by Maggie Haberman
New York Times
Jan. 6, 2021
Updated 8:48 p.m. ET
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
President Trump speaking on Wednesday at a rally on the Ellipse near the White House. He urged supporters to march to the Capitol.
Shortly before leaving the White House on Wednesday morning for the Ellipse, where a stage had been set up for him to address supporters, President Trump had a word with Vice President Mike Pence.
Mr. Pence repeated what he had told Mr. Trump a day earlier: that when he went to Capitol Hill in a few hours to oversee the tallying of the electoral votes that would certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, he would not have the power to do what the president wanted and overturn the results. Mr. Pence was planning to release a letter soon explaining that.
Mr. Trump listened, and stewed and chastised Mr. Pence as soft. He was somber as he got into the presidential motorcade for the short ride over to the Ellipse, where he made clear in his roughly 70-minute speech that he was furious with Mr. Pence and that he wanted the people gathered on the Mall to go to the Capitol immediately afterward in protest of what he falsely claimed was a stolen election.
With his loyal No. 2 no longer so loyal in his eyes and with Congress poised to spend the day brushing aside the protests he had nurtured about the Electoral College outcome, Mr. Trump urged his supporters to take another step to back him.
“We want to be so respectful of everybody,” Mr. Trump said, before calling his political opponents bad people. “And we are going to have to fight much harder. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country. Because you’re sworn to uphold our Constitution.”
Calling the outcome of the election “this egregious assault on our democracy,” he said his supporters should “walk down to the Capitol. And we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we are probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you will never take back our country with weakness.”
Mr. Trump did not in fact travel with the supporters he urged to go fight for him; he returned to the White House, and berated aides about how the scene had appeared, before taking to Twitter to attack Mr. Pence for his stand.
Before Mr. Trump took the stage, his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, addressed the crowd and called for “trial by combat” against the Democrats to win the election.
[Rudy Giuliani] Hello! Hello, everyone! We’re here, just very briefly, to make a very important: two points: No. 1: Every single thing that has been outlined as the plan for today, is perfectly legal. I have Professor Eastman, here, with me, to say a few words about that. He’s one of the preeminent Constitutional scholars in the United States. It is perfectly appropriate, given the questionable Constitutionality of the Election Counting Act of 1887, that the Vice-President can cast it aside, and he can do what a President called “Jefferson” did when he was vice-president. He can decide on the validity of these crooked ballots, or he can send it back to the legislatures, give them five to ten days to finally finish the work. We now have letters from five legislatures begging us to do that! They are asking us! Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, and one other coming in.
[Crowd] RUDY! RUDY! RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!
[Rudy Giuliani] So it seems to me we don’t want to find out three weeks from now even more proof that this election was stolen, do we?
[Crowd] NO!
[Rudy Giuliani] So it’s perfectly reasonable and fair to get ten days, and you should know this! The Democrats and their allies have not allowed us to see one machine, or one paper ballot. Now, if they ran such a clean election, they’d have you come in and look at the paper ballots. Who hides evidence? Criminals hide evidence, not honest people. So, over the next ten days we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent, and if we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. SO LET’S HAVE TRIAL BY COMBAT! I’m willing to stake, I’m willing to stake my reputation, the President is willing to stake his reputation, on the fact that we’re going to find criminality there. Is Joe Biden willing to stake his reputation that there’s no crime there? No.
Also, last night, one of the experts that has examined these crooked Dominion machines, has absolutely, what he believes is conclusive proof, that in the last 10%, 15% of the vote counted, the votes were deliberately changed by the same algorithm that was used in cheating President Trump and Vice-President Pence – same algorithm, same system, same thing that was done with the same machines. You noticed they were ahead until the very end, right? Then you noticed there was a little gap – one was ahead by 3%, the other was ahead by 2%, and [slaps hands together] GONE! GONE! They were even! He can take you through that and show you how they programmed that machine from the outside to accomplish that. And they’ve been doing it for years to favor the Democrats. It is a matter of scientific proof. We need two days to establish that. It would be a shame if that gets established after it’s over, wouldn’t it be?
This was the worst election in American history. This election was stolen in seven states. They picked states where they had crooked Democratic cities, where they could push everybody around, AND IT HAS TO BE VINDICATED TO SAVE OUR REPUBLIC. This is BIGGER THAN DONALD TRUMP! It is BIGGER than you and me. It’s about these monuments, and what they stand for. This has been a year in which they have invaded our freedom of speech, our freedom of religion, our freedom to move, our freedom to live, AND I’LL BE DARNED IF THEY’RE GONNA TAKE AWAY OUR FREE AND FAIR VOTE! AND WE’RE GOING TO FIGHT TO THE VERY END TO MAKE SURE THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN!
And let me ask Professor Eastman to explain as easily as we can – I know this is complicated – but what happened last night, how they cheated and how it was exactly the same as what they did on November 3rd.
[Professor John Eastman, Chapman University] America’s mayor! Wonderful! Hello, America! Sorry, I had to say that! Look, we’ve got petitions pending before the Supreme Court that identify in chapter and verse the number of times state election officials ignored or violated the state law in order to put Vice-President Biden over the finish line. We know there was fraud, traditional fraud, that occurred. We know that dead people voted. But we now know, because we caught it live last time in real time, how the machines contributed to that fraud. And let me, as simply as I can, explain it. You know, the old way was to have a bunch of ballots sitting in a box under the floor, and when you needed more, you pulled them out in the dark of night. They put those ballots in a secret folder in the machines, sitting there waiting until they know how many they need. And then the machine, after the close of polls, we now know who has voted, and we know who hasn’t. And I can now, in that machine, match those unvoted ballots with an unvoted voter and put them together in the machine. And how do we know that happened last night in real time? You saw when it got to 99% of the vote total, and then it stopped. The percentage stopped, but the votes didn’t stop. What happened, and you don’t see this on Fox or any of the other stations, but the data shows that the denominator, how many ballots remain to be counted -- how else do you figure out the percentage that you have – how many remain to be counted? That number started moving up. That means they were unloading the ballots from that secret folder, matching them, matching them to the unvoted voter, and voila – we have enough votes to barely get over the finish line. We saw it happen in real time last night, and it happened on November 3rd as well. And all we are demanding of Vice-President Pence is this afternoon at 1:00, he let the legislatures of the state look into this, so we get to the bottom of it, and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not. We no longer live in a self-governing republic if we can’t get the answer to this question. This is bigger than President Trump! It is the very essence of our republican form of government, and it has to be done! And anyone who is not willing to stand up and do it does not deserve to be in the office! It is that simple!
[Rudy Giuliani] God bless you! And thank you so much for your support. I know the courage it takes to be out there. I know how you get ridiculed. I know how they try to take jobs away from you. But you look in the mirror every night and you say to yourself, “I’m doing the right thing for myself, for my family, for my children, and mostly importantly, for the United States of America!”
Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., warmed up the crowd by warning of challenges to Republican members of Congress who didn’t back the pro-Trump efforts: “We’re coming for you,” he said.
[Donald Trump, Jr.] HELLO, PATRIOTS! Hey, guys. You actually all did something, I didn’t realize was possible. I’m looking at the crowd here, and the tens of thousands – probably 100,000 plus people here – AND YOU DID IT ALL WITHOUT BURNING DOWN BUILDINGS? YOU DID IT WITHOUT RIPPING DOWN CHURCHES?! WITHOUT LOOTING?! I didn’t know that that was possible! According to the media, when you have a large gathering of peaceful protesters, they are supposed to burn it all down! [Crowd laughs] So guys, we can do it right.
The fact that you are all here on this rather cold January day tells me all I need to know. And it should be a message to all the Republicans who have not been willing to actually fight. The people who did nothing to stop the steal. This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican party! This is the Republican party that will put America first! This is the Republican party that will fight for the American worker! This is the Republican party that’s not just going to roll over and die because the Democrats would like you to. No, we’ve seen that guys. We’ve seen that. We’ve been our own worst enemy. All you gotta do is look to Georgia where you had Republicans saying, “Well, well, I don’t like the way the game is played, so let’s take our ball and go home.” Oh, guys, guess what? That was music to Chuck Schumer’s ears! That was music to Nancy Pelosi’s ears. And that is what so many in the Republican establishment have created. That sort of mentality. “Okay, we’ll turn the other cheek! We’ll roll over and die. We’ll fall and give up. NO MORE!
So to those Republicans, many of which may be voting on things in the coming hours: you have an opportunity today. You can be a hero, or you can be a zero! And the choice is yours, but we are all watching! The whole world is watching, folks. Choose wisely, because if you just roll over, if you don’t fight in the face of glaring irregularities, and statistical impossibilities –
[Crowd] FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP!
[Donald Trump, Jr.] That’s right, guys! That’s the message! These guys better fight for Trump, because if they’re not, guess what? I’M GOING TO BE IN YOUR BACK YARD IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS. [Points] Guys like Scott, here. Look at – wow, okay, I can’t go through the whole list, because I don’t have 45 minutes to go through all the patriots that have been fighting, have been on the ground, that have mobilized to put good Republicans in those positions. GUESS WHAT, FOLKS? IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE ZERO, AND NOT THE HERO, WE’RE COMING FOR YOU, AND WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD TIME DOING IT!
WE’VE GOT TO START FIGHTING like the Democrats do. Right? We gotta play their game. We gotta take their fight to them their way. Our reluctance to do that over the last few decades is why we are in the position that we are in. So today, friend or foe, today, Republicans you get to pick a side for the future of this party. Again, I suggest you choose wisely.
[Points] So Kimberly, thank you for all your fight. [Inaudible] Kimberly, folks! One of the great fighters out there. To my family, to my father, but most importantly, to all of you red-blooded patriotic Americans. Thank you for being in this fight with us! Thank you for standing up to the bullshit! Right?
A-men and a-woman! Right? I know, I know. But that shows you literally the mentality of where the Democrat party is, right? I think I put it up on my Instagram, which is being censored the hell right now. But like I put it up yesterday, they spent money on a study that came to the incredible conclusion yesterday that trans women playing in female sports have a competitive advantage. NO SHIT! WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING?! I HAD NO IDEA! I’m glad we spent probably millions figuring that out. Just like I’m thrilled that we spent $10 million to Pakistan on gender studies, because I’m sure they care. And billions elsewhere on nonsense that is driven by the insanity of the left, folks. And we have to stand up for it. No one cares how you identify, but you don’t have to do the nonsense the follows. And what I want to know is, in these sort of things, where are the people? Where are the feminists that we’re fighting as men are dominating women’s sports? Where are they, folks? We need to be the party of common sense! We need to be the party of reason! We need to be the party of our values that we hold so dear, that made America the greatest country in the world, and you guys are part of that movement.
SO STAY IN THIS FIGHT! STAY LOUD! DON’T BE SUPPRESSED! DON’T BE PUT IN YOUR CORNER! DON’T LET THEM CANCEL YOU! Trust me, I’ve been canceled 17 times since I started this speech I promise you. Once it happens, it’s rather freeing. Then you can kind of do what you want! Don’t let them do it to you! STAND UP AND FIGHT! STAND UP AND HOLD YOUR REPRESENTATIVES ACCOUNTABLE! And when you do, we can keep America great.
Thank you, patriots! Thank you America! KEEP FIGHTING!
Thank you, guys.
In urging his supporters to see the routine act of certifying the U.S. election results as an illegal affront against him and against them, Mr. Trump helped set in motion hours of violence and chaos that continued as darkness fell on Wednesday evening.
“There’s no question the president formed the mob,” Representative Liz Cheney, Republican from Wyoming, told Fox News. “The president incited the mob. The president addressed the mob. He lit the flame.”
People carrying Trump campaign flags — some of them appearing to be armed — swarmed the Capitol complex. They broke into the building and draped a Trump flag over the Capitol balcony, disrupting the process of the vote certification and forcing members of Congress, journalists and other officials to take cover or flee the building. Shots could be heard at one point. Mr. Pence was whisked to a secure location, as were other lawmakers.
Police confront a mob outside of the Capitol on Wednesday.
Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times
Mr. Trump monitored the scene as it unfolded on television, according to administration officials and people close to the White House. He holed up in the Oval Office, speaking with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, who was said to have been rattled by the day, and Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel.
Donald Trump Jr. posted a tweet urging supporters to stop the violence. Ivanka Trump, a White House adviser, denounced the violence and corrected an initial tweet in which her reference to “patriots” made her intention unclear. There was silence from the first lady, Melania Trump, and Mr. Trump’s son Eric tweeted about how many people sang to him for his birthday at the rally.
Two of the president’s former chiefs of staff criticized the mob. His former counselor, Kellyanne Conway, said on ABC News that the mob was made of “extremists.” His former communications director, Alyssa Farah, urged him publicly to say something.
But the president resisted repeated requests from advisers, some made directly to him, others to Mr. Meadows and other aides.
Mr. Trump initially rebuffed requests to mobilize the National Guard, according to a person with knowledge of the events. It required intervention from Mr. Cipollone, among other officials, according to the person. About 1,750 National Guard troops from the District of Columbia and Virginia were to deploy Wednesday night, a National Guard spokesman said.
As allies of the president began to go public with their disgust about what was taking place at the Capitol and urged him to speak out, White House aides finally coaxed Mr. Trump into a tweet in which he did not condemn the violence.
Then they convinced him he needed to say something in a video statement, which Mr. Trump opened with another declaration that the election was “stolen” from him and his supporters, before he said “go home,” ending with words to the supporters: “I love you.” Facebook removed that video, and Twitter later did as well.
Then he made clear that he viewed the day as an expression of his grievances. “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,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
That tweet was also removed by Twitter, whose officials announced around 7 p.m. that they were locking his account for 12 hours.
Mr. Trump’s ally, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, predicted as Congress prepared to reconvene Wednesday night that there would be no further objections from senators to the certification. But Mr. Trump told advisers he wanted to see the senators keep going with the fight.
Several White House advisers described themselves as alternately disgusted, scared or shocked by what had taken place. And the work of government continued on around Mr. Trump, seemingly without his participation.
The defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff conferred with Mr. Pence, not Mr. Trump, about sending support to reel in the riots. The national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, condemned the “mob” and praised Mr. Pence.
Several Democrats, meanwhile, called for Mr. Trump’s impeachment. Others — including some Trump administration officials — privately speculated about whether the 25th Amendment would be invoked to remove him from office with just two weeks left in his term.
