Trump “had asked for up to 10,000 National Guard troops to be available” to the speaker and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser,” said the former president’s chief of staff. “And, unfortunately, they did not take him up on that.”
Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to President Trump, said that during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked the Department of Defense what time Congress members could get their lunch.
Meadows told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Tuesday that while he wasn’t in the room at the time of the call, Pelosi contacted Department of Defense officials later on during the riot and “made an inquiry about what time, you know, our members could actually get their lunch.”
“I find it amazing that she was more interested in their culinary position than they are in anything else,” he added.
Trump “had asked for up to 10,000 National Guard troops to be available to Nancy Pelosi and to [Washington, D.C.] Mayor [Muriel] Bowser,” Meadows said. “And, unfortunately, they did not take him up on that. But he did put them on the ready, and that’s why they were able to respond as quickly as they did.”
Meadows explained that Trump had made the National Guard available two days before the Capitol riot because he knew a lot of people would attend the rally on Jan. 6 and remembered Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and others had been previously accosted leaving the Republican National Convention.
“And what he didn’t want is this whole chaos to erupt with counterprotesters and the like,” but that was “largely … ignored” leading up to and on Jan. 6 “by those that should be making the decision,” Meadows recounted, referring to Pelosi.
Asked to comment on Meadows’ claims regarding Pelosi’s query about lunch and refusal to take Trump up on his offer of 10,000 National Guard troops, the speaker’s office replied: “This is false and makes no sense on its face. The breach of the Capitol was in the 2 pm hour. It is already established that US Capitol security officials requested National Guard for hours before the request was granted by the Trump Administration.”
According to reports from the Military Times and The Associated Press, then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy received the request for National Guard troops around 2 p.m., and passed it along to then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, who said he approved it at 3 p.m. After the approval went through, the National Guard headed to the armory, put on protective gear, and loaded into vehicles, making it to the Capitol between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Kash Patel, who was chief of staff to Miller on Jan. 6, told Mark Levin in September about Pelosi’s inquiry that day.
“Do you want to know what Speaker Pelosi’s worry was on Jan. 6 when she called me and the Secretary of Defense, after Ashli Babbitt was shot, within the hour after her shooting?” he asked. “She asked the Secretary of Defense and I what time congressional food services was going to reopen so that her members could eat?
“I said, ‘Madam Speaker, my focus is on defending the Capitol building and defending the Constitution and not allowing armored personnel carriers — which was your request — to float down the streets of D.C. because the Capitol Police and the FBI failed their duties on Jan. 6.'”