Under heavy pressure, Trump posts video condemning the Capitol siege

Under heavy pressure from his advisers, President Trump released a five-minute video recorded in the Oval Office on Wednesday condemning last week’s grassroots violence on Capitol Hill and urging his supporters to desist from further riots next week.

The video was made public hours after Mr. Trump was impeached a second time and was the result, advisers said, of Mr. Trump’s realization of the catastrophic fallout from the deadly riot, which also left the lawmakers fear for their lives at the American headquarters. the democracy.

The video was posted to a White House Twitter account.

Mr. Trump offered no notes of humility, regret or self-reflection about his two months of false claims that the election was stolen from him. But it was also a broader condemnation of the violence than he has offered so far.

A week ago, hours after the rampage began, Mr. Trump told his supporters who had revolted, “We love you. You are very special. “

Mr Trump’s aides warned him he risks being exposed to justice for the riot, which was carried out by his supporters immediately after a speech in which the president urged them to ‘fight’ the results of the election. The House indicted him on a single article, accusing him of “inciting violence against the United States government.”

Several officials urged him to shoot the video, with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, enlisting assistants and even Vice President Mike Pence to tell him it was the right thing to do. After being taped and released, Mr. Trump still needed reassurance that this was the right thing, administration officials said.

The release of the video, which was recorded after the House impeachment vote, came after the president’s company, the Trump organization, faced canceled contracts in New York, and after Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, told his allies he was happy. by the Democrats’ impeachment efforts and to make it known publicly that he was considering voting to convict the president in a Senate trial.

“As I said, the incursion of the US Capitol struck at the very heart of our republic,” said Mr. Trump. “It angered and dismayed millions of Americans from all political walks of life.”

“I want to be very clear: I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week,” said Mr. Trump. “Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country. And no place in our movement. Making America great again has always been about upholding the rule of law ”and supporting law enforcement officials.

“The mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for. None of my true supporters will ever be able to endorse political violence, ”he said.

“If you do any of these things, you are not supporting our movement. You attack it and you attack our country, ”Mr. Trump said. “We cannot tolerate it.”

But Mr. Trump did not mention the name of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., he did not concede the election, and he did not speak about Mr. Biden’s nomination, which is due to take place. next week under extraordinary security due to threats inspired by the Capitol Riot. He also did not mention the impeachment vote.

He did, however, use the video to denounce what he called restrictions on free speech, not only referring to social media platforms that banned him, but alluding to the argument made by members of the Republican Chamber to argue against his dismissal.

The assistants most involved in the language of the video were White House attorney Pat A. Cipollone; his deputy, Pat Philbin; and Mr. Trump’s senior speechwriter Stephen Miller.

Over the course of the day, Mr. Trump watched the impeachment debate in the House at different times and told advisers he was furious with Mr. McConnell and felt blinded by him. Yet his deepest anger was at minority parliamentary leader Kevin McCarthy of California for publicly condemning him, people close to him have said.

His relationship with his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who encouraged the president to believe conspiracy theories of widespread electoral fraud, has faltered, an adviser said. The president was offended by Mr. Giuliani’s request for $ 20,000 a day to represent him in the electoral fight, which Mr. Giuliani denied having done but which was in writing, and told assistants not to pay him at all, said an adviser to Mr. Trump. , confirming a Washington Post report.

White House officials have started blocking Mr. Giuliani’s calls to the president, another adviser said.

As the impeachment votes were cast, the president awarded medals to artists such as Toby Keith and Kay Coles James, the president of the Heritage Foundation, an official said. He was glad the Republican defections had been lower than some of his aides had anticipated.

The president was not raging behind closed doors, administration officials said, although he has so far refused to agree to a plan that would devote a series of days this week to the work of his past four years.

On Air Force One Tuesday, during a trip to the southern border in Alamo, Texas, the president repeatedly said about the election to people traveling with him: “I won.”

Some advisers have raised the possibility of Mr. Trump resigning days earlier, in part because it would give him the opportunity to run again in 2024 and possibly avoid the risk of being convicted and expelled from his office. future functions by the Senate.

But the president rejected any suggestion of leaving the presidency earlier and told White House aides that President Richard M. Nixon, whose influence in the party ended when he resigned, did not much to show.

Advisers said Mr Trump should be dissuaded from going to the House to attempt to defend himself in Wednesday’s impeachment process, which he wanted to do when he was first arraigned in December 2019, said counselors.

Mr Trump has also left open the possibility of forgiving himself, despite Mr Cipollone’s concerns and warnings from outside advisers that he would inflame investigators who are already pursuing him.

Mr. Trump has never been so isolated as this week. The White House is understaffed, according to people who went to work there on Wednesday. Those who went to work tried to avoid the Oval Office.

More and more staff have resigned and the White House attorneys office is not preparing to defend him in the Senate trial. His political adviser, Jason Miller, posted on Twitter a poll by one of the campaign’s pollsters, John McLaughlin, which aimed to show the president’s grip on party voters, as House Republicans debated their votes.

Plans to move Mr. Trump to another online platform after his final suspension by Twitter have been halted. One option was the Gab platform, which hosted extremists and followers of the QAnon plot. Gab was favored by Mr Trump’s adviser Johnny McEntee, but blocked by Mr Kushner, according to people familiar with the talks, reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

Mr Giuliani also faces recriminations because of his involvement in inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol. A group of former U.S. assistant lawyers who worked with Mr. Giuliani when he was a federal prosecutor in Manhattan sent him a letter on Wednesday expressing dismay at his behavior at the rally ahead of the Capitol siege.

The group said Mr. Giuliani’s comments, in which he urged Trump supporters to engage in a “fight trial” to stop the certification of election results, contributed to the loss of life and damage. caused to the country.

“It was shocking and utterly disheartening to have seen one of our former colleagues engage in this behavior,” said the former prosecutors in the letter, which was signed by many of Giuliani’s colleagues, including Kenneth Feinberg, Ira Lee Sorkin, Elliot Sagor and Richard Ben. -Veniste.

“We unequivocally reject and denounce what you have said: this is totally destructive of everything we value,” they wrote, urging him to do what Mr. Trump did in the video and explicitly calling for them. supporters of the president to “withdraw”.

“It is important that you do this at this very moment not only because it would be the right thing to do,” they continued, “but also to mitigate the risk of further violence and minimize further damage to our democratic institutions and our democracy. “