Capitol riots: only Donald Trump’s golden girl Ivanka could walk him back from the edge

After a day of crisis, the president’s daughter told him he faced removal from office unless he gave a conciliatory message. He backed down.

Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, urged the US President to back down following America’s day of Infamy on January 6. Picture: AFP

Ultimately it was the threat of getting sacked that finally reined Donald Trump in, at least temporarily. In the wake of Wednesday’s astonishing insurrection on Capitol Hill, encouraged and incited by the president himself, the White House counsel Pat Cipollone explained to Trump just how much legal jeopardy his quest to overturn the election result at any cost was putting him in.

Then allies, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told him that he faced removal from office - via impeachment or the invocation of the 25th amendment - unless he released a conciliatory message. He had to back down.

And so on Thursday evening he did, issuing a stiff and hollow call for “unity”, expressing his “outrage” at the violence, lawlessness and mayhem and committing to the “orderly transition of power” in a video.

It was too little too late for Democrats, who are well on their way to impeaching Trump - again. They will introduce articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives as early as tomorrow (Monday), accusing the president of “incitement of insurrection” and seeking to bar him from holding public office again.

Trump’s show of humility did not last long. He soon had second thoughts about his concession video and by Friday morning he was revving up his supporters again and announcing he would defy tradition by skipping Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. There were reports yesterday (Saturday) of plans for an armed march on Capitol Hill on January 17.

With 10 days remaining, the Trump presidency has reached its nadir. The administration has been hit by a wave of resignations, from the transport secretary, Elaine Chao, to the education secretary, Betsy DeVos. Former allies such as Senator Lindsey Graham have publicly washed their hands of the president. Prosecutors are looking into whether his incitement of a violent mob constituted a crime.

Sen. Lindsey Graham says President Trump's achievements have been "tarnished" because of yesterday’s events:

“When it comes to accountability, the president needs to understand that his actions were the problem, not the solution."pic.twitter.com/7yW7C9mQQH

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 7, 2021

Twitter has shut down Trump’s account, cutting him off from his 88 million followers. Democrats will soon have control of the Senate after two surprise victories in the Georgia elections on Tuesday, a shuddering political blow that many Republicans blame on Trump’s election shenanigans. “These events will seal his reputation as the worst president in American history,” said John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser.

“He has damaged himself for ever,” he added. “Even some of those Republicans willing to do the wrong thing and object to the certification of Biden’s electors are running from Trump like scalded dogs.”

As allies, donors and friends step away, the president in the White House is more isolated than ever, with only a few advisers still by his side. “He’s not a happy camper,” said one source close to him. “I don’t think he anticipated facing this level of backlash.”

Yet Wednesday had begun rather buoyantly for the Trumps. As thousands of supporters gathered for a “Stop the steal” rally, the Trump family milled about in a tent on The Ellipse, a park just south of the White House. The president watched the faithful arrive, awaiting their dear leader’s oration on a wide-screen television, while Don Jr livestreamed from inside the tent, filming his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, pirouette to Gloria by Laura Branigan.

The rhetoric from Trump and his allies was reckless and menacing, but the backdrop was a familiar playlist of pop classics: insurrection set to the Backstreet Boys.

Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer who has spearheaded the attempt to overthrow the election result, exhorted the crowd to “trial by combat”.

Don Jr told them: “You can be a hero, or you can be a zero. And the choice is yours. But we are all watching. The whole world is watching, folks. Choose wisely.” His brother Eric insisted that “we will never, ever, ever stop fighting”.

And then Trump himself, encouraging the crowd to march on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers in Congress were certifying Biden’s electoral victory, told the crowd: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to be strong.”

It has often been said of Trump’s supporters that they take the president’s gunslinging rhetoric seriously but not literally. But this crowd of thousands, the militant Proud Boys prominent among them, had been radicalised by the “Stop the steal” campaign for months.

Jacked up on misinformation, paranoia and nootropics - “cognitive-enhancing” drugs - with the leader of the free world cheering them on, they made their way along Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol.

Jacked up on misinformation, paranoia and nootropics, thousands of Trump supporters gathered outside the US Capitol building following a "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, DC. Picture: AFP

Arrayed against an increasingly belligerent mob was a flimsy crowd control fence and an extremely thin blue line of Capitol Hill police. As the crowd surged forward, it quickly became obvious that the police were hopelessly outnumbered.

After a short struggle, hundreds simply walked into the Capitol building, the beating heart of a superpower with an annual defence budget of $966bn. Senators ran for shelter.

Congresswomen hid behind chairs fearing for their lives. Offices were ransacked. Laptops stolen. Faeces deposited on the floor. A baying mob hunted the hallowed halls of Congress calling for the head of Vice-President Mike Pence, who had been whisked away by Secret Service agents.

Members of Congress run for cover as protesters try to enter the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress. Picture: Getty

Sixty police officers were injured. Five people, including a policeman, Brian Sicknick, an Iraq war veteran who was hit by a fire extinguisher, died as a result of the melee. Pipe bombs were found outside the Democratic and Republican national committee buildings.

Some congressmen were in more danger than others. Adam Schiff, a leading California Democrat who is a hate figure on the Trumpian right, was warned to keep out of sight as the mob arrived.

US Capitol police officers point their guns at a door that was vandalised in the House Chamber. Picture: Getty

“Police were discharging tear gas, there were reports of gunshots, and we were told to take out the gas masks under each seat and prepare to put them on,” he told a friend. “That is when the mob reached the doors to the House chamber and started battering them and trying to break through.

Riot police push back a crowd of Trump supporters after they stormed the Capitol building. Picture: AFP

“Capitol police pushed furniture in the way to barricade them out and drew their weapons. The mob broke the glass in the doors and members were instructed by police to leave the chamber through the rear doors ASAP. We did.”

Trump supporters entered the US Capitol. Picture: AFP

January 6 is a day that will live in American infamy. The president who stood on the steps of the Capitol four years ago and promised an end to “American carnage” had brought that carnage into the corridors of Congress itself. Nearly 156 years after the American Civil War ended, the Confederate flag was finally flown inside the Capitol building, which had been invaded for the first time since the British Army seized Washington in 1814.

“This was a catastrophic security failure,” Bolton said. “A massive failure of planning and preparation. It was unprecedented. Something went badly wrong here.”

The question that already has heads rolling in Washington - the Capitol Hill police chief has resigned - is what exactly did go wrong? Law enforcement agencies are pointing fingers and passing blame, but a picture of rank incompetence, negligence, complacency and an undue softness towards the president’s followers has begun to emerge..

Neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security issued standard risk assessments for the event, despite pro-Trump online message boards being plastered with violent threats for weeks preceding the event. Capitol police did not expect that protesters would arrive in such numbers or attempt to force entry to Congress. The few National Guard officers that had been called up came without arms or protective riot gear.

Officials are blaming this failure on reluctance from the Pentagon to get involved. The Pentagon claims the Washington mayor’s office wanted to “keep things de-escalated”. Only 68 arrests were made on Wednesday, though the FBI has subsequently rounded up many of the participants.

“The second I saw the lack of security posture around the Capitol, I was shocked,” said Olivia Troye, a former national security adviser to Pence. “I have no doubt in my mind that something was held back. They didn’t want images of the patriots - of their own people - clashing with police.”

As the chaos unfolded, the president watched on television from the White House, reportedly reluctant to call in the National Guard, despite pleas from officials including Pence, who was barricaded in the Capitol. Eventually it was Pence, contrary to the typical chain of command, who co-ordinated with Pentagon officials to send in troops and restore order, allowing members of Congress to return to their constitutional duties and certify the election, which they duly did.

The vice-president has long been a loyal and subservient deputy to Trump, standing by him through a blizzard of scandals and outrages. Now the pair have parted ways , with Trump lambasting Pence for not supporting his attempt to overthrow the election and Pence livid at the events that transpired on Wednesday.

The Times