Rep. Jeff Fortenberry said late Wednesday afternoon that President Donald Trump needs to step up now and call upon his supporters to end the kind of post-election violence that swept into the nation’s Capitol earlier in the day.
Asked if the president bears responsibility for the violence after summoning supporters to Washington for what he said would be a “wild” event, Fortenberry said Trump needs to speak to them now.
“These are his most heartfelt supporters,” the Republican congressman said during a telephone conversation from his office. “They will listen to him. Violence has to stop.”
Fortenberry, who represents eastern Nebraska’s 1st District including Lincoln, said “people are very upset” following Trump’s defeat in November and “people will be very upset with me for voting to certify the election results” that have been submitted to Congress by the Electoral College.
There is nothing wrong with “marching peacefully,” he said, but “these fools who invaded the Capitol” moved beyond peaceful and acceptable protest.
“I suspect that the vast majority of people who came here to exercise their rights and participate in a peaceful manner were also upset” by the violence, Fortenberry said.
Fortenberry was quarantined in his House office during Wednesday’s events after exposure to COVID-19. When he casts his vote to accept the Electoral College results, he said he’ll be wearing a mask and face shield and be segregated in the gallery.
“I wanted to be on the floor,” he said, but he will be escorted to the gallery for the vote and leave after his vote is cast.
Others in Nebraska’s congressional delegation also decried the breach of the U.S. Capitol by a mob intent on disrupting the certification of the electoral votes confirming Joe Biden as the next U.S. president.
Rep. Adrian Smith, the lone congressional member from Nebraska objecting to the certification of the electoral votes, called for calm at the Capitol.
“While many protesters are exercising their constitutional right to be heard peacefully, I urge all protestors to do so and to follow the directions of law enforcement,” the 3rd District congressman said in a statement.
“We are working to ensure concerns about the conduct of…
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