Far-left “squad” member Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) appeared to suggest Democrats revisit the 2021 January 6 Capitol riot if they win back the House, saying, “we … have to hold these people accountable for everything they’ve done.”

Jayapal talked about her experience inside the Capitol during the riot in an interview released on Thursday on the It’s Open with Ilana Glazer podcast. When she was asked, “How does it feel to be a petite woman in the halls of Congress today with these people?” Jayapal said her most stressful time was “after January 6 because I was in the Capitol.”
“I was trapped in the Capitol. I was one of just a few dozen members of Congress who was sitting in the gallery, and everyone else down below had been taken out, and they couldn’t get us out because we were on the upper floor. So, we were trapped there, and I did not think I would make it out. There was a banging on the door from the insurrectionists that I still remember to this day,” she recalled. 

“And then we got put into a safe room with all the Republicans who refused to wear masks, and it was the beginning of COVID. And I remember saying, ‘I’m going to get COVID from this.’ And I did get COVID from that, literally that night, from people refusing to wear masks,” she claimed. “And, and so, you know, I never thought that signing up for this job would mean that I wasn’t going to make it out of the Capitol alive.” 

Jayapal called the riot a “big wake-up moment because we never held [President Donald Trump] accountable.” 

“We did in the House. We impeached him twice, but the Senate refused to. And so what happens to a bully if you don’t hold a bully accountable? They keep bullying, and they get worse, right? So, now he can go cut down trees on a golf course, he can destroy the White House, he can build arches, he can kidnap people, and deport people in the streets, he can kill U.S. citizens,” she claimed.

“There’s no accountability. That’s what you teach if you don’t hold somebody accountable. And I think that’s why, you know, when we take back the House, yes, we have to reverse some of the worst things. We have to pass things that really help people’s lives get better, but we also have to hold these people accountable for everything they’ve done,” she said. 

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.