Just prior to taking the stage at his ill-fated rally on Wednesday, Trump was in a festive mood.
The Laura Branigan song Gloria blasted over loudspeakers as advisor Kimberly Guilfoyle danced in a tent offstage, where Trump gazed at monitors showing the massive crowd of his adoring followers.
At the rally, Trump had promised to join his loyalists in marching on the Capitol, but instead retreated to the White House in the ‘Beast’ presidential limousine as the chaos he unleashed unfolded, still raging over the election results.
Cocooned in a small private dining room next to the Oval Office, Trump watched the pandemonium on cable news, but appeared disinterested in the insurrection he had unleashed.
Instead, Trump grew increasingly agitated and focused on fuming at his own vice president for not backing his attempt to overthrow the election, insiders say.
As the television showed scenes from the Capitol that shocked the nation, increasingly desperate aides say they pleaded with Trump to intervene, but he resisted.
‘He kept saying: ‘The vast majority of them are peaceful,” an administration official told the Washington Post. ”What about the riots this summer? What about the other side? No one cared when they were rioting. My people are peaceful. My people aren’t thugs.’ He didn’t want to condemn his people.’
‘He was a total monster today,’ the official added, blasting Trump’s response to the crisis he created as indefensible.
As the violence escalated and Twitter locked Trump’s accounts for inciting the insurrection, he reportedly whined that he was unable to tweet, venting fury at aides when he tried to post to the platform but was blocked.
Trump’s most infamous day began with a tweet shortly after 8am, calling on Vice President Mike Pence to intervene in a join session of Congress and illegally overthrow the confirmation of Democrat Joe Biden’s election to the presidency.
Already, huge crowds of Trump supporters had begun streaming into the Ellipse and gathering on the National Mall.
As the morning wore on, Trump issued a stream of tweets reiterating his false claims of fraud in the presidential election, as well as challenging the results of Tuesday’s runoffs in Georgia, which Democrats swept, giving them control of the Senate.
At about 11.50am, Trump took the stage at his rally on the Ellipse, likely his last as president.
In a fiery speech, he repeated his appeal to Pence to illegally intervene in Congress, and falsely claimed he would join his supporters in marching on the Capitol.
‘After this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you,’ Trump said. ‘We’re going to walk down to the Capitol.’
‘You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength, and you have to be strong,’ he continued, exhorting his supporters ‘to fight’.
‘We will never give up, we will never concede,’ Trump said, delighting the crowd by calling Democratic election victories the product of ‘explosions of bullshit.’
‘We´re going to the Capitol,’ he said. ‘We´re going to try and give our Republicans … the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.’
Earlier in the rally, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had advocated what he had called ‘trial by combat.’
Trump spoke for more than an hour, and the rally dispersed at about 1pm, with Trump’s supporters streaming toward the Capitol.
But Trump was not among the crowd as promised, and instead slipped into his motorcade and made the brief drive back into the White House compound.
Aides say the prospect of Trump joining the march was discussed by the White House but eventually abandoned.
Also at around 1pm, Pence publicly issued a letter declaring that he would not illegally intervene in Congress, minutes before convening the joint session of Congress to certify the electoral college.
Soon after Congress convened, Trump’s allies in legislature raised their objections to the certification, sending the House and Senate into separate sessions for debate as the president’s mob grappled with police on the Capitol steps.
At 1.33pm, CSPAN reported that the mob had breached the Capitol and was heading for the House and Senate chambers, which were evacuated.
Lawmakers were evacuated as the mob ran wild.
Back in the White House, Trump spent much of the afternoon watching the insurrection on television from his private dining room off the Oval Office.
But a White House official says that Trump appeared disengaged and disinterested as scenes emerged that shocked the conscience of the nation.
Instead, the official says, most of Trump’s attention was consumed by his ire at Pence for defying his demands and acknowledging he did not have the power to unilaterally choose the next president.
The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
Trump was extremely agitated, moving from the Oval Office to the nearby private dining room, initially energized, but increasingly angry and closed off, said one source.
Trump was not allowing staff to help craft any messages earlier in the day.
‘It’s not a controlled situation,’ said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Aides say they pleaded with Trump to intervene as the situation at the Capitol raged out of control, but that he showed little interest in stopping the insurrection.
Instead, at 2.24pm, Trump tweeted his rage at Pence in the midst of the attack, writing: ‘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!’
On Wednesday, Trump effectively banned Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, from the White House, an official said, believing him to have been the driving force behind Pence’s refusal to overturn the vote.
About ten minutes later, at the insistence of desperate aides, Trump tweeted a tepid call for peace, writing: ‘Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!’
At 2.55pm, one of Trump’s supporters was fatally shot in the melee at the Capitol.
Air Force veteran Ashli Babbit, 35, was shot dead by police when she tried to clamber through a barricaded entrance inside the Capitol.
Trump then reluctantly issued another tweet and taped a video encouraging an end to the violence.
The posts came at the insistence of staff and amid mounting criticism from Republican lawmakers urging him to condemn the violence being perpetrated in his name, according to the official.
And even as authorities struggled to take control of Capitol Hill after protesters overwhelmed police, Trump continued to level baseless allegations of mass voter fraud and praised his loyalists as ‘very special.’
‘I know your pain. I know your hurt. But you have to go home now,’ he said in a video posted more than 90 minutes after lawmakers were evacuated from the House and Senate chambers. ‘We can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You´re very special.’
The violence, coupled with the president’s tepid response, alarmed many in the White House and appeared to push Republicans allies to the breaking point after years of allegiance to Trump.
After four years with no shortage of fraught moments, Wednesday´s events quickly emerged as the nadir of morale in the Trump White House, as aides looked on in horror at the chaos at the Capitol Trump had fomented.
Trump has surrounded himself with an ever-smaller group of loyalists who cater to his whims, including digital director Dan Scavino, personal aide John McEntee, trade adviser Peter Navarro, speechwriter Stephen Miller, and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, one source said.
‘It’s sad. These are the people around him and egging him on,’ the source said, who also asked not to be identified.
A number of White House aides were discussing a potential mass resignation, according to people familiar with the conversation. And others quickly departed.
Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s chief of staff and a former White House press secretary, submitted her resignation Wednesday.
Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews also resigned.
More departures were expected in the coming days, officials said.
Other aides indicated they planned to stay to help smooth the transition to the Biden administration.
And some harbored concerns about what Trump might do in his final two weeks in office if they were not there to serve as guardrails when so few remain.
After Trump tweeted incendiary remarks calling the mob in the Capitol ‘special people’ and appearing to justify the attack, Twitter locked his account.
Since then, Trump has repeatedly complained to aides that he was trying to send a tweet during his Twitter lockout, and expressed fury that he couldn’t.
After his account was locked, Trump was forced to issue a statement through his social media advisor’s account after Congress certified Biden’s election after midnight.
‘Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20,’ Trump said in the statement.
Trump added: ‘While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!’
Trump’s begrudging statement acknowledging defeat came after even longtime allies floated whether members of his Cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office.