The U.S. Capitol insurrection was 100 days ago, and those who lived through the assault on democracy are still processing the trauma they experienced.
Lawmakers, staffers, police officers, reporters and Capitol employees recalled the fear and anger they felt as Donald Trump’s supporters violently stormed into the building in an effort to overturn the former president’s election loss, and they continue to struggle with the memories from that day.
“They destroyed things here, broke windows, you know, a mess, but things don’t matter to me,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told NBC’s Frank Thorpe V. “But seeing the dramatic effect it had on my staff is something that will live with me forever, and for which I will never forgive them.”
“They failed,” she added. “They failed in stopping the certification of a president of the United States, and they did so because members had the courage to come back.”
Capitol police officers lost one of their own that day, and two others took their own lives in the days that followed, but they want Americans to remember that they succeeded in protecting lawmakers and democracy.
“We didn’t fail,” said Officer Anthony Booth. “We protected every member of Congress, not one member of Congress was hurt with a scratch that day … We protected every staffer that was in here, everybody was accounted for, nobody was hurt. The only casualties we had were obviously officers, but at the end of the day, we did our job.”
Many others remain angry about the attempt to subvert democracy, which was encouraged by Trump and some of his Republican congressional allies.