Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol/Chapter 7/Section 7.4
7.4 “WE’RE GOING TO TRY TO GET THE PRESIDENT TO PUT OUT A STATEMENT”
Minutes after arriving back at the White House, the President ran into a member of the White House staff and asked whether he or she watched his speech on television.[122]
"Sir, they cut it off because they're rioting down at the Capitol," the employee said.
The President asked what he or she meant by that.
"[T]hey're rioting down there at the Capitol," the employee repeated.
"Oh really?" the President asked. "All right, let's go see."[123]
A photograph taken by the White House photographer—the last one permitted until later in the day—captures the moment the President heard the news from the employee at 1:21 p.m.[124] By that time, if not sooner, he had been made aware of the violent riot at the Capitol.
President Trump walked through the corridor from the Oval Office into the Presidential Dining Room and sat down at the table with the television remote and a Diet Coke close at hand.[125] For the rest of the afternoon—as his country faced an hours-long attack—he hunkered down in or around the dining room, watching television.[126] He left only for a few minutes—from 4:03 p.m. to 4:07 p.m.—to film a video in the Rose Garden, only a few steps away, after hours of arm-twisting.[127] But otherwise, the President remained in the dining room until 6:27 p.m., when he returned to his private residence.[128]
What happened during the 187 minutes from 1:10 p.m. to 4:17 p.m., when President Trump finally told the rioters to go home, is—from an official standpoint—undocumented.
For instance, the Presidential Daily Diary—the schedule that tracks every meeting and phone call in which the President partakes—is inexplicably blank between 1:21 p.m. and 4:03 p.m.[129] When asked to explain the gap in record-keeping on and around January 6th, White House officials in charge of its maintenance provided no credible explanation, including: "I don't recall a specific reason."[130]
The men who spent most of the afternoon in that room with the President, Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, both refused to comply with lawful subpoenas from the Select Committee.[131] Others in the dining room appeared before the Select Committee but cited executive privilege to avoid answering questions about their direct communications with President Trump.[132] Others who worked just outside of the Oval Office, like the President's personal secretaries Molly Michael and Austin Ferrer Piran Basauldo, claimed not to remember nearly anything from one of the most memorable days in recent American history.[133]
The White House photographer, Shealah Craighead, had been granted access to photograph the President during his January 6th speech, but once she got to the White House—and it became clear that an attack was unfolding on the Capitol's steps—she was turned away.[134]
"The President [didn't] want any photos," she was told.[135]
Here's what President Trump did during the 187 minutes between the end of his speech and when he finally told rioters to go home: For hours, he watched the attack from his TV screen.[136] His channel of choice was Fox News.[137] He issued a few tweets, some on his own inclination and some only at the repeated behest of his daughter and other trusted advisors.[138] He made several phone calls, some to his personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, some to Members of Congress about continuing their objections to the electoral certification, even though the attack was well underway.[139]
Here's what President Trump did not do: He did not call any relevant law enforcement agency to ensure they were working to quell the violence. He did not call the Secretary of Defense; he did not call the Attorney General; he did not call the Secretary of Homeland Security.[140] And for hours on end, he refused the repeated requests—from nearly everyone who talked to him—to simply tell the mob to go home.[141]
Throughout the afternoon, senior staff regularly entered the room to give him updates on what was happening at the Capitol.[142] And, of course, President Trump used Twitter, where information is shared on an instantaneous basis.
Shortly after President Trump entered the dining room, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany swung by to "check in with him" about the letter Vice President Pence released around 1:00 p.m. announcing that he would not, in fact, overturn the will of the voters.
The President, once again, brought up going to the Capitol.[143] McEnany recorded what he said in her notes, certain of which she later produced to the Select Committee: "POTUS wanted to walk to [sic] capital. Physically walk. He said fine ride beast," referring to the nickname for the presidential vehicle. "Meadows said not safe enough[.]"[144]
Meadows told Hutchinson at some point in the day that "the President wasn't happy that Bobby [Engel] didn't pull it off for him," meaning the trip to the Capitol, "and that Mark didn't work hard enough to get the movement on the books."[145]
Despite the turmoil just outside its walls, the proceedings in the joint session—which had begun at 1:00 p.m.—were still ongoing, and the President was watching them on the television.[146] He was eager to know which senators were lodging objections on his behalf.[147] "Back there and he wants list of senators," McEnany's notes read. "Who [sic] objecting to what. He's calling them one by one."[148]
The Select Committee subpoenaed several Members of Congress who reportedly spoke with President Trump during the afternoon.[149] None of them complied.[150]
Cellular records obtained by the Select Committee suggest that President Trump was on the phone with his lawyer Rudolph Giuliani at least twice during this period. Giuliani's phone connected with the White House switchboard for 3 minutes and 53 seconds at 1:39 p.m. and again for more than 8 minutes at 2:03 p.m.[151] Between the two calls, at 1:49 p.m., President Trump tweeted a link to a video of his speech from the Ellipse.[152]
Before 1:57 p.m., Herschmann phoned Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner—who was on a plane travelling home from overseas—advising him that "people are trying to break into the Capitol" and that "this is getting pretty ugly."[153]
"We're going to see what we can do here," Herschmann said. "We're going to try to get the President to put out a statement."[154]