From
the Washington Post Jan 12, 2021
Six hours of paralysis: Inside Trump’s
failure to act after a mob stormed the Capitol
Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Philip Rucker
Hiding from the rioters in a secret location
away from the Capitol, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
(R-Calif.) appealed to Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law
and senior adviser. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) phoned Ivanka
Trump, the president’s daughter.
a view of a large window: Rioters surround the Capitol on
Wednesday. © Amanda Voisard/for The Washington Post Rioters
surround the Capitol on Wednesday.
And Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Trump confidante and
former White House senior adviser, called an aide who she knew was
standing at the president’s side.
But as senators and House members trapped inside the
U.S. Capitol on Wednesday begged for immediate help during the
siege, they struggled to get through to the president, who —
safely ensconced in the West Wing — was too busy watching fiery TV
images of the crisis unfolding around them to act or even bother
to hear their pleas.
“He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it
was live TV,” said one close Trump adviser. “If it’s TiVo, he just
hits pause and takes the calls. If it’s live TV, he watches it,
and he was just watching it all unfold.”
Even as he did so, Trump did not move to act. And the
message from those around him — that he needed to call off the
angry mob he had egged on just hours earlier, or lives could be
lost — was one to which he was not initially receptive.
“It took him awhile to appreciate the gravity of the
situation,” Graham said in an interview. “The president saw these
people as allies in his journey and sympathetic to the idea that
the election was stolen.”
Trump ultimately — and begrudgingly — urged his
supporters to “go home in peace.” But the six hours between when
the Capitol was breached shortly before 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon
and when it was finally declared secure around 8 p.m. that evening
reveal a president paralyzed — more passive viewer than resolute
leader, repeatedly failing to perform even the basic duties of his
job.
The man who vowed to be a president of law and
order failed to enforce the law or restore order. The man who has
always seen himself as the protector of uniformed police sat idly
by as Capitol Police officers were outnumbered, outmaneuvered,
trampled on — and in one case, killed. And the man who had long
craved the power of the presidency abdicated many of the
responsibilities of the commander in chief.
The episode in which Trump supporters rose up against
their own government, leaving five people dead, will be central to
any impeachment proceedings, critical to federal prosecutors
considering incitement charges against him or his family, and a
dark cornerstone of his presidential legacy.
The day began ominously, with a “Save America March”
on the Ellipse devoted to perpetuating Trump’s baseless claims
that somehow the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Before the president’s remarks around noon, several
of his family members addressed the crowd with speeches that all
shared a central theme: Fight. Eric Trump, one of the president’s
sons, told the crowd that lawmakers needed to “show some fight”
and “stand up,” before urging the angry mass to “march on the
Capitol today.” Donald Trump Jr., another of the president’s sons,
exhorted all “red-blooded, patriotic Americans” to “fight for
Trump.”
Backstage, as the president prepared to speak, Laura
Branigan’s hit “Gloria” was blared to rev up the crowd, and Trump
Jr., in a video he recorded for social media, called the
rallygoers “awesome patriots that are sick of the bull----.” His
girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, danced to the song and, clenching
her right fist, urged people to “fight.”
The president, too, ended his speech with an
exhortation, urging the crowd to give Republicans “the kind of
pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
“So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he
concluded.
[What Trump said before his supporters stormed the Capitol,
annotated]
Trump, however, did not join the angry crowd surging
toward the Capitol. Instead, he returned to the White House, where
at 2:24 p.m. he tapped out a furious tweet railing against Vice
President Pence, who in a letter earlier in the day had made clear
that he planned to fulfill his constitutional duties and certify
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D.
Harris as the winners of the 2020 electoral college vote.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should
have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving
States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the
fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously
certify,” he wrote. “USA demands the truth!”
By then, West Wing staffers monitoring initial
videos of the protesters on TV and social media were already
worried that the situation was escalating and felt that Trump’s
tweet attacking Pence was unhelpful.
a group of people standing in front of a crowd: Capitol Police
officers face off with protesters. At the White House, Trump
watched the situation play out on TV. © Amanda Voisard/For The
Washington Post Capitol Police officers face off with protesters.
At the White House, Trump watched the situation play out on TV.
Press officials had begun discussing a
statement from Trump around 2 p.m., when protesters first breached
the Capitol, an official familiar with the discussions said. But
they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the president and
could only take the matter to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, this
person said, adding that “the most infuriating part” of the day
was how long it took before Trump finally spoke out.
Around the same time, Trump Jr. headed to the airport
for a shuttle flight home to New York. As he waited in an airport
lounge to board the plane, the president’s namesake son saw that
the rallygoers they had all urged to fight were doing just that,
breaching police barricades and laying siege to the Capitol.
An aide called Trump Jr. and suggested he immediately
issue a statement urging the rioters to stop. At 2:17 p.m., Trump
Jr. hit send on a tweet as he boarded the plane: “This is wrong
and not who we are,” he wrote. “Be peaceful and use your 1st
Amendment rights, but don’t start acting like the other side. We
have a country to save and this doesn’t help anyone.”
But the president himself was busy enjoying the
spectacle. Trump watched with interest, buoyed to see that his
supporters were fighting so hard on his behalf, one close adviser
said.
But if the president didn’t appear to understand the
magnitude of the crisis, those in his orbit did. Conway
immediately called a close personal aide who she knew was with the
president, and said she was adding her name to the chorus of
people urging Trump to speak to his supporters. He needed to tell
them to stand down and leave the Capitol, she told the aide.
Conway also told the aide that she had received calls
from the D.C. mayor’s office asking for help in getting Trump to
call up the National Guard.
Ivanka Trump had gone to the Oval Office as soon as
the riot became clear, and Graham reached her on her cellphone and
implored her for help. “They were all trying to get him to speak
out, to tell everyone to leave,” said Graham, referring to the
small group of aides with Trump on Wednesday afternoon.
a group of people sitting in a box: People inside the House
chamber react as a window is broken, apparently by gunshots, on
Wednesday. Pro-Trump protesters were outside the doors. © Bill
O’Leary/The Washington Post People inside the House chamber react
as a window is broken, apparently by gunshots, on Wednesday.
Pro-Trump protesters were outside the doors.
Several Republican members of Congress also
called White House aides, begging them to get Trump’s attention
and have him call for the violence to end. The lawmakers
reiterated that they had been loyal Trump supporters and were even
willing to vote against the electoral college results — but were
now scared for their lives, officials said.
When the mob first breached the Capitol, coming
within mere seconds of entering the Senate chamber, Pence — who
was overseeing the electoral certification — was hustled away to a
secure location, where he remained for the duration of the siege,
despite multiple suggestions from his Secret Service detail that
he leave the Capitol, said an official familiar with Pence’s
actions that day.
Instead, the vice president fielded calls from
congressional leaders furious that the National Guard had not yet
been deployed, this official said. Pence, from his secret location
in the Capitol, spoke with legislative and military leaders,
working to mobilize the soldiers and offering reassurance.
Even as his supporters at the Capitol chanted for
Pence to be hanged, Trump never called the vice president to check
on him or his family. Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff,
eventually called the White House to let them know that Pence and
his team were okay, after receiving no outreach from the president
or anyone else in the White House.
Meanwhile, in the West Wing, a small group of aides —
including Ivanka Trump, White House press secretary Kayleigh
McEnany and Meadows — was imploring Trump to speak out against the
violence. Meadows’s staff had prompted him to go see the
president, with one aide telling the chief of staff before he
entered the Oval Office, “They are going to kill people.”
Shortly after 2:30 p.m., the group finally persuaded
Trump to send a tweet: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law
Enforcement,” he wrote. “They are truly on the side of our
Country. Stay peaceful!”
But the Twitter missive was insufficient, and the
president had not wanted to include the final instruction to “stay
peaceful,” according to one person familiar with the discussions.
Less than an hour later, aides persuaded Trump to
send a second, slightly more forceful tweet: “I am asking for
everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful,” he wrote. “No
violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order — respect
the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”
McCarthy did eventually reach Trump, but later told
allies that he found the president distracted. So McCarthy
repeatedly appeared on television to describe the mayhem, an
adviser said, in an effort to explain just how dire the situation
was.
McCarthy also called Kushner, who that afternoon was
arriving back from a trip to the Middle East. The Secret Service
originally warned Kushner that it was unsafe to venture downtown
to the White House. McCarthy pleaded with him to persuade Trump to
issue a statement for his supporters to leave the Capitol, saying
he’d had no luck during his own conversation with Trump, the
adviser said. So Kushner headed to the White House.
At one point, Trump worried that the unruly
group was frightening GOP lawmakers from doing his bidding and
objecting to the election results, an official said.
National security adviser Robert C. O’Brien also
began calling members of Congress to ask how he could help. He
called Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) around 4 p.m., a Lee spokesman said.
In an unlikely twist, Lee had heard from the president earlier —
when he accidentally dialed the senator in a bid to reach Sen.
Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to discuss overturning the election.
Others were still having trouble getting through to
the White House. Speaking on ABC News shortly before 4 p.m.
Wednesday, Chris Christie, a GOP former governor of New Jersey,
said he’d spent the last 25 minutes trying to reach Trump directly
to convey a simple, if urgent, message.
“The president caused this protest to occur; he’s the
only one who can make it stop,” Christie said. “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. And
anything short of that is an abdication of his responsibility.”
Around this time, the White House was preparing
to put out a video address on behalf of the president. They had
begun discussing this option earlier but struggled to organize
their effort. Biden, meanwhile, stepped forward with remarks that
seemed to rise to the occasion: “The scenes of chaos at the
Capitol do not reflect the true America, do not represent who we
are.”
Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie: “My focus now
turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of
power,” Trump said in a video released Thursday. © Donald J.
Trump/Twitter/Reuters “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth,
orderly, and seamless transition of power,” Trump said in a video
released Thursday.
Trump aides did three takes of the video and chose
the most palatable option — despite some West Wing consternation
that the president had called the violent protesters “very
special.”
“This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play
into the hands of these people,” Trump said in the video, released
shortly after 4 p.m. “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.”
Amid the chaos, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) had
implemented a 6 p.m. curfew for the city, and as darkness fell,
the Secret Service told West Wing staff that, save for an
essential few, everyone had to leave the White House and go home.
At 6:01 p.m., Trump blasted out yet
another tweet, which Twitter quickly deleted and which many in his
orbit were particularly furious about, fearing he was further
inflaming the still-tense situation.
“These are the things and events that happen when a
sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously &
viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly
& unfairly treated for so long,” Trump wrote. “Go home with
love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Thirteen minutes later, at 6:14 p.m., a perimeter was
finally established around the Capitol. About 8 p.m., more than
six hours after the initial breach, the Capitol was declared
secure.
The following evening, on Thursday, Trump released
another video, the closest advisers say he is likely to come to a
concession speech.
“Congress has certified the results: A new
administration will be inaugurated on January 20th,” Trump said in
the video. “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and
seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and
reconciliation.”
His calls for healing and reconciliation were
more than a day too late, many aides said. Yet as Trump watched
the media coverage of his video, he grew angry.
The president said he wished he hadn’t done it, a
senior White House official said, because he feared that the
calming words made him look weak.