The first 100 days of Joe Biden’s presidency will be the most important days in the life of the United States since Franklin D. Roosevelt walked into the White House in 1933.

The reason is simple: The United States nearly died on January 6, 2021. Donald Trump tried to kill it. Biden must resurrect it. FDR had to clean up the Great Depression. Biden has to clean up after Donald Trump, the biggest coward and traitor to ever hold the office of the president, a man who can’t accept he lost reelection.

Wednesday morning, before a joint session of Congress gathered to certify the results of the election, Trump appeared on a stage set on the Ellipse south of the White House and spoke to thousands of his fans.

He told his supporters to fight. “We will never give up. We will never concede,” he said. And then he pushed his mob even further: “We will not take it anymore.” The genie was out of the bottle.

Trump once again blamed the media for his election loss. He verbally assaulted Republicans who had stood up to him, calling them weak. Trump encouraged Vice President Mike Pence to show “courage” by refusing to accept the outcome of the election.

But ultimately Trump failed. Pence said he took his oath to defend the Constitution seriously, writing in a statement that he would not follow Trump’s lead, choosing instead to uphold his promises to the American people and to “almighty God.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in one of the most emotional speeches he’s ever made, told Trump he could no longer defend him—though he had voted for him.

“The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our Republic forever,” McConnell said during the joint session to certify Biden’s win. Republicans must “muster the patriotic courage,” he said, to accept Trump’s defeat, adding that senators must “respect the limits of our own powers.” A vote on overturning the election was madness, he said. “I will not pretend that such a vote is a harmless protest gesture while relying on others to do the right thing.”

McConnell reiterated that the election wasn’t even close. “Nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale” of fraud the president claims. If allegations alone were able to overturn the election, he said, “our democracy would enter a death spiral.” Cynics will say McConnell said these things because the GOP lost the Senate after Georgia elected two Democrats, a Jew and an African American, in the runoffs. They’d probably be right, but McConnell wasn’t wrong.

A short time after McConnell’s remarks, thousands of protesters, prodded by Trump, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, where hundreds broke windows and stormed the building. “Trial by combat,” Rudy Giuliani had declared earlier. “Fight,” Trump had exhorted. So his supporters did.

For the first time since 1814, the Capitol was breached. More than 200 years ago, the British were the invaders during the War of 1812. On Wednesday, it was American seditionists who invaded in order to “make America great again.”

Trump calls himself the law-and-order president. But on Wednesday he encouraged his followers to break the law so he could issue orders.

The Capitol police, despite knowing protests would occur, were unprepared for the violence that ensued. Less than half an hour after McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, a rioter stood in the same spot screaming, “Trump won.”

The invasion of the Capitol building was an act of domestic terrorism. It was an armed insurrection. Trump loved it.

Trump called for it. Even his own supporters, among them Senator Ted Cruz, were put at risk by the actions of the rioters. For what seemed like an eternity after the Capitol siege Trump stayed quiet before issuing two tweets. After several White House reporters (including me) demanded he say something, Trump issued a short video supposedly meant to calm the waters, yet in it Trump still called the election “fraudulent.” Go home, he told his supporters. “We have to have peace,” he said before telling his loyalists that they were special and he loved them.

George W. Bush issued a statement denouncing “the insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol—that’s as plainspoken as it gets.

Trump is a massive prick who is incapable of telling the truth, and in the end he got almost exactly what he wanted. He used a violent crowd to try to bully his way into a second term. Yet he couldn’t intimidate the Democrats, the reporters or (most) Republicans. In 1861 Senator Stephen Douglas said there were just two parties in the United States: “patriots or traitors.” In 2021 the same could be said.

The president proved himself a traitor to everything this country stands for, in the process destroying our standing among other nations. I never thought I’d see what I witnessed on Wednesday. I have covered wars and elections in developing countries, but for the second time during the Trump administration I found myself feeling as if I were once again standing on foreign soil in a shithole nation devoid of democracy.

The Trump loyalists know this, and they don’t care. The morning of the attempted takeover was cold and damp, and as I walked to the White House campus I ran across a group of Trump supporters from Virginia as they walked out of a nearby coffee shop.

One of them complained about the coffee. I laughed. “You’re not wrong,” I said.

A few moments of conversation ensued about the need for hot caffeinated beverages before I felt comfortable enough to ask why they were there.

“To stop the steal,” I was told.

“Do you really believe the election was stolen?” I asked.

“No doubt,” the young man said.

“Why? There was no evidence presented in court.”

“It was a conspiracy,” I was told evenly.

“You think the GOP, the judges, the Democrats and everyone else was in on it?” I really wanted to know.

“Yes,” was the unequivocal answer.

“Without any evidence?” I asked.

“You don’t need it. That ‘majority’ doesn’t want to admit Trump won in a landslide.”

“Don’t we rule by majority?”

“Not when it doesn’t exist. Don’t be a sheep. You can be a hero or a zero. Pick a side. Fight for Trump!”

I shook my head and wished them a nice day of peaceful protests. They said that’s why they were in D.C.

We left on amicable terms as I crossed the street toward the White House campus.

Another group of Trump supporters walked by. “Are you the Playboy reporter?” Another called me out by name.

“Yes, I am,” I said.

“Fuck you! I hope you die,” shouted an aging white man in a cutoff shirt and no mask.

“Good morning to you too!” I returned with a smile.

I walked into a nearly empty White House West Wing. The junior staffers were manning the fort, as they have since the election, and no one else was around. Wednesday was a day of unyielding chaos in an administration that has thrived on it and is now dying from it. Trump seems to want to take the rest of the country down with him.

Shortly before Trump released his short video statement, President-elect Joe Biden appeared before the cameras.

“At this hour our democracy is under an unprecedented assault,” Biden said, pointing out the scenes of violence were perpetrated by a small number of people who do not represent who we are as Americans. He ended by asking Trump to step up and do the right thing.

But Trump never does the right thing. Even as police removed rioters from the Capitol Wednesday night, Trump’s influence could be heard and seen as a member of the mob insisted, “You didn’t take it back. We gave it back.” Others said, “We’ll be back,” and “This isn’t done.”

None of this was unpredictable. Trump’s coup attempt—unfortunately not a bloodless one—was foretold in September when he said he would not guarantee a peaceful transfer of power. Since losing the election Trump has given up trying to govern. Instead he’s been grifting his followers while calling for insurrection, claiming he won in a landslide and pressuring his allies to support his unhinged conspiracy theories and claims of fraud. On January 2 he called Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

In his ill-fated quest to wrench back the presidency, the Supreme Court turned him town. He failed in court 60 times. That didn’t keep Trump from rolling the dice. Trump’s unprecedented takeover attempt was also met with scorn from all 10 living former defense secretaries, who wrote a statement telling Trump not to use the military to try to stay in power.

At 3:38 a.m. Thursday, the U.S. Senate—having reconvened hours earlier, after the Capitol was cleared of the domestic terrorists—confirmed Joe Biden as our next president. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer are now trying to rally their colleagues toward impeachment. Trump’s toxic administration will soon end one way or another, but if the United States is to survive, then the one thing that must happen is Donald Trump must be held accountable.

There should be no pardons for Trump. There should be no forgetting.

The first 100 days of the Biden administration will determine if the country will endure.