The Daily - An Assault on the Capitol

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

This episode contains strong language.It was always going to be a tense day in Washington. In the baseless campaign to challenge Joe Biden’s victory, Wednesday had been framed by President Trump and his allies as the moment for a final stand.But what unfolded was disturbing: A mob, urged on by the president, advanced on the Capitol building as Congress was certifying the election results and eventually breached its walls.Today, the story of what happened from Times journalists who were inside the Capitol.Guests: Nicholas Fandos, a national reporter for The New York Times; Jonathan Martin, a national political correspondent for The Times; and Emily Cochrane, a congressional reporter for The Times. For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.Background reading: Journalists from The Times witnessed the violence and mayhem. Here’s how it unfolded.One of the most disturbing aspects of Wednesday’s events was that they could be seen coming. The president himself had all but circled the date.Here is an explanation of how the pro-Trump mob managed to storm the Capitol For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, a mob incited by President Trump stormed the Capitol building, disrupting the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the presidential race. My colleagues, Nick Fandos, Jonathan Martin, and Emily Cochran, were inside the building. It's Thursday, January 7th.

Nick, I wonder if you can tell us how this day started. So Wednesday was always going to be a tense day in Washington because President Trump and his allies had decided that Congress's quadrennial meeting to certify the Electoral College votes would be a venue for him to make one final stand for his baseless and frankly unprecedented campaign to try and overturn the results of the election. America first! America first! America first! The president had invited and encouraged many of his supporters to come to Washington. Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump! They gathered by the thousands Wednesday morning on the mall. The Republican Party has the ability right now to save themselves, to save it.

And if they turn their backs on these people, they need to open their eyes and go, oh, if I ever want to even attempt to get elected again, I either switch parties or I help these guys out here. Because these people are very angry. They might not look it, but they are very angry. guys out here because these people are very angry they might not look at but they are very angry we're 30 seconds away at any time in this country from a revolution we're waiting and we're ready and could you elaborate on that you know those are just that we're ready we're tired that's the only way if this doesn't work it's just a matter of time. It's going to happen. Does that take the form of, you know...

We don't know how it's going to start. We don't know where it's going to start. We don't know who's going to start it. But that's next. Second American Revolution. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 45th President of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump. The president gave a pretty remarkable address.

All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they're doing, and stolen by the fake news media, that's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's death to come. And he worked himself up to basically encourage the thousands of people that were gathered there to head on down to the Capitol, where early in the afternoon, Congress was set to meet in this joint session overseen by Vice President Mike Pence

to formally count and then finalize Joe Biden's victory as president-elect of the United States. finalize Joe Biden's victory as president-elect of the United States. We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give, the Democrats are hopeless. They're never voting for anything. Not even one vote, but we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help, we're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Let's go! To the steps, boys! Let's go to Congress! Let's go! Let's go to Congress! Let's go! Let's go! And so over at the Capitol, how was this certification process supposed to unfold? We knew that this was going to be a states that Joe Biden won fair and square.

These are going to force long debates. But at the end of the day, or maybe early Thursday morning, there is very little doubt that Joe Biden was going to be formally declared the president-elect by the Congress of the United States, whether or not President Trump wanted that to happen. So it all gets started at one o'clock. Madam Speaker, the Vice President and the United States Senate. When Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Senate parade into the House of Representatives behind two large mahogany boxes that contain the certificates certifying the votes from all 50 states. Are there any objections to counting the certificate of vote of the state of Alabama? There's a couple of states, starting with Alabama.

Hearing none. Then Alaska. The state of Alaska. They come and go and are accepted by the Congress. And then... This certificate from Arizona. As we expected, get to the state of Arizona. One of a half dozen that President Trump lost that he's contesting.

Are there any objections to counting the certificate of vote of the state of Arizona that the teller has verified appears to be regular, informed, and authentic? President, I, Paul Gosar from Arizona. For what purpose does the gentleman from Arizona rise? I rise for myself and 60 of my colleagues to object to the counting of the electoral ballots from Arizona. And Representative Paul Gosar is from that state. Is the objection in writing and signed by a senator? And Ted Cruz rose together to object.

Yes it is. It is. Triggering essentially this two-hour debate in the House and the Senate that would culminate in an up or down vote on whether or not to throw out Arizona's electoral college votes. The Senate will now retire to its chamber. The senators then marched out and went back to their chamber. The House started to debate. President Trump's allies are laying out their arguments. In the Senate, though, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, is the first to rise and speak.

We're debating a step that has never been taken in American history, whether Congress should overrule the voters and overturn a presidential election. Now, McConnell had tried to head off this effort in the first place. He saw it as a dangerous exercise that would divide his party and could hurt them electorally down the line. But the speech he gave was even more striking, I think, than we expected. I've served 36 years in the Senate. This will be the most important vote I've ever cast.

President Trump claims the election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations to constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories. The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. And then he did something that he really hasn't done for four years, frankly, which is directly rebuke the president. This election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side. And say that this drive by Donald Trump out of the White House and some of his allies on Capitol Hill to overturn the results of the election. Our democracy would enter a death spiral. Would send American democracy into a death spiral. United States Senate has a

higher calling than an endless spiral of partisan vengeance. So McConnell gives his speech to a wrapped Senate chamber, but still several of his colleagues promptly get up and start to defy him. Mr. President. Senator. Starting with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. We gather together at a moment of great division.

Obviously a conservative firebrand who has run for president once. People think he wants to run for president again, maybe trying to make a name for himself here. Recent polling shows that 39 percent of Americans believe the election that just occurred, quote, was rigged. And his message for his colleagues is a little bit different than the president's. I mean, he basically argues that, like it or not, huge swaths of Americans, including a lot of people that vote for Republicans,

don't trust the results of this election. You may not agree with that assessment, but it is nonetheless a reality for nearly half the country. And that's not going away, and senators need to confront it. It is the responsibility, I believe, of this office to acknowledge that is a profound threat to this country and to the legitimacy of any administrations that will come in the future. He's followed by another colleague eventually, James Lankford. A small group of senators, including myself, have demanded that we not ignore the questions that millions of people are asking in our nation.

Who's backing up, Senator Cruz? Pause the count. Get more facts to the states before January the 20th. And then all of a sudden... My challenge today is not about the good people of Arizona. Things start going very strangely in the chamber. And it will stand in recess until the call of the chair. We'll pause. Protesters are in the building.

Thank you. You're a fucking traitor to your country! Yeah! You're a fucking traitor! Fucking traitor! Let's go, hey! Let's go! Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. go, go! We've never seen this before. We've never seen this before. We've never seen this before. Do not deface the statues in the water. Do not deface the statues in the water. Do not deface the statues in the water.

We the people! We the people! We the people! We the people! We the people! We the people! We the people! And all of a sudden, cameras are cut off, security rushes in and pulls Vice President Mike Pence out of the chair where he's presiding and pulls him out of the room. The police step forward and announce that there has been a breach of the Capitol.

There's an emergency and senators are immediately being locked into their chamber. Press is sealed in with them. Every door is closed in this frantic dash with police officers and staff of the Capitol run around slamming each door shut. And senators are all, almost all 100 of them, or 99 right now since Senate shorter member, are in this room together in an incredibly tense moment wondering what is about to happen. Things are initially kind of playful. Senator Patrick Leahy, the longest serving senator who loves to take photographs, pulled out a digital camera and started snapping pics until the police told him to cut that out. Pretty quickly, Senator Amy

Klobuchar quickly yells out to everyone to quiet their voices that she's heard that there's been a shooting in the Capitol complex. Now, this really sent a chill through the chamber, as you can imagine. And within only a few minutes after that, police start pushing all 100 senators, or 99, that are in the chamber into the well of the Senate and out through the back doors. There's chaos and commotion in the room. The senators don't know what's happening. And the police then point up at us, who were locked into the chamber in a press gallery over where the vice president had been seated and said, get down to the basement

and follow us. So we scramble, as senators do, down a series of elevators into the subterranean tunnels that connect the full Capitol complex. And all of a sudden I found myself, you know, in a kind of fast moving sea of the United States Senate, Republicans and Democrats, not certain where we were going, not certain where the mob had entered the building. They'd reached at several points that it turned out. At one point, we seemed to be redirected based on the fact that spaces that were supposed

to be secure were not. Up ahead of me was Senator Chuck Schumer, who's the Democratic leader who earlier in the morning had been declaring himself the majority leader triumphantly after Democrats had unexpectedly and surprisingly won the two Senate runoffs in Georgia the night before. Now his security detail was holding the back of his neck, hustling him down this underground tunnel towards a safe space. I also passed by Senator Mitch McConnell, who is the Republican leader and now the outgoing majority leader. 78 years old, he had polio when he was a young man,

and his security detail had their arms up under his armpits, helping usher him as quickly as they could down through this long tunnel towards, ultimately, a secure space elsewhere near the Capitol where all of us ended up for several hours. This is Jonathan Martin with the New York Times. We were brought to what I can only say is a secure location because I'm still in a secure

location and they've asked reports that appear not to reveal where we are when I got to the room and again keep in mind people were notably panicked I crossed paths with Mitt Romney. And I've known Senator Romney for 15 years. And we greeted each other. And then as we parted ways, I heard Senator Romney say, Jonathan. And I turned around and I saw him beckoning me over with his hand. And with rage written all over his face and fury in his voice, he said to me, this is what the president has caused today, this insurrection. I've never seen him in that kind of frame of mind. But clearly, what he was trying to do was convey to the world that he blames President

Trump for this, for this desecration of the American capital. And he obviously wanted that told. Get her down! Flashlight! Flashlight! What's the purpose of storming Congress itself? Because they work for us! They don't get to steal it from us! They don't get to tell us we didn't see what we saw! We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Emily Cochran. I'm currently sheltering in a congressman's office on Capitol Hill

with a few lawmakers and a few reporters after it was essentially a mob stormed the Capitol during the certification of the Electoral College. Right now, everyone's just going through what happened, what we saw. I went to the House chamber just before I was about to start. JUDY WOODRUFF, There it is. She's gaveling the House into session to hear the debate over the electoral vote from Arizona. Let's listen in.

Let the record show that there is a gross violation of this guidance from the attendance on the record. So I was sitting in the front row and around 1.30 or so, you started getting these notices from sources for me. It's in other parts of the hill. Capitol Police are closing my building. They're going from door to door, telling us to leave. But the debate was still going in the chamber. It was like you were in a bubble. People were looking at the phones, but there wasn't any real indication that anyone other than the reporters in the press gallery were fully aware of the

extent of the protest and how things were escalating. I rise to support the objection. The gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Madam Speaker. And to ease everyone's nerve, I want you to all know that I am not here to challenge anyone to a duel like Alexander Hamilton or Aaron Burr. At around just after two, I got up because I wanted to look out the window. I wanted to look out the window. I wanted to see it for myself and gauge what the situation was like. But the minute I stepped outside the gallery with a member of the gallery staff, a police officer came over and said that they were ordering everyone to shelter in place and go back inside. We gather today, Madam Speaker, to ensure the survival of our grand American experiment, the greatest democracy this world has ever known. And there are millions

of people watching today's proceedings. The eyes of the world are on us now, my colleagues, wondering if our constitutional republic will hold. You could start to feel this nervous energy as more and more lawmakers grew aware, and they began to close the gallery doors. The chamber doors had always been closed, but the gallery doors had been open for the purpose of ventilation, and those were starting to be closed. Press gallery staff, really shortly after, came and told us there was a possibility

that we would be locked in the chamber, so to get your chargers, get whatever you have from outside, and bring it in and be ready to spend time in the chamber. The House will be in order. The House will be in order. Okay.

Congressional leadership pretty soon after that was rushed out. You saw staff come and escort them out really quickly. The rest of lawmakers and staff were told to stay. Stay, be calm. The host will be in order. Host will be in order. Members will take their seats. Up in the gallery overlooking the floor, we were quietly being told what the exits were, where to look. And then a Capitol Police officer stood at the dais where

Speaker Polisi had been overseeing the proceedings right before that and said that there had been a breach, that protesters weren't that around. And to be prepared to duck under your chairs for lawmakers to go hide in the courtroom. Without objection, the chair declares the house in recess pursuant to Clause 12B of Rule 1. And the house recessed, and everyone just kind of sat there. At one point, Dean Phillips just shouted out, this is because of you, at his Republican colleagues.

Then it was, you just sort of, you were waiting. And a Capitol Police officer told us that we now have individuals in the rotunda. And they instructed lawmakers to take out gas masks that were stored under the chairs in front rotunda. And they instructed lawmakers to take out gas masks that were stored under the chairs in front of them. Press, we are in the gallery overlooking this whole thing. Capitol Police came over and were passing out our own masks. Silver box wrapped in aluminum. And I crouched down behind a chair just trying to rip this open,

trying to figure out how to just open the package, let alone put the mask on. They told us we didn't need to put the mask on just yet, but there had been tear gas in the rotunda, so to be prepared for it. These masks have a red light that's just flashing, so all of a sudden there's just these little red lights all over the place, and they were. There's this whirring noise that hasn't stopped since. So you're just surrounded by this anxious, murmuring, whirring. And then you could hear banging on the doors of the chamber.

A couple of security, one lawmaker, pulled a giant wooden chest and just pushed it up against the chamber doors. The chamber doors that Mike Pence had just walked through, behind the chests of voter certifications. That was now barricaded. They put this wood chest in front of the door and they started yelling for us to evacuate to just form these orderly lines best you could, clambering over banisters, over chairs to try to get to the doors. And then... chairs to try to get to the doors and then you heard bangs again and people stopped moving and everyone just dropped to the ground these chairs are your auditorium chairs they're not really meant, they don't really have high backs. So I was just basically lying on the floor, hoping that my head was behind this small chair

where typically a tourist is sitting watching their member give a speech. And they froze the glass. Everybody stay down! Get down! We were frozen. Frozen like that. With... I mean, with some officers pointing guns. At the door, at the barricaded door, you could see Mark Wayne Mullen there with them. I... ostensibly, and I think he was trying to, just this whirring of the gas masks. And then after a few minutes, we started moving again. I don't know what prompted it, but we just started moving.

We just started jumping over these banisters, stepping on the cushions, just kind of moving. And then we were just like, I don't know what prompted it but we just started moving and we just started jumping over these banisters stepping on the cushions doing whatever you could to get through that door as fast as possible and clambering down marble staircase we went down a side exit so I have no idea what the rest of the Capitol looks like

So I have no idea what the rest of the Capitol looks like. The phone's just going off. Family is watching this. Your colleagues are watching this. Where are you? Are you okay? Eventually, we made it to an office building, which is where we are now. The lawmakers are mostly sequestered in one room,

and they took some of the press in another room where we're just sort of waiting so for now i am recording this in congressman's bathroom waiting for the clear to go so that's that's where we are there's some talk that it'll take some time for them to clear out the Capitol, but a couple of lawmakers I've spoken to remain adamant that they're going to see this through, that this isn't going to stop the process. And even if it's delayed, they're going to keep going with the Electoral College. Nick, how did this standoff come to an end? President Pence remain locked down in these secretive locations, which were ultimately not breached. Capitol Police get reinforcements from the National Guard, the FBI, other law enforcement, and they start to slowly basically hunt down and remove these individuals that had come into the building. And so in the six o'clock hour, finally, another alert went out over the kind of

emergency system in the Capitol that had been going off all day to say that finally at that point, law enforcement had successfully taken back the building and reestablished a large perimeter around the Capitol that held for the rest of the night. So this mob, they were inside the United States Capitol for four hours. That's pretty extraordinary. It is. Shots were discharged. One woman ended up dead, the police here in D.C. said. There was tear gas deployed in the Capitol.

It's just unthinkable that this would happen. Capitol, it's just unthinkable that this would happen. And Nick, what was the president saying and doing during this period, during these hours when supporters were storming the Capitol in his name? So at first, he said nothing. He was just silent. After he gave his rally earlier in the day outside the White House, he had gone back inside and had very little to say. Eventually, he started, though, as he does, to tweet, including sending out a short video of himself filmed outside the White House.

And this, I've got to say, was just as remarkable as the rest of all of this. You have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have all of this. You have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt. The president did call for those doing violence to stop. He said it was time to go home. But in the next breath...

It's a very tough period of time. There's never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us. He praised them. He said he identified essentially with what they were doing. So go home. We love you. You're very special. You've seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. I mean, these are terms of affection for, you know, a violent insurrection in the capital of the country that he has sworn an oath to protect and defend.

Right. And during this time, Nick, the reality, and this is a pretty unsettling thing to say, but it's true, is that this mob, they did something that the president so far had not been able to do through the courts or through the political process. At his encouragement, at his incitement, they disrupted the certification of Joe Biden's win. They did. They did. For several hours on Wednesday, they gave the president vividly what he has wanted. But in the aftermath of it, what emerged was striking in its own way, of it. What emerged was striking in its own way, particularly in the Senate, where those of us that have been locked down for hours walked under armed guard back into the Capitol, where Republicans and Democrats, when it was finally safe for them to come out, came out with arms locked.

Oh, my gosh, that's them. That's the Democrats. The Electoral College, maybe. Where is it? Wait, everybody, let Elizabeth him. That's the certificate. The Electoral College, maybe. Where is it? Wait, everybody let Elizabeth through. Thanks, Paul. Those were the Electoral College boxes? Those were the Electoral College

boxes that they just carried. They're carrying beside the tracks of the Senate subway back to the Capitol. Came back to the floor of the Senate... Wow. ...intent on finishing the process that they had started hours before and not leaving until they'd done the work to make Joe Biden officially the president-elect. The Senate will come to order. And the vice president as president of the Senate

would like to give a brief statement with the indulgence of the senators. Actually, Vice President Pence asked to speak first. Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. We condemn the violence that took place here in the strongest possible terms. To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins. And this is still the people's house. Senator McConnell rose right after him and said, The United States Senate will not be intimidated. We will not be kept out of this chamber by thugs, mobs, or threats.

We will not bow to lawlessness or intimidation. We are back at our posts. We will discharge our duty under the Constitution and for our nation. And we're going to do it tonight. We're going to finish this here tonight. You saw several of the senators, not all, but several, who had planned to lodge objections. I yield up to five minutes to the senator from Georgia, Senator Loeffler. Came to speak quickly on the Senate floor to say...

When I arrived in Washington this morning, I fully intended to object to the certification of the electoral votes. However, the events that have transpired today have forced me to reconsider. That in light of what had happened, they would drop them. And I cannot now in good conscience object to the certification of these electors. You had President Trump's critics and even some of his most loyal allies from the last four years, Lindsey Graham.

Trump and I, we've had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh, my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he's been a consequential president. Standing up and saying... All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. I've tried to be helpful. This is over. I've seen enough. President Trump lost. Joe Biden won. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully

elected and will become the president and the vice president of the United States on January the 20th. in the United States on January the 20th. And by the time the Senate voted on that first objection to the state of Arizona, a little after 10 o'clock... On this vote, the yeas are six, the nays are 93. The objection is not sustained. All but six senators, so that's 93 Republicans and Democrats, voted to uphold President-elect Biden's victory. Nick, how do you explain that?

Because fidelity to this president has been so unwavering over so many episodes and so many years. What changed in those few hours? What changed in those few hours? on the one hand, Republicans who have sided with the president, you know, have always been able to tell themselves there's another exit down the road, that if things get bad enough, they can get off. And this was, you know, basically the end of the road for Trump. This was his last option, and it turned out that he made it as ugly and dangerous and vile as it possibly could have been. And I think so many members of his party just said, enough. We have gone along with so much. We're not going past the end of the road

with you. We're not going to crash into whatever that is. Now, I don't want to overstate this. This is one fleeting moment. There are still going to be, in the end, dozens of members of the House of Representatives that vote to toss out legitimate election results because President Trump has asked them to, essentially. There are, you know, as this episode has demonstrated, probably many more million Americans at home that don't believe this election was legitimately decided, that don't view President-elect Biden as a rightful occupant of that office. And though elected officials perhaps made a responsible decision today, you know, there's going to be a lot of days after this. The country remains, I think, in a deeply troubling and dangerous place.

I mean, a culture that could create what I was in the middle of today is not something that's just going to dissipate overnight. Well, Nick, thank you very much. We appreciate it. On a strange day, it was a strange pleasure. Thanks, Michael. I'm glad you're safe. I appreciate it. On a strange day, it was a strange pleasure. Thanks, Michael. I'm glad you're safe. I appreciate that.

On Wednesday night, after we spoke with Nick, 121 House Republicans voted to object to Joe Biden's victory in Arizona, more than half of the chamber's Republicans. But that was not enough votes to sustain the objection. Soon after, a similar objection to Biden's win in Pennsylvania also failed, and both the House and Senate voted to certify Biden as president-elect. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

It is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate. Thank you for the confidence and trust that you have placed in me. Democrats have taken control of the U.S. Senate after John Ossoff, the Georgia Senate candidate, was declared the winner in his race against Republican David Perdue, completing a Democratic sweep of the state's two runoffs. a Democratic sweep of the state's two runoffs. Earlier in the day, Ossoff's fellow Democrat, Raphael Warnock, narrowly defeated his Republican rival,

Senator Kelly Loeffler. Democrats now control 50 seats in the Senate, where Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will break the tie, giving Democrats control over committees, legislation, and nominations brought to the floor. Today's episode was produced by Rachel Quester, Michael Simon-Johnson, Asta Chaturvedi, Sydney Harper, Claire Tennisgetter, Stella Tan, and Alexandra Lee Young. It was edited by Dave Shaw,

Lisa Tobin, and Paige Cowett, and engineered by Chris Wood. Special thanks to Zolan Kano-Youngs, Matt Rosenberg, and John Ismay. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.