Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., tweeted a picture of what appears to be the mahogany boxes holding the Electoral College certificates that were the focus of the joint session -- forced to a halt when pro-Trump protesters stormed the building earlier just as debate on Arizona's vote count was underway.

The boxes are safe, per the senator, who added, "If our capable floor staff hadn’t grabbed them, they would have been burned by the mob."

After hours of chaos and as the Virginia State Police arrived at the U.S. Capitol Building, Trump called on his supporters to "go home" in a one-minute video message posted to Twitter.

Trump still didn't concede his loss to Biden and, without evidence, called the election "stolen" and fraudulent," but told the protesters to go home "in peace."

"I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect to our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt."

"It's a very tough period of time. There's never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us from me from you from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace."

"So go home. We love you. You're very special. You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel -- but go home and go home in peace," he said.

President-elect Joe Biden, who was scheduled to deliver afternoon remarks on the economy, addressed the unrest at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday afternoon from Wilmington, Delaware, and called on Trump to "step up" and condemn the chaos being committed in his name.

"I call on President Trump to go on national television now, to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege," Biden said. "To storm the Capitol, to smash windows, to occupy offices, the floor of the United States Senate, rummaging through desks -- on the Capitol, on the House of Representatives -- threatening the safety of duly elected officials, it's not a protest. It's insurrection."

"The world is watching," he continued. "Think what our children watching television are thinking. Think what the rest of the world is looking at. For nearly two and a half centuries, we the people, in search of a more perfect union, have kept our eyes on that common good. America is so much better than what we’ve seen today."

Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called on President Donald Trump to ask protesters to leave the Capitol grounds on ABC News Live.

"It’s pretty simple," he said. "The President caused this protest to occur. He's the only one who can make it stop."

"What the vice president just said is not good enough, what the president said is not good enough," Christie added. "The President has to come out and tell his supporters to leave the Capitol grounds, and to allow the Congress to do their business peacefully. Anything short of that is an abrogation of his responsibility."

Christie noted that both Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had previously spoken to the crowd.

"I don't know that they anticipated this was going to be the result," he said. "But it doesn't matter whether they did or they didn’t. This is the result of their words."

Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling, a Republican, at a press conference on what he called "anti-disinformation Monday," ran through major voter conspiracies pushed by Trump, his allies and far-right media outlets and debunked them one-by-one in an effort to restore faith in Georgia's election system.

"The reason I'm having to stand here today is because there are people in positions of authority and respect who have said their vote didn't count and it's not true," Sterling said, stressing to Georgians that their votes count ahead of critical runoffs in the state which will determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

"It's Whac-A-Mole again. It is Groundhog Day again. I'm going to talk about the things I've talked about repeatedly for two months, but I'm going to do it for one last time," Sterling said, adding he "screamed" at the radio upon hearing audio of the phone call between Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger because theories Trump questioned have already been "thoroughly debunked."

For example, Sterling, responding to those who claim there were roughly 2,500 people who voted without being registered, said, "Let's just be clear about this: you can't do it!" He said, "So that number is zero," going on to debunk other theories.

Asked if he believes, as some have said, that Trump's phone call was an attack on democracy, Sterling said he'd leave others to make that decision before adding he felt it was "out of place."

"I found it to be something that was not normal -- out of place -- and nobody I know who would be president would do something like that to a secretary of state," Sterling said.

Asked about Raffenperger's desire to have the phone call recorded and whether he was concerned about anything improper being said or needing to release it later, Sterling said it was recorded "out of an abundance of caution"

"I think given the environment we're in right now, the political situation that we're in, the history of the president, knowing that he sometimes doesn't necessarily characterize things as they might have actually occurred, it was out of abundance of caution," Sterling said.

"I'm sure the president's side may have recorded it, too. They may have been the ones who leaked part of that, too," he added.