It reportedly took Trump multiple takes to tell rioters to leave Capitol in Jan. 6 video

published 10 October 2021

In his upcoming book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, ABC News' chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl reports that, during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, former President Donald Trump didn't make it easy on his aides who produced the Twitter video in which he called on his supporters to go home.

At first, Trump, who reportedly boasted about the crowd size, pushed back against the members of his team who wanted him to put a halt to the rioting. And even when he relented and agreed to film the video, Trump reportedly had to go through several takes before he actually stuck to the script. An aide present for the recording told Karl that in earlier versions Trump never actually told the crowd to disperse.

He eventually did, though some of that ambiguity remained in the final version, in which Trump told the rioters, "We love you. You are special." Watch Karl's report below, and read more anecdotes from the book, including new details about Trump's efforts to convince the Justice Department to help him overturn the election and his Jan. 6 call with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), at ABC News.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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