January 7, 2021

Trump Incited Domestic Terror. Now What?

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What a wild 24 hours.

After a Trump-incited mob stormed the Capitol yesterday, a growing number of Democrats—including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi*—are calling for Trump’s removal from office, whether through Vice President Mike Pence’s invocation of the 25th Amendment or through impeachment in Congress. Still, with 13 days left before Biden’s inauguration, it’s not clear how likely or feasible this will be.

But despite rioters’ best efforts, Biden will be inaugurated on January 20. Following Republicans’ protracted objections to the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, Congress finally certified Biden’s presidential victory shortly after 3:30 a.m. ET Thursday. Pence’s definitive bang of the gavel capped off a 14-hour day that left at least one person dead and shook a nation already on edge amid the most severe phase of the coronavirus pandemic. (All of this, I should point out, has overshadowed Democrats’ retaking the Senate through a historic double victory in Georgia’s Senate runoffs.)

As the aftermath of yesterday’s violence continues to unfold, we’ll be keeping track of the latest developments on our liveblog, our Twitter, and our site. I hope you follow along with us.

*Correction: The newsletter originally sent to readers referred to Mitch McConnell as the House majority leader. McConnell is the Senate majority leader and does not support Trump’s removal from office. The post has also been updated to reflect Pelosi is the House Speaker. We regret the errors.

This post was brought to you by the Mother Jones Daily newsletter, which hits inboxes every weekday and is written by Inae Oh, Ben Dreyfuss, and Abigail Weinberg. It regularly features guest contributions by our much smarter colleagues. Sign up for it here.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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