Finally, Trump told the rioters to “go home,” which was the message Ivanka Trump had spent two hours prodding him to give. Yet he also told people who had just tried to stage an insurrection on his behalf, “We love you.” The president’s message was jarringly inconsistent. He had recorded three takes, each time veering off the script his speechwriters had prepared for him. The version released was the most palatable option.
Watching from her desk, Matthews was upset. Trump had not even bothered to distinguish between peaceful protesters and violent insurrectionists. He said he loved them all. That, to her, was unacceptable. So she packed up the things on her desk, threw the half a dozen pairs of heels she kept stashed under her desk into a big bag, and headed home early. She knew in her heart she would not return. A few hours later, after consulting with loved ones, she resigned.
* * *
—
As the sun began to go down over the city, the Capitol still was not secure. Bowser had declared a 6:00 p.m. curfew. The rioters continued to dangerously roam the building. A third casualty occurred at 4:26, when Rosanne Boyland, a thirty-four-year-old Trump supporter from Georgia, was trampled to death by fellow insurrectionists trying to push through a police line at an entrance to the Capitol. And a fourth casualty would be recorded the next day, when Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, forty-two, died from two strokes the day after confronting rioters who had attacked him with a powerful chemical spray they called “Bear shit.”
At 4:39, Miller gave Meadows an update on the status of removing protesters from the Capitol complex. McConnell came onto the call at different points and sounded furious.
“I want it clear,” the Senate leader demanded. “I want it cleared out now. The Senate needs to get its business done.”
Miller tried to manage expectations, saying it would take time for members to be able to return to the Capitol. He explained they had to deploy teams to check for explosive devices everywhere and it could take until the morning.
“Let me just sum it up,” McConnell said. “We’re going back in session at eight o’clock in prime time. If you haven’t secured the entire area, you have to secure the two chambers, because we’re going to go back on the air in prime time and let the American people know that this insurrection has failed.”
Pelosi also was insistent the House return to session that evening. At one point, defense officials suggested to her they transport House members by bus to Fort McNair and hold their session there, since it could more easily be secured than the Capitol, she later told us.
“No, you’re not,” Pelosi said. “We’re going back to the Capitol. You just tell us how long it will take to get rid of these people. We’re coming back to the Capitol.”
Pence, who had been in close contact with McConnell, Pelosi, and other congressional leaders throughout the afternoon, agreed. He, too, was adamant that both the Senate and House return to session as soon as possible and finish its work that evening.
“We need to get back tonight,” he said on a call with congressional leaders and defense and security officials. “We can’t let the world see that our process of confirming the next president can be delayed.”
At 4:40, more than an hour after Hogan had first called Maryland National Guard units to prepare to enter Washington, he got a call from Ryan McCarthy.
“Governor, are you able to send some National Guard units to D.C.?” the army secretary asked.
“Yeah, we’re ready to go,” Hogan replied. “We’ve been waiting for the authorization.”
Hogan took McCarthy’s question to be the green light he needed. Despite Milley recommending the Pentagon call up neighboring National Guard units immediately, McCarthy hadn’t gotten around to it until more than two and a half hours after the Capitol was breached. About 750 Guard soldiers from Maryland would soon begin arriving, along with 620 from Virginia.
By 6:00, the Capitol was cleared of rioters but not fully secure. Explosive teams were sweeping for bombs and were nearly done. But they still expected it would take another ninety minutes to give the all-clear for lawmakers to return.
At 6:01, Trump tweeted again: “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. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
At Fort McNair, meanwhile, about 150 National Guard members secured the entrances to the base, which was being treated as a continuity of government site since the congressional leaders were there. They were getting the extra protection typically provided when the country was under attack.
At 6:30, Pence called Miller back, with McConnell, Pelosi, McCarthy, and Schumer on the line. They worked out a timeline for returning to certify the election results. Pence wanted to begin as soon as possible. At 7:15, Miller told the leaders that members were cleared to return. Pence then announced that the Senate would come back into session at 8:00.
At no time that Wednesday since the Capitol siege began did these government and military leaders hear from the president. Not even the vice president heard from Trump.
The recently departed Mark Esper watched the horror play out all afternoon on television, first from the gym and then from his home. He watched rioters tromping through the same halls of the Capitol that he had walked as a Senate aide. Esper was disgusted to see vandals sullying this house of democracy. A little after 7:00 p.m., he registered his outrage in a trio of tweets. Though he did not name Trump, Esper left little doubt that he considered his former boss responsible.
“This is not how citizens of the world’s greatest and oldest democracy behave,” Esper wrote. “The perpetrators who committed this illegal act were inspired by partisan misinformation and patently false claims about the election. This must end now for the good of the republic.”
John Kelly, who in the two years since leaving the White House had largely shied away from criticizing Trump on the record, typed out an email to Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post. He said he was heartbroken and horrified by the day’s events. He praised McConnell’s remarks as “words for the ages” and Biden’s speech as “presidential,” though had no praise for Trump’s.
“What we need to do going forward—what we have to do as a people—not as Democrats or Republicans or independents, but as Americans, is to ask ourselves how did we ever get to this place,” Kelly wrote. “We need to look infinitely harder at who we elect to any office in our land. At the office seeker’s character, at their morals, at their ethical record, their integrity, their honesty, their flaws, what they have said about women, and minorities, why they are seeking office in the first place, and only then consider the policies they espouse.”
* * *
—
At 8:06 p.m., an emotional Pence called the Senate back into session. “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win,” the vice president said. “Violence never wins. Freedom wins, and this is still the people’s house. And as we reconvene in this chamber, the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy, for even in the wake of unprecedented violence and vandalism at this Capitol, the elected representatives of the people of the United States have assembled again on the very same day to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
As Pence got to work doing precisely what Trump had ordered him not to do, Romney thought to himself, “High personal cost. Five years of praising the president in every possible way, both visually and verbally, to instead have all of that flipped upon him and be criticized by the president had to be a reversal of historic proportion.”
The floor debate picked up where it left off, with Arizona’s electoral votes. And although some Republicans continued to object, they were fewer in number than before the siege. Lankford, who had been in the process or trying to block certification when Pence
was evacuated and the proceedings abruptly suspended, changed his mind and implored his Republican colleagues to join him in voting to certify Biden’s victory.
Various senators took turns delivering speeches from their desks. They all condemned the violence, even if some still objected to certifying the vote.
Graham gave an animated speech in which he appeared to be grieving for a friend who had lost his way.
“Trump and I, we had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way,” Graham said. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. I tried to be helpful.”
When it was Romney’s turn, he had sharp words not only for the president but also for some of his fellow senators.
“We gather today due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of his supporters whom he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning,” Romney said. “What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States. Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.
“They will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode in American history,” Romney continued. “That will be their legacy.”
In the end, six Republican senators objected to the counting of Arizona’s electoral votes and seven objected to counting Pennsylvania’s.
In the House, where Pelosi gaveled the session to order an hour later, at 9:00, the Republican resistance was greater still. One hundred twenty-one House members, nearly two thirds of the Republican conference, voted against counting Arizona’s votes, and even more, 138, voted against counting Pennsylvania’s.
Pelosi could hardly believe it. “That they, in the middle of the night, would say, ‘We still want to [object to] Pennsylvania,’ just showed you the total cavalier disregard they had for our country,” she recalled. They weren’t beholden to country, she said, but to Trump, “this insane person spreading this insanity.” Maybe the House Republicans feared him, maybe they agreed with him, Pelosi said, “or they were just in a cult.”
Senators made their way to the House Chamber to reconvene their joint session. At 3:24 a.m., with Pence presiding, the Congress completed its duty and voted to confirm Biden’s 306 to 232 electoral win. Pence formally declared him the next president of the United States.
Trump and his allies in Congress who voted not to certify the results “actually thought that someone could get out there and disrupt the constitutional process of the United States of America and perpetuate this guy in office,” one of the president’s top advisers said. “They underestimated their own country and the people in power. They underestimated the strength of the legislature. They underestimated the vice president to do his duty, Georgia representatives, the judiciary. They didn’t understand their own country.”
Trump stayed silent through much of the evening. Twitter that night took the extraordinary step of suspending his accounts temporarily, citing that his messages had violated its civic policies against spreading misinformation. Facebook soon followed. The truth was he had violated those policies hundreds of times before January 6. But the brutality and threat to the country that Trump’s misinformation had fomented deeply shook the leaders of both social media giants. The ban on Trump on both platforms would become permanent.
Jason Miller worked with Trump, suddenly deprived of his megaphone, and the first lady to draft a statement that Scavino would release on the president’s behalf once the outcome was official. For Trump, conceding to Biden was out of the question. But Miller pressed him to, at a minimum, commit to an orderly transition of power. After January 6, there could no longer be a peaceful one. But he argued that the country needed to be assured that Trump would not try any more gambits in his two weeks remaining in office.
On that, Trump agreed. His statement read, “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again.”
Twenty-two
Landing the Bad Boy
On January 7, officials awoke across Washington to assess the damage. Democracy had prevailed. President-elect Biden’s victory was official. But there were still two weeks until Biden’s inauguration. President Trump remained a danger. A deep unease coursed through the administration. There were discussions overnight and into the morning about the possibility of the Cabinet invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment and of the Congress rushing to impeach and remove him from office. A handful of Trump aides resigned the night of January 6, and many more contemplated doing so on January 7.
In these uncertain times, three top advisers to the president had begun having regular check-ins. Mark Milley, Mark Meadows, and Mike Pompeo would hop on the phone each day to compare notes about what each was hearing and collectively survey the horizon for trouble.
“The general theme of these calls was, come hell or high water, there will be a peaceful transfer of power on January twentieth,” recalled one senior official. “We’ve got an aircraft, our landing gear is stuck, we’ve got one engine, and we’re out of fuel. We’ve got to land this bad boy.”
Although concern had been building since just before the election, the events of January 6 gave the trio reason to don crash helmets. Milley, who had been more on edge than the others, told aides he saw the calls as an opportunity to keep tabs on Trump.
Pompeo was an original Trump hire, having joined the administration on Day One as CIA director, and then subsequently having been so liked by Trump that he was promoted to secretary of state. In both jobs, he cultivated a reputation as an absolute Trump loyalist. In the fall of 2020, however, Pompeo started privately confiding in others that he was concerned about the crackpot advisers Trump was listening to. Pompeo and Milley both lived at Fort Myer and conferred regularly. Shortly before the election, Pompeo visited Milley’s home and they had a heart-to-heart. Sitting at the general’s kitchen table, Pompeo said, “You know the crazies are taking over,” according to people familiar with the conversation.
“Look, none of it fucking matters,” Milley said. “We’ve got to bring it on home. There’s gonna be an election. We’ve got to make sure it’s a free and fair election.”
Pompeo and Milley had shared the same persistent worry that Trump might try to use the military to help him hold on to power if he lost the election. But Milley was adamant about stopping that. “This military’s not going to be used,” he assured Pompeo.
After the siege on January 6, there was reason for them to be on higher alert. Same for Meadows. On their check-in call on January 7, Pompeo said, “The two of you realize it’s just us and Pat [Cipollone] now, right? We have to stay steady,” according to people familiar with the conversation.
Meadows said, “The president is very emotional. He’s in a really bad place. . . . He’s extremely angry.”
Pompeo, through a person close to him, denied that he made the comments attributed to him in his meeting with Milley and in his call with Meadows and Milley, and said they are not reflective of his views.
The three of them agreed to remain in close contact through the remainder of Trump’s presidency. It was extraordinary that the secretary of state, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the White House chief of staff would need to do such a thing, but this was no ordinary time.
News stories reported that Robert O’Brien also contemplated resigning. The national security adviser was unsettled by what had happened at the Capitol and by Trump’s role in it. He was one of the few Trump appointees to praise Vice President Pence, publicly breaking with the president. On t
he evening of January 6, O’Brien tweeted, “I just spoke with Vice President Pence. He is a genuinely fine and decent man. He exhibited courage today as he did at the Capitol on 9/11 as a Congressman. I am proud to serve with him.”
But O’Brien did not seriously consider quitting. However, the news reports led a chorus of senior national security officials both current and past, as well as Mitch McConnell, to appeal to O’Brien to stay on the job. O’Brien’s deputy, Matt Pottinger, resigned on January 7, after weeks of preparing to relocate his family out West. Losing O’Brien, too, would have left the National Security Council gutted. O’Brien’s callers said they feared a power vacuum that would make the United States vulnerable to a foreign attack.
One person who notably did not have to consider resigning on January 7 was Bill Barr, who had left the administration two weeks prior. “Bill Barr—he is one smart guy,” one Trump adviser said. “He could have been at that rally on January 6. That was one smart move. He probably looks in the mirror every day and says, ‘Bill, you are one smart guy.’ ”
As appalled as he was by the Capitol siege, at first Barr reserved judgment about Trump’s role in the violence. Barr told confidants he thought Trump could have salvaged his reputation if he had instantaneously said something definitively condemning the attack, showing he had never intended it to be violent. But then he saw the president’s first instinct had been to do nothing to call off his supporters. The delay had cost him.
Free to speak his mind now that he was no longer in Trump’s employ, on January 7 Barr issued a public statement directly condemning his former boss. “Orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable. The president’s conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and supporters,” Barr said.
Cipollone also was considering quitting. The afternoon of January 6, it started dawning on the White House counsel and his deputies that Trump could conceivably be charged with a crime for setting off the deadly riot. There were a lot of ifs about whether that was likely. But one thing was guaranteed: sprawling investigations. Congress was sure to examine what had led to and allowed this violent breach of the Capitol, including the president’s role in instigating it. More important, thousands of felonies had occurred on the Capitol grounds. A police officer and four rioters had been killed. Hundreds of officers had been injured. The FBI was about to launch the largest investigation in its history. Any good prosecutor would examine closely what the president, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and others had said at the rally. Had they egged the mob on to the Capitol? If so, what was their intent? They could be accused of sedition, a charge not leveled at a president in a century. Some in the White House worried that Trump, his son, and his lawyer were also at serious risk of being charged with inciting a riot. It would be difficult to prove. Intent was key, and a very high bar. But not impossible.
I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year Page 53