Trump Was Against Telling Mob to “Stay Peaceful” During Jan. 6, Former Aide Says

Former President Donald Trump didn’t want to include a line encouraging his loyalists to be “peaceful” in a tweet he sent on the day of the Capitol attack, a former White House aide recently said.

Minutes before closing, a mob of Trump loyalists attacked and destroyed the building. After the ex-president delivered an incendiary addressFalse claims of election corruption. During the speech, Trump told his followers that they could “never take back” the country “with weakness.”

“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump went on.

The aide who recently spoke to CNN, was working in the West Wing on January 6, 2021, and was “close” to the White House messaging team during the attack. The individual, who chose to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, said that Trump was “very reluctant to put out anything when it was unfolding,” preferring instead to let the attack “play out.”

At 2:38 p.m. Eastern Time Trump sent a tweet via his now-defunct Twitter account.

“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country,” Trump wrote. “Stay peaceful!”

According to the aide Trump did not want to include the words “stay peaceful” in his tweet. Aides also stated that they had shared this information with House select committee members investigating the attack on Capitol.

Notably, Trump’s tweet did not instruct the mob of his loyalists to stop attacking the Capitol so that Congress could certify the Electoral College results from the 2020 presidential election. Trump finally sent a video message to his followers several hours after the attack began, telling them that he “loved” them and that they should leave.

The unnamed aide’s account of Trump’s attitude on the day of the Capitol attack aligns with another former White House official’s comments about Trump’s feelings as the attack took place. According to Stephanie Grisham, who served as Trump’s press secretary, The former president was pleased with the developmentsAs his followers broke into the Capitol.

Trump “was in the dining room, gleefully watching on his TV as he often did, [saying] ‘look at all of the people fighting for me,’ hitting rewind, watching it again,” Grisham recounted in an interview this week.

A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that a majority of Americans – 58 percent – believe that Trump bears “a great deal” or “a good amount” of the responsibility for the Capitol attack. This number is unchanged from last year, when an ABC News/Washington PostA poll conducted one week after the attack revealed that 57% of Americans believed Trump was responsible.