Senator Murray: ‘Democracy is at risk’ in US

US Senator Patty Murray has said that “democracy is at risk,” in the United States, and defended a controversial speech President Joe Biden made last week.

He said on Sunday during an interview with CNN that supporters of former President Donald Trump were willing to use “brute force” to halt the peaceful transition of power on January 6, 2021, when thousands of people marched against the certification of the 2020 election which placed Biden in office as the current US president.

“I believe that our democracy is at risk today. I was in the nation’s Capitol on January 6. I wasn’t able to escape. I was barricaded in an office. And I heard the pounding at the door, and I heard those who were outside of it willing to use brute force incited by President Trump to take over our country, to take over our democracy, to stop the transaction to a new presidency in a peaceful way, which is what a democracy is,” Murray said.

“[W]e have to get back to a point where we all say that brute force and incitement of that brute force, and the questions that the president and his followers continue to put out there about whether or not that election was legitimate incites that,” she said.

“And we still have people today saying there will be violence on the streets. That is not what a democracy is. And we all have to point that out and work to make sure we move towards democracy and keep that democracy,” she added.

On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters occupied the US Capitol while lawmakers were in the process of reviewing the certification of state electors which indicated Biden's victory. Some Trump supporters had hoped that this process could have resulted in some of the electors being disqualified, thus overturning the outcome of the presidential election.

It is claimed by some that the demonstrators were infiltrated and incited by provocateurs from US intelligence agencies, who orchestrated the “false flag operation” in order to get rid of Trump.

Some among the crowd clashed with police, and some made threats to beat up a number of Democratic lawmakers. Some also inflicted damage on parts of the Capitol building.

Biden in his speech on Thursday condemned Trump, saying that the former president and his supporters are determined to "take this country backward.”

“Backward to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love," Biden said.

Trump attacks Biden calling him 'insane', 'suffering from dementia'

Former US president Donald Trump calls Joe Biden "insane, or suffering from late-stage dementia" for accusing him of being "a threat to this country.”

Biden said Trump and other so-called “MAGA Republicans” were spreading corrosive ideas like casting doubt on election results.

“Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology,” Biden said. “But there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.”

Trump has said that the January 6, 2021 protest represented "the greatest movement in the history of our Country.”

"January 6th was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again," Trump said in June.

Trump claimed that he won the 2020 presidential election and that there was "massive" voter fraud.

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