President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden released duelling messages about the violent protesters that descended on the US Capitol Wednesday.

Biden, who spoke live from Wilmington, Delaware, strongly denounced the rioters calling their actions an “unprecedented assault unlike anything we have seen in modern times”.

Trump, in a recorded video released on Twitter, empathized with his supporters saying, “I know your pain, I know you’re hurt,” before pivoting back to the unfounded election claims that are at the root of Wednesday’s chaos.

“We had an election that was stolen from us.”

For his part, Biden called the protesters “extremists” and “a mob”, Biden said their violence is “an assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself. An assault on the people’s representatives and the Capitol police charged to protect them. An assault on the most sacred undertakings, the doing of the people’s business.

“Let me be clear, the scenes at the Capitol do not reflect the true America.”

Biden said: “To storm the Capitol, to smash windows to occupy offices on the floor of the United States Senate, rummaging through desks in the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, threatening the safety of duly elected officials. It’s not a protest. It’s insurrection.”

Biden called on President Donald Trump, who had been tweeting from the White House during the protests, to address the nation on national television and “demand an end to this siege”.

Instead, Trump tweeted his video, which ended with him asking his supporters to “go home” and, in what is sure to be extremely controversial, he embraced them.

“We love you. You are very special. … Go home and go home in peace.”