PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Before Vice President Mike Pence retook the seat of the president of the U.S. Senate Wednesday night to complete the task of affirming the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president and vice president of the United States, the last person to have been sitting there was a member of a violent mob that had stormed the Capitol.
There was plenty of blame being traded on the floor of the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. After the marauders broke into the building, several Republican and Democratic lawmakers from Pennsylvania had harsh words for President Donald Trump, whom they accused of inciting and abetting the violence.
Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey spoke a couple of times Wednesday night following the rejection of objections to the Arizona Electoral College count from South Jersey Republican Sen. Jeff Van Drew.
"Joe Biden won the election. That's not what I had hoped for, but that's what happened," Toomey said. "It was an honest victory, with the usual minor irregularities that occur in most elections."
He continued with his strongest criticism of the president to date: "We saw bloodshed because a demagogue chose to spread falsehoods and sow distrust of his own fellow Americans. Let's not abet such deception now."
Rep. Brendan Boyle of Philadelphia had a strong choice of words on the events.
“I couldn’t care less what Donald Trump is saying right now. Let’s be clear: He incited this. He welcomed these people, he encouraged them to come,” Boyle said.
He said the chaos won’t stop Congress from fulfilling their constitutional duty.
“That means opening all of these ballots, completing this process and get through whatever bogus objections and at the end of this process, the condition will win. Democracy will still win, the Constitution will ensure that Joe Biden becomes president two weeks from now,” he added.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Chester County agreed.
“This will not stop. This will not stop the work of the people,” she said.
Another local Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Bucks County, tweeted: "The president of the United States has been lying to his supporters with false information of false expectations. He lit the flame of incitement and owns responsibility for this."
Philadelphia Rep. Dwight Evans supported the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment. He was happy to see Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger be the first GOP member to publicly support it.
“It’s long overdue,” said Evans. “I’m certainly glad he recognizes it. It’s just too serious. We can’t have this kind of game playing on the part of the president of the United States. We got too much work to do and we got to be serious about the work.”
He said he would also co-sponsor a resolution from St. Louis Rep. Cori Bush that calls on the expulsion of House members who incited the Capitol attack.
Evans fears events following the Capitol breach could actually escalate while Trump is still in charge.
“The answer is yes, it could get worse than yesterday because you never know. This particular president has not, in my view, demonstrated adult type of behavior,” he said.
Montgomery County U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, who joined KYW Newsradio live Thursday morning, said she pleads with “the vice president and the majority of whoever is acting as secretaries” to exercise the 25th Amendment.
“If this isn’t evidence of unfitness for office, I don’t know what is,” she said.
Democratic Sen. Bob Casey said the mob at the Capitol was "entirely foreseeable." "Trump is a threat to our domestic and national security. It is self-evident that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."
In an interview with sister station WIP Sportsradio, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney described the Capitol mobs as the last bastion of white privilege. He believes the response from law enforcement would have been a lot different had the scenario been flipped.
“Can you imagine thousands of Black people attacking the Capitol building? They would have opened fire. There’s no doubt in my mind there’s a double standard about how people are treated relative to law enforcement and in other areas of our country,” he said.
“He’s the last line in some people’s minds against people of color emerging into our government, into our society. Whether they’re Black people or they’re brown people, immigrants. He represents in their minds the last stop of that, and they’re losing their grip.”
Across state lines, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy directly blamed Trump for the deadly Capitol invasion. He said the siege was an act of domestic terrorism.
“This was not a protest. It was an act of domestic terrorism spurred on by the president himself and his minions. The president’s refusal to accept the reality that he lost an election created this.”
“Make no mistake — yesterday was no accident. It was the result of four years of gaslighting and concerted attempts from within to weaken our democracy, but our democracy proved more resilient than the deranged conspiracy theories.”