Almost everyone, including staff in the White House also found the President's 2:38 p.m. and 3:13 p.m. tweets to be insufficient because they did not instruct the rioters to leave the Capitol. As mentioned, President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., texted Meadows:
He's got to condem [sic] this shit. Asap. The captiol [sic] police tweet is not enough.[527]
Sean Hannity also texted Mark Meadows:
Can he make a statement. I saw the tweet. Ask people to peacefully leave the capital [sic].[528]
None of these efforts resulted in President Trump immediately issuing the message that was needed. White House staff had these comments:
Pottinger: Yeah. It was insufficient. I think what—you could count me among those who was hoping to see an unequivocal strong statement clearing out the Capitol, telling people to stand down, leave, go home. I think that’s what we were hoping for.[529]
…
Matthews: Yeah. So a conversation started in the press office after the President sent out those two tweets that I deemed were insufficient. . . . I thought that we should condemn the violence and condemn it unequivocally. And I thought that he needed to include a call to action and to tell these people to go home.[530]
And they were right. Evidence showed that neither of these tweets had any appreciable impact on the violent rioters. Unlike the video-message tweet that did not come until 4:17 finally instructing rioters to leave, neither the 2:38 nor the 3:13 tweets made any difference.
At some point after 3:05 p.m. that afternoon, President Trump’s Chief of Staff—and President Trump himself—were informed that someone had been shot.[531] That person was Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot at 2:44 p.m. as she and other rioters tried to gain access to the House chamber.[532] There is no indication that this affected the President's state of mind that day, and we found no evidence that the President expressed any remorse that day.
Meanwhile, leaders in Congress—including Speaker Pelosi, Senator Schumer, Senator McConnell—and the Vice President, were taking action. They called the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, governors and officials in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, begging for assistance.[533]
President-elect Biden also broadcast a video calling on President Trump to take action:
