Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol/Chapter 7/Section 7.6
7.6 “HE THINKS MIKE DESERVES IT”
At exactly 2:24 p.m., President Trump made his first public statement during the attack on the Capitol by tweet. It read nothing like the statement his advisors had envisioned. It read:
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![168]
Minutes later, Meadows and Cipollone returned from their talk with the President.[169] No statement was forthcoming.
"Mark, we need to do something more. They're literally calling for the Vice President to be [fucking] hung," Hutchinson heard Cipollone say.[170]
"You heard him, Pat," Meadows replied. "He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong." [171]
"This is [fucking] crazy. We need to be doing something more," Cipollone said.[172]
Cipollone told the Select Committee that "there needed to be an immediate and forceful response, statement, public statement, that people need to leave the Capitol now."[173] He said he was "pretty clear" about his view in the White House that day, and he made that view known as soon as he became aware of the unrest.[174] He would not comment on how the President responded, or on this conversation with Meadows, citing executive privilege.[175] He did indicate that everyone in the White House—except President Trump—agreed that people needed to leave the Capitol:
Vice Chair Cheney: And who on the staff did not want people to leave the Capitol?
Mr. Cipollone: On the staff?
Vice Chair Cheney: In the White House.
Mr. Cipollone: I can't think of anybody on that day who didn't want people to get out of the Capitol once the—particularly once the violence started. No. I mean—
Mr. Schiff: What about the President?
Vice Chair Cheney: Yeah.
Mr. Cipollone: Well, she said the staff. So I answered.
Vice Chair Cheney: No. I said in the White House.
A non-free image has been removed from this page.
Noose set up outside of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.The removed content can be viewed in the original document https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/C7image7.jpg.
Mr. Cipollone: Oh, I’m sorry. I apologize. I thought you said who else on the staff. [Pauses to confer with counsel] Yeah. I can’t reveal communications. But obviously I think, you know—yeah.[176]
What the President did tweet—a broadside at his Vice President—enlarged the target on Vice President Pence’s back. A Secret Service agent in the Protective Intelligence Division, tasked with monitoring threats against protectees in part by scouring social media, told his colleagues the tweet was "probably not going to be good for Pence."[177]
A second agent in reply noted that it had garnered "[o]ver 24K likes in under 2 mins."[178]