Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Thursday that the violence in the Capitol on Wednesday “was a national disgrace,” noting that he’s “never seen anything or experienced anything like this” before.
On Wednesday, while Congress was in session to certify the Electoral College vote, a large group of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, eventually gaining entry and causing havoc, leading to at least one person being killed.
“I’ve never seen anything or experienced anything like this in my many years of public service,” Powell said. “Yesterday was a national disgrace but we’ll come through it.”
The retired general went on to compare the events to the riot that occurred over the beating of Rodney King by police officers in 1992, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under then-President George H.W. Bush, who sent in troops to quell the unrest.
Powell noted, “we brought it to a conclusion. In this case though I do not know what the plan was. I cannot tell how many people are going to be there in police uniforms, why we didn’t have more National Guardsmen on standby. Maybe they weren’t there right away but why weren’t they on standby?”
He went on to say, “I think the plan was not good. And I hope that this will be examined very, very closely. But once again we see President Trump doing things that are absolutely outrageous, criminal, claiming that he is going to be the president of the United States when he knows he isn’t.
“But most shocking of it all was that we had to deal with this. And you had a Congress that was not dealing with it. And so, every time I think about President Trump I also think about the Congress that did not do its job. It did not do its job. It just went along with him.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.