Hello,

Yesterday was a dark day for our country. I spent a lot of the day thinking about my kiddos. In fact, I started the day by calling my kids. I told them, "You may see a lot of protests and maybe even riots on the streets, but don't worry... I work in one of the most secure buildings on the planet, and we'll be just fine." Sadly, I was wrong.

January 6, 2021, will go down in history as the day of the failed Trump Insurrection. Seeing an angry mob overtake the People's House was really awful. Seeing people vandalizing a building that is meant to be a symbol of representative democracy was repulsive. Our country didn't see the Confederate flag breach the Capitol during the Civil War... but it did so yesterday.

But let's be clear. This was not simply an attack on a building. It was an attack on our democracy incited by the president, and this will be his legacy.

Indeed, this was yet another dark chapter in a dark four years of Donald Trump.

Thankfully, his time is up.

Yesterday I explained to my kids that one of the cool things about our system of government is that angry mobs don't choose our president. Failed candidates don't choose our president. Donald Trump doesn't choose our president. The voters choose our president.

That's how this works. And so, with the certification of the Electoral College vote, Joe Biden will become president.

Clearly there are some urgent matters in the days and weeks ahead. Foremost, I believe that the president is manifestly unfit for office. With that in mind, I have called on the vice president and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office.

Beyond that, though, we need to come to terms with the reality that we are a very divided country.

But we've been divided before... to the point of civil war. And what's restored us, what's gotten us through, have been good people — like each of you — committed to this country.

In December, I walked to the Lincoln Memorial. As you look at Lincoln, if you look to the right, they have his second inaugural address on the wall. It ends with these words:

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

We've got a lot of work to do. We need to bind up the wounds of our nation and build a more perfect union — for my kids and for all Americans.

I feel very lucky to be able to do that work on your behalf, and with you as my partner.

Derek