Biden: Capitol 'assault' was work of 'domestic terrorists'

President-elect Joe Biden said on Thursday that President Donald Trump fomented Wednesday's violence at the U.S. Capitol, calling it one of the darkest days in the history of the country and an assault on democracy.

Biden, speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was introducing nominees for his Justice Department, called the Trump supporters who forced their way into the Capitol building "domestic terrorists".

"Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It's that basic," Democrat Biden said.

The chaos in the U.S. Capitol when a pro-Trump mob stormed the building that houses the Senate and House of Representatives unfolded after Trump spent weeks whipping up his supporters with false claims that the Nov. 3 election was stolen from him. At a rally in front of the White House on Wednesday Trump called on supporters to march to the building.

"He unleashed an all-out assault on the institutions of our democracy from the outset, and yesterday was but the culmination of that unrelenting attack," Biden said of Republican Trump.