Nikki Haley Raises the Big Questions About Jan. 6th
What was Trump doing for those three hours? And how can Republicans renominate a man who used political violence?
NIKKI HALEY IS FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGING the most important reason to defeat Donald Trump in this year’s election: his use of violence on January 6th to block the peaceful transfer of power.
In an interview that aired Sunday on Meet the Press, moderator Kristen Welker asked Haley whether she agreed with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the attack on the Capitol. Haley replied that Trump’s offense was
not that he had the rally in the first place. That’s what we do in America. The problem is when he had the opportunity to stop it. You know, you have everybody from Fox News anchors to friends to family begging him to say something to get them to stop, including his vice president. And he was silent. And he didn’t say anything. So it was like: “Why did you allow it to happen?” . . . Where was he? Why didn’t he do it? Those are the questions he’s going to have to answer.
Haley is right: These are the fundamental questions. No interview, debate, or other forum with Trump should be conducted without making him answer these questions. And anyone who supports him—including Haley, if she ends up endorsing him—should be required to explain why a man who can’t answer such incriminating questions should be returned to power.
TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT IN 2021 focused on whether his speech at the January 6th rally amounted to “incitement of insurrection.” That was a debatable question, because one could argue—as Trump’s lawyers and his political allies did argue during his Senate trial—about the meanings of “incitement” and “insurrection” and about whether, as the article of impeachment alleged, his words “foreseeably” provoked the attack. Trump and his apologists also pointed out that he had told the crowd to march on Congress “peacefully.”
It’s much harder, however, to explain his behavior after the attack began. At that point, Trump knew about the rioting, yet he egged on the crowd. It took him more than an hour to speak up against the violence—which he did grudgingly and only in tweets—and it took him nearly three hours to ask the mob to go home, as his advisers had implored him do. Essentially, he watched the attack and waited to see whether it might get him the result he wanted: bullying Congress into halting the transfer of power.
Here’s a rough timeline of what the House January 6th Committee found in its investigation of that afternoon:
At 1:21 p.m., Trump was directly told about the riot. He went to his private dining room to watch it on Fox News.
Shortly before 2:24, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone urgently took chief of staff Mark Meadows to the dining room to talk to Trump about the crisis.
At 2:24, after that conversation, Trump tweeted to his followers—many of whom were at that moment in the thick of the riot—that Vice President Mike Pence, who was at the Capitol to oversee the certification of electoral votes, “didn’t have the courage” to stop the certification.
Shortly after that tweet, White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson heard Meadows and Cipollone talking about their conversation with Trump. Cipollone said the mob was calling for Pence to be hanged, and Meadows replied: “You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
Two minutes after the tweet, Trump placed a phone call to talk to Sen. Tommy Tuberville about blocking the certification. Tuberville told Trump that Pence had been evacuated and that security personnel “want me to get off the phone, I gotta go.”
At 2:38, after more lobbying from his aides, Trump tweeted that the crowd should “stay peaceful.” His press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, later confided that Trump “did not want to include any sort of mention of peace in that tweet.”
At 3:00 (the exact time wasn’t clarified until after the report came out), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Trump in a phone call that the rioters “just came through my office windows, and my staff are running for cover. I mean, they’re running for their lives. You need to call them off.” Trump replied, caustically, that the rioters seemed to be more concerned about the stolen election—properly so, he implied—than McCarthy was.
Also around 3:00, White House aides drafted a statement that would have told people who had entered the Capitol illegally to “leave immediately.” Trump declined to issue the statement.
By 3:17, Fox News was reporting gunshots. Its chyron said: “Guns Drawn on House Floor.”
At 4:17, Trump finally issued a video statement instructing his followers to “go home.” In the video, he repeated the false claim that had triggered the riot: that the election had been stolen.
The federal indictment of Trump for his post-election conduct, issued in August 2023, added a few more allegations based on further testimony. It said that Trump had “repeatedly refused to approve a message directing rioters to leave the Capitol, as urged by his most senior advisors—including the White House Counsel, a Deputy White House Counsel, the Chief of Staff, a Deputy Chief of Staff, and a Senior Advisor.” The indictment also alleged: “When advisors urged [Trump] to issue a calming message aimed at the rioters, [he] refused, instead repeatedly remarking that the people at the Capitol were angry because the election had been stolen.”
In January, ABC News, citing sources familiar with the special counsel investigation, reported additional details. Among them:
Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, told investigators that Trump “was just not interested” in doing more to stop the escalating violence.
Trump’s former personal assistant, Nick Luna, “told federal investigators that when Trump was informed that . . . Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, ‘So what?’”
Meadows confirmed “that when a desperate McCarthy called Trump, [Trump] told him, ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”
Trump’s exploitation of the violence didn’t end at 4:17 that day. At 6:01, he tweeted, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots . . .” He seemed to be implying that Congress had gotten what it deserved—and that it might be attacked again if it further antagonized his supporters.
Trump’s behavior later that evening fits this interpretation of the tweet. According to the indictment, from about 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., when Congress reconvened, Trump and his co-conspirator, Rudy Giuliani, “attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol by calling lawmakers to convince them . . . to delay the certification.” Congress was a traumatized wreck, and Trump—having demonstrated the power of his mob—seized the opportunity to press his advantage.
TRUMP HAS NEVER EXPLAINED his dereliction that day or his attempts to exacerbate and exploit the violence. The simplest explanation is obvious: He attempted a coup. Even if you doubt that he meant to provoke an assault on the Capitol, it’s clear that he watched the assault and decided to use it, not stop it.
This is what Haley, in her half-hearted way, acknowledged on Meet the Press. Which means that she, too, must answer a question: How can she endorse or condone the re-election of a president who attempted a coup?
“I have always said that I have serious concerns about Donald Trump,” Haley told Welker. But she immediately added: “I have even more concerns about Joe Biden.”
More concerns? More than you’d have about a thug who tried to use violence to stay in power?
THE MOST SHOCKING DERELICTION of our time isn’t what Trump did on January 6th. It’s what his party has done since then. Legions of cowards and collaborators—Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, John Barrasso, Tim Scott, and many more—chose to ignore or lie about the coup attempt. They have rallied to re-elect a man who tried to overthrow American democracy.
Haley, perhaps just for a moment, has broken from that conspiracy of silence. She has spoken the truth about what Trump did. She must not stop speaking it.