Even Stephen Miller reportedly thinks today was bad

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published 7 January 2021

There appears to have been a major shift in Washington, with the breach at the Capitol marking a turning point that even President Trump's most loyal aides can't ignore.

A mob, incited by Trump, stormed the Capitol as part of the doomed attempt to overturn the election results. This caused near universal outrage, with Democrats and Republican decrying the violence. Trump, meanwhile, reportedly raged against Vice President Mike Pence for not blocking the Electoral College certification and publicly told his supporters they were "very special" and he loved them.

Some staffers contemplated leaving the White House, while several others, including first lady Melania Trump's chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, sprang into action, quickly submitting their resignation letters. Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman reports that even senior adviser Stephen Miller, the immigration hardliner who crafted Trump's travel ban and pushed to separate migrant families at the border, "told one Republican that it was a terrible day."

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It's going to be hard for Trump to find sympathy anywhere, Sherman reports. Many Republican officials blame him for the GOP losing both of Georgia's Senate seats, due to Trump repeatedly saying the state rigged the presidential election. "When Trump took office, we had the White House and both branches of Congress," one Republican strategist told Sherman. "Now we have nothing. He inherited a Lamborghini and treated it like a lawn mower."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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