Ex-President Donald Trump wasn’t fazed at all as the House impeachment managers at the Senate trial on Wednesday presented shocking, previously unseen video footage of the pro-Trump mob attacking the Capitol last month, according to Jason Miller, the former president’s top adviser.
Miller told the Daily Beast on Wednesday evening that Trump was in a “really good mood” during the trial proceedings that day, which largely focused on the ex-president’s role in inciting the siege.
The ex-president thought the impeachment managers’ presentation was “terrible today. Massive drop-off in quality,” Miller said.
Other sources told the Daily Beast that Trump sneered at the new disturbing clips of the siege that were captured by surveillance cameras inside the building and derided them as an “emotionally manipulative ploy,” in the Daily Beast’s words. He also mocked Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), one of the impeachment managers, as “pathetic.”
Trump’s “really good mood” throughout the second day of the trial stands in contrast to his reported rage over the proceedings of the first day, when his legal defense team offered a meandering and at times bizarre rebuttal to the House’s impeachment charge of “incitement of insurrection.”
The impeachment managers’ new footage of the Capitol insurrection showed lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence just barely escaping as furious Trump supporters, several of whom were dressing in tactical gear, swarmed the hallways.
