President Donald Trump has confirmed reports he requested 10,000 National Guard troops ahead of the January 6th rally in Washington, D.C., only to be rebuffed by authorities.
Speaking Steve Hilton on “The Revolution,” the former president outlined how he knew in advance of the crowd size:
“Everyone said we’ll be at the rally. It was, I think, the largest crowd that I have ever spoken to before. I have spoken to big crowds, hundreds of thousands of people, more than that, but hundreds of thousands of people.”
In response, Trump said he “gave the number” to the Department of Defense, insisting that 10,000 members of the National Guard would be needed.
“They took that number, from what I understand, they gave it to people at the Capitol, that is controlled by Pelosi, and I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it would look good,” added Trump in the interview after his Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) speech.
Trump’s comments follow reports that Pelosi discouraged the Sergeant at Arms from deploying the force and an implausible timeline whereby Pelosi approved a request for the National Guard before it was even received by former Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving.
The news confirms reporting from Vanity Fair, mostly ignored by the mainstream media:
On the evening of January 5—the night before a white supremacist mob stormed Capitol Hill in a siege that would leave five dead—the acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller, was at the White House with his chief of staff, Kash Patel. They were meeting with President Trump on “an Iran issue,” Miller told me. But then the conversation switched gears. The president, Miller recalled, asked how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day. “We’re like, ‘We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’” Miller responded. “And [Trump] goes, ‘You’re going to need 10,000 people.’ No, I’m not talking bullshit. He said that. And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’” At that point Miller remembered the president telling him, “‘You do what you need to do. You do what you need to do.’ He said, ‘You’re going to need 10,000.’ That’s what he said. Swear to God.”
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