CNBC’s Shepard Smith on Wednesday told producers to stop airing video of President Trump’s address to rioters storming the Capitol on Wednesday after the president repeated his claims of a “stolen” election.
CNBC began airing Trump’s video initially shared on Twitter, in which the president began, “I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us, it was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side.”
Smith then interrupted the video, shouting, “’Stop the tape!”
“That is not true, and we are not airing it,” the news anchor, who previously worked for Fox News, added.
Later on in the video, Trump tells demonstrators that they “have to go home now, we have to have peace.”
“We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order,” he continued. “We don’t want anybody hurt.”
Twitter quickly tagged the tweet containing the video, saying, “This claim of election fraud is disputed, and this Tweet can’t be replied to, Retweeted, or liked due to risk of violence.”
Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that the U.S. election was tainted by widespread voter fraud. However, there is no substantial evidence to support this claim.
Trump supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday after the president urged them to protest Congress’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
The protests quickly turned violent as rioters stormed the Capitol, with some breaking windows and doors of the building. Lawmakers were evacuated from both the Senate and House, and loud bangs were reported by journalists inside the Capitol.
The entire D.C. National Guard was deployed Wednesday to help restore order in the area, and the governors of Virginia and Maryland also sent members of their National Guards, as well as state police troopers, into D.C. to help respond to the chaos.
Multiple news reports stated that at least one person was shot and seriously injured, with at least five people hospitalized, including one law enforcement officer, D.C. emergency medical services told NBC News.