How Trump fiddled with his TV remote while the Capitol was sacked

While the U.S. Capitol was ransacked by a mob of his fanatic supporters on Wednesday, President Donald Trump watched on television from the White House.

At a rally, Trump had promised to join his loyalists in marching on the Capitol, but instead retreated to the White House as the the chaos he unleashed unfolded, still raging over the election results. 

Cocooned in a small private dining room next to the Oval Office, Trump watched the pandemonium on cable news, but appeared disinterested in the insurrection he had unleashed.

Instead, Trump focused on fuming at his own vice president for not backing his attempt to overthrow the election, insiders say.

As the television showed scenes from the Capitol that shocked the nation, increasingly desperate aides say they pleaded with Trump to intervene, but he resisted.

‘He kept saying: ‘The vast majority of them are peaceful,” an administration official told the Washington Post. ”What about the riots this summer? What about the other side? No one cared when they were rioting. My people are peaceful. My people aren’t thugs.’ He didn’t want to condemn his people.’ 

Trump’s most infamous day began with a tweet shortly after 8am, calling on Vice President Mike Pence to intervene in a join session of Congress and illegally overthrow the confirmation of Democrat Joe Biden’s election to the presidency.

Already, huge crowds of Trump supporters had begun streaming into the Ellipse and gathering on the White House lawn. 

As the morning wore on, Trump issued a stream of tweets reiterating his false claims of fraud in the presidential election, as well as challenging the results of Tuesday’s runoffs in Georgia, which Democrats swept, giving them control of the Senate.

At about 11.50am, Trump took the stage at his rally on the Ellipse, likely his last as president. In a fiery speech, he repeated his appeal to Pence to illegally intervene in Congress, and falsely claimed he would join his supporters in marching on the Capitol.

‘After this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you,’ Trump said. ‘We’re going to walk down to the Capitol.’

‘You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength, and you have to be strong,’ he continued, exhorting his supporters ‘to fight’.

‘We will never give up, we will never concede,’ Trump said, delighting the crowd by calling Democratic election victories the product of ‘explosions of bulls**t.’ 

‘We´re going to the Capitol,’ he said. ‘We´re going to try and give our Republicans … the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.’ 

Earlier in the rally, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had advocated what he had called ‘trial by combat.’ 

Trump spoke for more than an hour, and the rally dispersed at about 1pm, with Trump’s supporters streaming toward the Capitol.

But Trump was not among the crowd as promised, and instead slipped into his motorcade and made the brief drive back into the White House compound.

Aides say the prospect of Trump joining the march was discussed by the White House but eventually abandoned. 

Also at around 1pm, Pence publicly issued a letter declaring that he would not illegally intervene in Congress, minutes before convening the joint session of Congress to certify the electoral college.   

Soon after Congress convened, Trump’s allies in legislature raised their objections to the certification, sending the House and Senate into separate sessions for debate as the president’s mob grappled with police on the Capitol steps.

At 1.33pm, CSPAN reported that the mob had breached the Capitol and was heading for the House and Senate chambers, which were evacuated. Lawmakers were evacuated as the mob ran wild.

Back in the White House, Trump spent much of Wednesday afternoon watching the insurrection on television from his private dining room off the Oval Office.

But a White House official says that the president appeared disengaged and disinterested as scenes emerged that shocked the conscience of the nation.

Instead, the official says, most of Trump’s attention was consumed by his ire at Pence for defying his demands and acknowledging he did not have the power to unilaterally choose the next president. 

The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

Aides say they pleaded with Trump to intervene as the situation at the Capitol raged out of control, but that he showed little interest in stopping the insurrection. 

Instead, at 2.24pm, Trump tweeted his rage at Pence in the midst of the attack, writing: ‘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. USA demands the truth!’ 

On Wednesday, Trump effectively banned Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, from the White House, an official said, believing him to have been the driving force behind Pence’s refusal to overturn the vote. 

About ten minutes later, at the insistence of desperate aides, Trump tweeted a tepid call for peace, writing: ‘Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!’

At 2.55pm, one of Trump’s supporters was fatally shot in the melee at the Capitol. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbit, 35, was shot dead by police when she tried to clamber through a barricaded entrance inside the Capitol. 

Trump then reluctantly issued another tweet and taped a video encouraging an end to the violence. The posts came at the insistence of staff and amid mounting criticism from Republican lawmakers urging him to condemn the violence being perpetrated in his name, according to the official.

And even as authorities struggled to take control of Capitol Hill after protesters overwhelmed police, Trump continued to level baseless allegations of mass voter fraud and praised his loyalists as ‘very special.’

‘I know your pain. I know your hurt. But you have to go home now,’ he said in a video posted more than 90 minutes after lawmakers were evacuated from the House and Senate chambers. ‘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.’

The violence, coupled with the president´s tepid response, alarmed many in the White House and appeared to push Republicans allies to the breaking point after years of allegiance to Trump. 

After four years with no shortage of fraught moments, Wednesday´s events quickly emerged as the nadir of morale in the Trump White House, as aides looked on in horror at the chaos at the Capitol Trump had fomented.

A number of White House aides were discussing a potential mass resignation, according to people familiar with the conversation. And o
thers quickly departed.

Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s chief of staff and a former White House press secretary, submitted her resignation Wednesday. 

Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews also resigned, according to officials. More departures were expected in the coming days, officials said.

Other aides indicated they planned to stay to help smooth the transition to the Biden administration. And some harbored concerns about what Trump might do in his final two weeks in office if they were not there to serve as guardrails when so few remain.

Trump’s begrudging statement acknowledging defeat came after even longtime allies floated whether members of his Cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office. 

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told ABC late Wednesday that ‘responsible members of the Cabinet’ should be thinking about fulfilling their oath of office, adding that Trump had ‘violated his oath and betrayed the American people.’

Conversations about removal took place among administration aides and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to people involved in the deliberations, but there did not appear to be serious discussion to do so by his Cabinet, of whom a majority would have to vote to sideline him.

Trump has been single-mindedly focused on his electoral defeat since Election Day, aides said, at the expense of the other responsibilities of his office, including the fight against the raging coronavirus. 

Indeed, it was Pence, not Trump, who spoke with the acting defense secretary to discuss mobilizing the D.C National Guard on Wednesday afternoon.