I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.[534]
President Trump could have done this, of course, anytime after he learned of the violence at the Capitol. At 4:17 p.m., 187 minutes after finishing his speech (and even longer after the attack began), President Trump finally broadcast a video message in which he asked those attacking the Capitol to leave:
I know your pain. I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now. We have to have peace.[535]
President Trump's Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Matthews testified about her reaction to this video message:
[H]e told the people who we had just watched storm our nation's Capitol with the intent on overthrowing our democracy, violently attack police officers, and chant heinous things like, "Hang Mike Pence," "We love you. You're very special." As a spokesperson for him, I knew that I would be asked to defend that. And to me, his refusal to act and call off the mob that day and his refusal to condemn the violence was indefensible. And so, I knew that I would be resigning that evening.[536]
By this time, the National Guard and other additional law enforcement had begun to arrive in force and started to turn the tide of the violence. Many of those attackers in the Capitol saw or received word of President Trump's 4:17 p.m. message, and they understood this message as an instruction to leave:[537]
- Stephen Ayres testified in front of the Select Committee that: "Well, we were there. As soon as that come out, everybody started talking about it, and it seemed like it started to disperse, you know, some of the crowd. Obviously, you know, once we got back to the hotel room, we seen that it was still going on, but it definitely dispersed a lot of the crowd."[538]
- Jacob Chansley, also known as the QAnon-Shaman answered President Trump's directive: "I'm here delivering the President's message. Donald Trump has asked everybody to go home." Another responded to Chansley: "That's our order."[539]
- Other unknown individuals also listened to President Trump's message while outside the Capitol, and responded: "He says, go home. He says, go home." And "Yeah. Here. He said to go home."[540]
