“POTUS needs to calm this shit down,” GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina wrote at 3:04 p.m.
“TELL THEM TO GO HOME !!!” former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus messaged at 3:09 p.m.
“POTUS should go on air and defuse this. Extremely important,” Tom Price, former Trump health and human services secretary and a former GOP representative from Georgia, texted at 3:13 p.m.
The Meadows texts show that even those closest to the former President believed he had the power to stop the violence in real time.
Seventeen months later, CNN spoke to more than a dozen people who had texted Meadows that day, including former White House officials, Republican members of Congress and political veterans. Without exception, each said they stood by their texts and that they believed Trump had the power and responsibility to try to stop the attack immediately.
“I thought the President could stop it and was the only person who could stop it,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was Trump’s director of strategic communications until she left the White House in December 2020. Farah Griffin is now a CNN political commentator.
“When he finally tweeted something hours and hours later, there are reports of people inside the building saying, ‘He’s saying to go home.’ They would have listened to him,” she added.
Farah Griffin texted Meadows at 3:13 p.m. that day: “Potus has to come out firmly and tell protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed.”
Trump’s former acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, also texted Meadows on January 6: “Mark: he needs to stop this, now. Can I do anything to help?”
Mulvaney told CNN he stands by his text. “I wish someone had responded to my outreach,” he said.
Most of the people who spoke to CNN about their texts on January 6 would be quoted only anonymously. Some said it was because of their jobs. Some said they were afraid Trump would be reelected. One said they just didn’t want to go through “the misery of being targeted by Trump supporters.”
Their words were blunt, emotional and damning, even those who remain staunch Trump allies.
“I thought there was only one person who could stop it and that was the President,” said a senior Republican. “I don’t know that I can think of another situation that was as grave for the nation, or as affecting for the nation, where the President didn’t say something.”
A Meadows associate said Trump had waited too long to act: “Two hours is just inexcusable … when the safety of the federal government is in question you have the duty immediately to speak out. And Trump was derelict in that duty.”
Another political veteran said Trump’s silence made him complicit: “I think he knew he could stop it, which is why he remained silent.”
And a former Trump administration official summed it up with this stark assessment: “He failed at being the president.”
An attorney for Meadows did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the January 6 committee also did not respond to a request for comment.
‘I’m very worried about the next 48 hours’
The Meadows text logs present a dramatic timeline of how friends, colleagues and Republican allies were pleading for help on January 6.