Peril

by Bob Woodward

The noise outside grew louder, almost like a party. “Isn’t that great?” Trump exclaimed. “Tomorrow is going to be a big day. “It’s so cold and they’re out there by the thousands,” Trump said. Judd Deere, Trump’s loyal deputy press secretary, spoke up. “They are excited to hear from you, Mr. President,” he said. Another staffer offered they hoped Wednesday was peaceful. Others nodded and said they agreed. Trump looked over and said, “Yes, but there is a lot of anger out there right now.”

Late Tuesday evening, January 5, as word dripped out in the press that Pence was holding, Trump directed his campaign to issue a statement claiming that he and Pence were in “total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.”

Trump soon called Giuliani, and then called Steve Bannon, who was also at the Willard with the former New York City mayor. Trump brought up his meeting with Pence. He said the vice president’s whole demeanor had changed—Pence was not the same man he had long known. “He was very arrogant,” Trump said.

Trump kept tweeting into the night. At 1:00 a.m., the president tweeted: “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!”

Twitter and social media posts lit up with virulence: I’m going to kill this person. Shoot this person. Hang this guy. Blow this up. The FBI tracked and followed up the threats, but none seemed credible. Welcome to America, 2021.

Trump woke up early on January 6, tweeting and demanding Pence reject the electoral votes. “All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN,” Trump tweeted at 8:17 a.m. “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”

Early in the process, Jacob had reached out to conservative lawyer John Yoo at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught. Yoo had sterling credentials in conservative legal circles. An alum of George W. Bush’s Justice Department, he was the author of the “torture memos,” which provided a legal basis for torturing detainees in the war on terror and had also been a Supreme Court law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas. “My view is that Vice President Pence has no discretion anymore. It’s not something to worry about or even think about,” Yoo told Jacob. “I feel bad for your boss because he’s going to have an angry employer” in Trump.

“I’m heading to the Capitol soon,” Pence told Trump. “I told you I’d sleep on it, I’d take a look with my team. We’ll hear any objections and evidence. But when I go to the Capitol, I’ll do my job.” “Mike, this is not right!” Trump said, calling from the Oval Office. “Mike, you can do this. I’m counting on you to do it. If you don’t do it, I picked the wrong man four years ago.”

Before Trump took the stage on January 6, Giuliani used militaristic language in his own rally remarks. “Let’s have trial by combat,” he said, as the crowd hooted their approval.

“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong,” he said. “We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Just before 1 p.m., Trump made one last try for Pence to submit and do his bidding. “Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”

By 1:30 p.m., parts of the crowd had become a mob, pounding on the doors and demanding entry. At 1:50 p.m., Robert Glover, the Metropolitan Police’s on-scene commander, declared a riot. Possible pipe bombs had just been found nearby. Shortly after 2 p.m., windows at the Capitol began to shatter. They were in. Many were looking for Mike Pence. “Hang Mike Pence!” they chanted as they roamed the halls. “Bring out Mike Pence! Where is Pence? Find him!” Outside, a makeshift gallows had been erected.

Clyburn called his staff. They were in his private office with heavy furniture pushed in front of the door. There are people attempting to force themselves into the office, the terrified aides said. Clyburn was alarmed. Was he being targeted? Was this an inside job? His private office was all but unmarked. Why hadn’t the rioters gone to his public office that had his name plate on the door? How do they know this location?

“We need the Guard in. Now,” he said. He spoke with Pence, who also had been guided out of the Senate chamber. “We are looking for help. We need help in securing the building,” McConnell said, “and we need to get these clowns out of the place.” McConnell found the law enforcement response disturbingly slow.

Pence spoke by phone with McConnell and other leaders who said they needed the National Guard to move faster. The Capitol needed to be secured. McConnell asked, where were the troops?

Trump tweeted at 2:24 p.m. He slammed Pence for not having “the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”

“Mr. President,” he added, “you really should do a tweet.” On Capitol Hill, “nobody’s carrying a TV on their shoulder. You need to get a tweet out real quick, help control the crowd up there. This is out of control. “They’re not going to be able to control this. Sir, they’re not prepared for it. Once a mob starts turning like that, you’ve lost it,” he said. “Yeah,” Trump said. Trump blinked and kept watching television.

“I hope you’re safe,” Ryan told them. He said he felt guilty about not being there. “Donald Trump fomented this, he revved them up,” Ryan angrily told several friends. “He sent them up there. He filled their heads with this. He chose to believe crackpot advisers. He could have listened to Pat Cipollone or Bill Barr but listens to Rudy Giuliani.”

Trump came on the line. “You got to get out and tell these people to stop. I am out of the Capitol. We’ve been run over,” McCarthy said. He was intense. “Someone just got shot.”

“I’ll put a tweet out,” Trump said. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” McCarthy said. “You’ve got to tell them to stop. You’ve got to get them out of here. Get them out of here. Now.” Trump did not seem to grasp the gravity of the situation. He never asked about McCarthy’s safety. And one remark stood out: “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”

At 3:13 p.m., Trump sent out a tweet: “I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order—respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

Meadows and Kellogg, and other aides, went in to see the president. They decided on a video. It was soon taped outside the White House, Trump speaking to a single camera. No apologies, no concession. It posted at 4:17 p.m. “This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people,” Trump said. “We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”

No one spoke to Senator Hawley, who many of them blamed for instigating the riot by announcing his opposition to the certification a week earlier. A photo of Hawley, his fist raised and clenched outside the Capitol, as if in solidarity with the Trump supporters, was ricocheting across the internet. He was becoming the face of Trump’s bloc in the Senate.

Eventually, even with the carnage and push from some colleagues to stand down, Hawley decided he would keep his objection to both Arizona and Pennsylvania. He would remain in lockstep with Trump. When told of Hawley’s decision, many of his Republican colleagues groaned. What they saw as a political pageant, all for a president who could not accept defeat, was now going to go past midnight. Other Republicans would surely stick with Hawley, fearful of being seen as out of step with Trump’s voters.

“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,” Trump tweeted at 6:01 p.m. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

When Arizona came up for a vote, 93 senators rejected the objections of Hawley and five others—Cruz, plus Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and John Kennedy of Louisiana.

But Hawley still objected to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, prompting hours of additional debate. Senator Romney’s death stare at Hawley, while sitting behind the 41-year-old senator, caught the eye of millions watching the broadcast of the proceedings.

Later, at the airport, Graham was shouted at and trailed by Trump supporters. “Traitor! Traitor!” they screamed at Graham as he walked through the terminal, staring down at his phone. “Did you take an oath?” one man shouted. “I did,” Graham said. “Well, you pissed on that oath.”

Ugly talk about conspiracies to steal the election from Trump filled the plane. So did chatter about the QAnon group, which passengers said with confidence was a bulwark against a cabal of cannibalistic, anti-Trump pedophiles who worship Satan and run a global child-sex-trafficking ring. Several passengers also mentioned “6MWE.” Smith did not know what they were talking about. He was horrified to learn, listening as some passengers explained and discussed openly that it meant “6 million weren’t enough,” a reference to the 6 million Jews exterminated in Nazi concentration camps.

America was so bad, so lost, one young man said, “I’m just going to move to South Korea.” South Korea? Smith thought to himself, confused. Why? The young man answered Smith’s unvoiced question, telling other passengers, “South Korea is 90 percent Christian.” In actuality, South Korea is 29 percent Christian.

As the flight progressed across the country, white supremacist and anti-Semitic talk continued unabated. It was one thing to read about and talk about something all day, but another to sit there for hours in the middle of it. The experience was jarring, like the riot itself. Smith was convinced many on this flight, and at the Capitol, absolutely tried to overturn the election of a legitimately elected president. No doubt.

“The focus needs to be making sure that we don’t let a lunatic back into the White House,” Smith said. “Two hundred years of history teaches us the president of the United States uses the military the way he wants. “Trump is mentally unstable,” he said. “He’s a narcissistic psychopath. The great fear was that he would use the Pentagon and the Department of Defense basically to stage a coup.”

“My fear with Trump was always that he was going to engineer a fascist takeover of the country,” Smith said. “I never really worried that he would start a war. He’s a coward. He doesn’t want that level of responsibility.”

On the January 6 riot, he wrote, “What is this amorphous thing that just happened on the 6th? Who are these people?” He jotted rapidly: “6MWE” “Extreme Tea Party” “QAnon,” he added, taking note of the fully discredited conspiracy theory. “Patriot Movement,” a far-right militia. “We the People Movement” “Nazis” “Proud Boys” “The Oath Keepers” “Newsmax,” the conservative news website, which had been friendly toward Trump for a long time. “Epoch,” referring to the The Epoch Times, a far-right publication that was critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Milley summarized and scribbled. “Big Threat: domestic terrorism.”

GOP fissures appeared during the House impeachment vote. Ten House Republicans joined with Democrats, including Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 leader in the chamber and the daughter of Bush Vice President Dick Cheney. Trump was impeached by a 232 to 197 vote, becoming the first president ever to be impeached twice. All 222 Democrats were joined by the 10 Republicans.

On January 15, Washington Post photographer Jabin Botsford took a picture of Mike Lindell, the conservative Trump ally and CEO of MyPillow, heading into the West Wing to meet with Trump. Lindell was a fixture on Fox News and other networks, proclaiming election fraud in state after state. “Insurrection Act now,” part of the memo in Lindell’s hand read, as captured by Botsford. “Martial law if necessary.”

Later that night, Trump was busy at the White House, debating who should be given a pardon. The biggest question, though, was whether he should get one.

Over 140 people were granted clemency with a stroke of Trump’s pen near midnight on January 19, including Bannon, rapper Lil Wayne, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and countless other allies in politics and business.

When Biden arrived at the Oval Office after 4 p.m., he greeted his team and asked Klain what he had for him to sign. Where was the work? Let’s go, he said. Biden signed 15 executive actions and two agency directives, which press secretary Jen Psaki later noted were far more than Trump’s two orders on Day One.

Greene had also promoted QAnon conspiracies on social media. “Q is a patriot,” Greene once wrote in one video post. “He’s on the same page as us, and he is very pro-Trump.” “Be careful,” Graham warned him, “don’t let her draw you into quicksand here.” “She says nice things about me,” Trump said.

Later, The Washington Post asked the White House press office if Biden’s socks with blue dogs were telegraphing something about his politics. Blue dogs are the mascot for moderate Democrats. “It is extremely unlikely that was done with any subtle purpose in mind,” an adviser told the Post, requesting anonymity to discuss the socks. “I’m almost positive,” the adviser said. “It’s interesting. But accidental, I think.”

As always, the important, hard-hitting questions.

“As a kid, I read a lot about the Holocaust and Germany in the 1930s,” Sanders later told others. “Germany was one of the most cultured countries in Europe. One of the most advanced countries. So how could a country of Beethoven, of so many great poets and writers, and Einstein, progress to barbarianism? “How does that happen? We have to tackle that question. And it’s not easy.”

Trump was acquitted by a 57 to 43 vote, falling 10 votes short of the 67 votes needed to convict him. Seven Republicans, including Romney and Collins, voted to convict Trump.

“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible,” McConnell said. “It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe, the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now president.” Still, he said, “by the strict criminal standard, the president’s speech probably was not incitement.”

He was angry with Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, for talking him down about election fraud. “This guy called me every single day, pretended to be my best friend, and then, he fucked me. He’s not a good guy.”

“The party needs to reclaim our mantle on spending,” Pence told them. There were “complications” to this message, Pence added. But he did not explicitly acknowledge the hypocrisy. Republicans under Trump had spent trillions and all but abandoned fiscal conservatism. U.S. debt had surged. But returning to finger-wagging of years past was an easy play.

“The only place I can see Trump and me actually at loggerheads would be if he gets behind some clown who clearly can’t win,” McConnell said sharply. “To have a chance of getting the Senate back, you have to have the most electable candidates possible.”

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!

“The reality is, you’ve got a whole bunch of colleagues right down the hall who are pretty upset with you,” she said. “Do you realize that?” “I know, I know, I know, Deb,” Manchin said. “But you don’t understand. I represent West Virginia.” “Well, I represent Michigan. We’ve got a whole lot of people that kind of feel like, you know what? We’re not a caucus of one. We’re a caucus of 50. And we have to find a way to come together here, even if something is not perfect for our own state. Because you know what? This isn’t a bill just for West Virginia. This is not a bill for Michigan.”

“We’re going to make it a felony for you to give somebody a bottle of water if they stand in a line for eight hours to vote? What the hell is that? Come on,” Clyburn vented.

Biden had said, “Those blocks of granite had as one of the basic premises upon which they were building their argument that in order to stabilize Pakistan, we had to demonstrate we were prepared to defeat the Taliban. It’s completely fucking illogical. They, the Pakistanis, created the goddamn Taliban. How are we solidifying Pakistan if we defeat the very people they created and continue to support?”

Graham said he had a more fundamental objective. “My job is to maintain what’s left of the John McCain wing of the Republican Party, the Ronald Reagan wing of the Republican Party that believes that America is an indispensable leader.

He did such a great job doing so that McCain and his family rebuked him publicly.