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- Aides described President Donald Trump being detached and ignored their calls during the storming of the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday.
- An official told the Washington Post that Trump had been blinded by “this idea that he had been treated unfairly” and found it difficult to understand the events.
- Axios and Politico have reported that some of Trump’s close friends and advisers are trying to avoid him and have given up on trying to communicate.
- Axios reported, paraphrasing sources, that the president was “mentally unreachable”.
- According to The Post, Trump was furious with Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the congressional session to confirm Joe Biden as president-elect and “couldn’t see clearly.”
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
President Donald Trump was detached from reality as his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to several reports citing those close to him.
Trump’s aides have reportedly given up on trying to communicate with him during the crisis.
During the attack, which forced Congress to temporarily abandon the process of certifying Joe Biden’s election victory, Trump was in the White House defending his supporters and refusing to condemn violence, the Washington Post reported.
An administration official described the president as “a total freak” who is “so driven by this idea that he has been treated unfairly that he cannot see the big picture.”
The official was referring to Trump’s long-standing and false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen due to voter fraud – claims that have repeatedly been dismissed in court.
Axios wrote, paraphrasing his sources, that Trump’s closest friends and White House officials “avoided him like the plague” and had “given up on trying to communicate with him, considering him mentally inaccessible” .
On Wednesday afternoon, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said Trump’s aides were trying to get him to issue a strong statement against violence, but that he was “ignoring these pleas.”
Haberman also reported, citing a Trump adviser, that people close to Trump were “certain the president wanted him and liked him.”
According to Politico, there was less staff than usual around Trump. He noted that senior White House adviser Jared Kushner was from the Middle East that day.
“I don’t know who is touching him right now,” Politico said, quoted by a former senior administration official.
A Republican who Politico described as being close to Trump also told the outlet, “I don’t want to talk to him … What am I going to say? It’s one of those times when I don’t know not if I want to be involved. “
According to the Post, Trump was so angry with Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the congressional session, that he “couldn’t see clearly.”
Trump has repeatedly called on Pence to reject Electoral College votes for Biden and declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election instead – something the vice president has no authority to do.
Read more: Lawmakers, Hill staff and reporters recount the heartbreaking experience when a violent pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol to protest the vote count
As rioters stormed the Capitol, the president continued to attack the election results on Twitter. About two and a half hours later, he released a video calling on his supporters to end the violence on Capitol Hill.
But in the video, the president continued to assert his false claims that the election was stolen from him and told his supporters, “We love you, you are very special.”
Twitter subsequently locked the president from his account, citing the tweets and the video. However, the social platform said Trump deleted the tweets that led to his suspension and that he would have access to his account again on Thursday.
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