On Jan. 6, during the insurrectionist violence at the U.S. Capitol, Donald Trump ignored those who urged him to call off the mob he’d dispatched to the Hill. In fact, during the attack, the Republican made matters worse deliberately by publishing a tweet condemning his own vice president.
Eventually, the then-president released a video in which he professed his “love” for the rioters, before telling his followers to end their assault. It was the next day when Trump delivered a very different kind of message from the White House.
“Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem,” the outgoing president said on Jan. 7, describing the riot as a “heinous attack.” Reading carefully from a prepared text, Trump added, “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy…. To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: You do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law: You will pay.”
It was an odd message, delivered in an odd way, that was wildly at odds with everything the Republican seemed to believe about the rioters and their attack. Indeed, in the months that followed, Trump rejected everything he’d said on Jan. 7, eventually telling the public that the rioters were great “patriots,” worthy of celebration, who “represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country.”
So why exactly did the then-president deliver remarks to the nation that he clearly did not believe? Because as we learned yesterday, Trump felt like he’d be removed from office if he didn’t. The New York Times noted:
Members of the president’s Cabinet were distressed enough by the assault on the Capitol and the president’s encouragement of the mob and refusal to intervene that they quietly discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, Ms. Hutchinson testified. The ignominious prospect of being the first president to be subject to the amendment was one of the reasons he agreed to record a video on Jan. 7 committing to a peaceful transfer of power.
There’s long been speculation about how close members of Trump’s cabinet were to trying to remove him from power in the wake of the attack on the Capitol, and Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony yesterday, and related revelations from the hearing, brought new clarity to the issue.
Indeed, Hutchinson testified that Trump told top members of his team he didn’t feel the need to say anything on Jan. 7, and when he saw a draft that had been prepared by others, the then-president rejected lines about “prosecuting the rioters or calling them violent.”
But Trump grudgingly delivered the remarks anyway because, as Hutchinson said in her sworn testimony, “there was a large concern of the 25th Amendment potentially being invoked.”
She added that Trump was told that his Jan. 7 speech would provide him with “cover” — not from the public, members of Congress, or the press, but from members of his own administration who were prepared to remove him from office.
In fact, we’ve learned a surprising amount about just how serious this possibility was. Fox News’ Sean Hannity, effectively playing the role of a White House strategist, alerted Mark Meadows, the then-White House chief of staff, to the fact that the 25th Amendment threat was “real.” Hutchinson also told Jan. 6 investigators that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had reached out to Meadows, letting the White House know that cabinet secretaries had begun behind-the-scenes conversations about removing Trump from office. All of this also dovetailed nicely with other details we already knew: Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently told USA Today that in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, she thought it was at least possible she’d help remove Trump from office by way of the 25th Amendment. It was on Jan. 7 when she personally spoke with other cabinet members about this possibility — and even talked to then-Vice President Mike Pence about the process. There have also been reports that then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, among others, was “personally involved“ in such deliberations. This not only provides important context for Trump’s Jan. 7 speech, it should also be of interest to rank-and-file Republicans who remain skeptical of the investigation into the larger scandal: Members of Trump’s own cabinet — his handpicked cabinet secretaries, responsible for helping him govern — were actively involved in conversations about kicking him out of the White House.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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