Chelsea Clinton is sharing how she and her family reacted to President Donald Trump‘s supporters storming the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
While making a virtual appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show on Thursday, Chelsea revealed that she actually broke the news about what was going on in Washington, D.C. to her mother, Hillary Clinton.
“I spoke to my mom yesterday at about 3 p.m. She had just come back from a walk … and she hadn’t seen what had happened,” Chelsea recalled. “I said, ‘Mom, you have to turn on the television,’ and there was just silence. So much sadness, and also so much anger, that this was happening.”
“When we spoke again later last night, there was a real sense of, ‘We have to hold people accountable,’ because we do. The insurrectionists, the terrorists, the mob who overwhelmed our Capitol. We have to hold those individuals accountable,” she continued. “And we have to hold our president accountable — who incited them, egged them on. While it’s good that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have locked [Trump’s] account, it’s insufficient to put it mildly. We have to stop not only the amplification but the injection of hate and instability and violence that he has personified over the last years.”
Chelsea also admitted to feeling “really sad” over the events that took place in our country on Wednesday.
“I’m sad is the overwhelming emotion I feel. I’m just so achingly sad that we had insurrectionists storm our Capitol,” she explained. “It hadn’t happened since 1814, since the war of 1812, when the British invaded our country and that we had white nationalist terrorists effectively overwhelm our Capitol, terrorize our elected men and women of Congress, our Capitol police.”
“It’s just horrifying to me,” she added. “And then trying to explain what was happening to our children. I’m very sad today. I’m incredibly grateful and proud that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will indeed be our next president and vice president of the United States. I’m holding that pride deep in my heart and my soul.”
As ET reported on Wednesday, Trump supporters surrounded the Capitol to protest the ratification of President-elect Biden’s Electoral College victory over the president in the 2020 election.
After Trump held a rally claiming he won the election, thousands took to the Capitol, storming barricades and confronting the police. Video posted online showed a person even aggressively breaking a glass window on a Capitol building door, taking over the building and trespassing. It was hours before Trump deployed the National Guard to protect the Capitol, per CBS News. President-elect Biden spoke out, urging Trump to tell people to go home, which he eventually did moments after Biden’s televised address.
Celebrities like Cardi B, Mark Ruffalo, Issa Rae and many more took to social media to express their disbelief at what was occurring in the nation’s capital, while Barrymore reacted while speaking to ET’s Nischelle Turner on Thursday.
“I stayed up until late last night to watch both sides speak on the Senate floor and I was tuned in the entire time,” the actress shared. “We have to do our civic duty and pay attention to what’s happening in the world in real time … so I think in doing the show today it was so interesting to have Chelsea Clinton on. What incredible beshert timing that was for us to speak to someone with such insider wisdom and life experience.”
“The one thing I kept hoping when I watched into the late hours last night, the thing I keep holding onto, is what [CNN anchor] Van Jones said — that this can be the end of something, or the beginning of something,” she continued. “And I believe in what 2020 stood for and this may be the thing that puts the armor down and catapults us into this next chapter that everybody is fighting so hard for.”
