. The FBI has been deployed, and the U.S. Marshals Service was assisting in the response, too.

President-elect Joe Biden, whose election was being formalized by the counting of the electoral votes today in the Capitol, spoke to the nation. Biden called on Trump to go on national television to “fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.” “It’s not protest. It’s insurrection,” Biden said. “The words of a president matter, no matter how good or bad it is.”

Trump, who earlier Wednesday called on his supporters to march to the Capitol and even suggested that he might join them before he ultimately returned to the White House, addressed the chaos and the unrest in a series of tweets. Later, in a video message flagged by Twitter as spreading false election claims and “due to risk of violence”, Trump again lied about the election results, falsely claiming that he won in a “landslide,” before directly addressing his supporters at the Capitol: “You have to go home now.”

The chaotic situation came after Trump spoke to a large crowd in front of the White House. He angrily vowed never to concede to Biden and baselessly asserted that the election results were fraudulent. Trump’s groundless claims of voter fraud have been widely debunked, and his legal team’s efforts to challenge the election results in court have been rejected by a succession of judges. Trump has claimed Wednesday’s joint session of Congress represents a chance to overturn the election, even though state electors have already certified the results and the event inside the Capitol is ceremonial. Trump has put pressure on Pence to intervene in the count. In his lengthy and digressive remarks, Trump called on Pence to “do the right thing,” even though Pence’s ceremonial role does not give him with power to intervene. Pence sent a letter to Congress ahead of the ceremony saying he would not be doing what Trump has hoped.

In Helena at the Montana Capitol, roughly 100 people bunched onto the Capitol lawn in Helena on Wednesday with Trump flags, some with their children and a few with sidearms. One man at the “Stop the Steal” protest marched the grounds with a pitchfork. But as reports of gunshots came from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Helena’s demonstration was less menacing, with people standing near the road to elicit honks from drivers or driving vehicles with flags around the capitol. Within the Montana state Capitol, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, who took office Monday, issued a statement denouncing what was happening in D.C.
“Violence has no place in our civil society, and I categorically condemn what’s happening in the U.S. Capitol,” Gianforte said in the statement.

Prior to his inauguration, Gianforte was Montana’s lone representative in the U.S. House. In that role, he joined more than 100 GOP lawmakers in filing a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court supporting an effort from Texas to stop four swing states Biden won from voting in the Electoral College. That effort failed as the court refused to hear the case. Once the Electoral College cast its votes Dec. 14, Gianforte acknowledged Biden as the president-elect, unlike Montana’s Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said lawmakers will resume counting the Electoral College vote later Wednesday after armed protesters stormed the Capitol building, disrupting the proceedings and forcing lawmakers to flee to secure locations. “To that end, in consultation with Leader Hoyer and Whip Clyburn and after calls to the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the Vice President, we have decided we should proceed tonight at the Capitol once it is cleared for use,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to House members. The lawmakers will return for a joint session, so members of both the House and Senate will join. It’s unclear what time lawmakers will reconvene. “We always knew this responsibility would take us into the night,” Pelosi continued. “The night may still be long but we are hopeful for a shorter agenda, but our purpose will be accomplished.”