Page:Materials in Support of H. Res. 24.pdf/18

 White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building.” He was “delighted.”

And while the Senators were in lockdown, President Trump called Senator Mike Lee—apparently trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville instead. The President did so not to check the Senators’ well-being or assess the security threats, but instead, like the mob itself, to disrupt the peaceful transition of power. He encouraged Senator Tuberville to object and delay further the counting of electoral votes.

The President’s public statements were no better. Rather than defend the Capitol, comfort the American people, or urge his supporters to stand down, at the start of the siege, he retweeted at 1:49 PM a video of the rally, which included his previous statements that: “our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you came up with, we will stop the steal… You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

By 2:20 PM, the nation saw on live television that the armed mob had overrun the Capitol, causing both the House and the Senate to recess prematurely and flee their respective chambers in fear of their lives. Yet, even then, the President continued to affirm the insurrection’s mission by attacking Vice President Pence for refusing to obstruct the process, tweeting at 2:24 PM: "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!"

Later video would emerge of insurrectionists inside the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”