The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday hit back at assertions that a mob attack on the Capitol showed the country to be a banana republic, AFP reported. A number of foreign critics, as well as former US president George W Bush, made the analogy after a mob, possibly stirred up by President Donald Trump’s speech, attacked Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

“The slander reveals a faulty understanding of banana republics and of democracy in America,” Pompeo said, AFP reported.

“In a banana republic, mob violence determines the exercise of power. In the United States, law enforcement officials quash mob violence so that the people’s representatives can exercise power in accordance with the rule of law and constitutional government,” the top US diplomat added.

Bush in a statement Wednesday made a veiled criticism of the “reckless behavior” of members of his Republican Party in fueling the “insurrection.”

“This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic,” Bush wrote.

Also read: Guns out, windows smashed: When mob lay siege to seat of US democracy

Meanwhile, two of Trump’s cabinet members have resigned over Wednesday’s violence. Four people died in the mob attack and forced lawmakers to take shelter in an underground tunnel.

US transport secretary Elaine Chao and education secretary Betsy DeVos resigned on Thursday over the violence.