Former and current republican federal lawmakers react to protests

Drawing reaction from all over.

News 12's dorothy sherman caught up with past and present local lawmakers.

Dsherman@wdef.com/dorothy sherman: "former and current republican federal lawmakers from tennessee are speaking out over the protests at the capitol.

Some of which found themselves sheltering in place as everything went down."

Senator marsha blackburn says she was safe and sheltering in place wednesday afternoon when protestors stormed the capitol.

Their actions she called "truly despicable and unacceptable," and called for the protestors to leave immediately.

Senator bill hagerty condemned the behavior.

He tweeted saying he believes in peaceful protesting, but says what was happening was violence.

News 12 spoke with congressman chuck fleishmann who was also in d.c.

"i don't know what is motivating these people we don't know.

I have not had an opportunity to investigate this i would basically say once again that i will always condemn violence whether it comes from the right, the left the center in our communities in our nation's capitol.

It is an intolerable situation.

I will say this.

We will have the responsible people arrested that will be brought to justice as they should be."

Former congressman zach wamp and former senator bob corker both put the blame on the president's narrative that the election was stolen.

Former congressman zach wamp: "to be honest with you, it's not just the president.

Now there's 13 senators including 2 from tennessee and 140 house members who helped him perpetuate this fraud narrative and convinced these people that the election was stolen and it wasn't, it wasn't.

I know that, that's not popular with some people, especially here, but it wasn't.

We have to be grounded in truth.

This is a dangerous president.

We are a country of laws.

The rule of law and the constitution.

Not a man, not an authoritarian.

He is unable to accept reality that the country voted for republicans at every level, but not him."

Former senator bob corker: "many of these people that are there protesting are probably hard working americans and they look to members of the house and the senate and the president for leadership and for telling them the truth about things and so they don't have time every day to read what's going on in many cases and so they look for leadership and that leadership is what led them today to take the actions that they took which are horrifying to our country.

These actions that are underway are a shot at our democracy."

Dsherman@wdef.com/dorothy sherman: "other lawmakers from tennessee, like the governor, have reacted to the situation also condemning the violence.

In chattanooga, dorothy sherman, news 12 now."

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