US unions have condemned this week’s “coup attempt,” blaming President Donald Trump directly for creating chaos and trying to stop the ratification of Joe Biden’s election victory. 

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, representing 56 unions, described Wednesday’s storming of Capitol Hill in which four people died as “one of the greatest assaults on democracy since the US civil war.”

He said that the “coup” had been years in the making with Mr Trump spewing “venom, conspiracies, hate and lies to his supporters.

“They are carrying out his wishes, and far too many Republican lawmakers enabled and encouraged this violent threat to our republic,” he said warning “the labour movement will not stand for it.”

The country’s biggest private-sector union the United Steelworkers said that Trump’s “inflammatory rhetoric finally culminated in a group of misguided supporters storming the US Capitol, and putting the lives of government leaders and workers at risk.”

Echoing Mr Biden’s rhetoric, the USW described Wednesday’s events as “domestic terrorism” and that it would not “stand by and watch a demagogue tear down our institutions and rights as Americans.”

United Autoworkers President Rory Gamble said: “The violence at the Capitol was a despicable attempt by extremists to disrupt our great republic.”