Days before the Capitol riot on January 6, President Trump personally requested that 10,000 National Guard troops be deployed at the Capitol over concerns of the crowd size, he revealed on “The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton” on Fox News Sunday evening. He said the request was denied over the optics that the troops’ presence would create.
We actually req—I requested, I said, ‘look, this rally is going to be bigger than anyone thinks,’ because everyone I’d see says, ‘we’re going to be at the rally, we’re going to be at the rally,’ and I think it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to before, and I’ve spoken to very big crowds. Hundreds of thousands of people,” Trump explained. “And I said, ‘you should have 10,000’—I think I gave the number. I definitely gave the number—’you should have 10,000 National Guardsman. I think you should have 10,000 of the National Guard ready.’ They took that number, from what I understand. They gave it to the people at the Capitol, which is controlled by Pelosi, and I heard they rejected it because it wouldn’t look good.”
“So, you know, that was a big mistake,” Trump added.
Pelosi’s office didn’t respond to an inquiry from Fox News about Trump’s claim, but last month, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had told a similar story to Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network—that Trump had issued a “direct order” to have up to 10,000 National Guard troops available for his rally.
Doesn’t sound like someone who would “incite an insurrection,” does it?
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter, Gab, Facebook, MeWe, Heroes, Rumble, and CloutHub.
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