In the heat of the moment on Jan. 6, Donald Trump’s closest supporters spoke frankly: Congress was under attack by Trump’s die-hard fans, and the President alone had the power to call them off. They texted Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in a frenzy, pleading with him to have Trump address the nation and dismiss the rioters.
Newly-revealed records, read aloud by Jan. 6 Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R) on Monday, show as much — several prominent Trump supporters urged action from the President while the attack was underway.
However, in the hours and days following the attack, these same people — three prominent Fox News hosts and the then-President’s eldest son — helped prop up a conspiracy theory, implying or claiming outright that it was left-wing “antifa” or other “bad actors” who’d caused the violence.
See the contrast for yourself:
Laura Ingraham
What she told Mark Meadows during the attack:
- “Mark, the President needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
What she told her audience later that day:
- “We knew this would happen when you had a huge group of people descending on Capitol Hill, when you have members of the Trump support organizations and antifa threatening to show up at the same time. We’ll learn more to the extent that that happened. I’m getting a sense that there’s clearly a big split in the MAGA groups that have come to peacefully protest with whoever is behind this intrusion in the Capitol, which by any account is unacceptable.”
- “The Capitol was under siege by people who can only be described as antithetical to the MAGA movement. Now, they were likely not all Trump supporters, and there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.”
- “I have never seen Trump rally attendees wearing helmets, black helmets, brown helmets, black backpacks — the uniforms you saw in some of these crowd shots.”
Brian Kilmeade
What he told Mark Meadows during the attack:
- “Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished.”
What he told his audience later that day:
- “I do not know Trump supporters that have ever demonstrated violence that I know of in a big situation.”
Sean Hannity
What he told Mark Meadows during the attack:
- “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”
What he told his audience later that day:
- Hannity agreed with a caller to his radio show who said “It’s on video, it’s all antifa,” then added himself: “Yeah, and that’s the thing. I had heard these reports that they might even wear MAGA gear. I don’t know who the people are that got in there. I’ve seen videos like you have, but that doesn’t represent how we the people feel, or why we feel like we do, the honest peaceful protester.”
- “We had the reports that groups like antifa, other radical groups — I don’t know the names of all of them — that they were there to cause trouble.”
- “Everyone knew going in today that this crowd was going to be massive. They knew there were hundreds of thousands of people that came to town. We also knew that there’s always bad actors that will infiltrate large crowds. I don’t care if they’re radical left, radical right, I don’t know who they are, they’re not people I would support.”
Donald Trump Jr.
What he told Mark Meadows during the attack:
- “He’s got to condemn this shit asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough […] We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
What he told his supporters later that month:
- “If these federal law enforcement agencies had prior knowledge that this was a planned attack then POTUS didn’t incite anything. If he didn’t incite anything then Nancy Pelosi and the Dems used impeachment on yet another sham political witch-hunt.”
- Trump Jr. was one of several right-wing figures to retweet a Twitter thread calling alleged rioter Aaron Mostofsky — who was pictured wearing a suit of furs and a police riot shield — a “Democrat son-of-a-judge.” The thread, which has since been deleted, also said “it is not clear if Aaron or his friend are active within the Antifa community.”
