WASHINGTON — Hours after a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and attacked dozens of police officers in an attempt to reach members of Congress, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was speaker of the House at the time, called the then-president a “domestic enemy.”
The comments came in a video shot by documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, Pelosi's daughter, whom HBO recently assigned to Congress. NBC News on Tuesday reviewed more than 30 minutes of video spanning nearly 48 hours from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including video that showed Pelosi being escorted away from the building by her security personnel as she pressured her staff members to send the National Guard to storm the Capitol.
His recently surfaced comments go a long way from public remarks he made on Jan. 7, when he said Trump “incited an armed insurrection against the United States” and “provoked” an attack that will “forever stain our country's history.”
HBO video showed Pelosi speaking to her staff that same day as she sat beneath an ornate mirror that had been smashed hours earlier by a pro-Trump mob when it vandalized her office.
“We are sworn to defend our country against all enemies, foreign or domestic,” he said. “There is a domestic enemy in the White House. And we must be open about that.”
The previously unaired video also shows Pelosi taking responsibility for not putting more pressure on law enforcement officials about their preparations before the attack.
“Why wasn’t the National Guard there initially?” Pelosi asked. “They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having prepared them more,” she said as she was led away by security personnel on Jan. 6. “It’s stupid that we had to be in this situation.”
“Did they think these people would behave civilly? Did they think these people would care? What is missing here in terms of anticipation?” he said.
The comments also show that Pelosi was skeptical about the motives of the law enforcement community, which is generally conservative-leaning. (For example, a high-ranking FBI official was warned hours after the attack that many in the bureau were “sympathetic” to the Capitol rioters.)
“We should be ashamed,” Pelosi said as her security unit escorted her to Fort McNair, where many congressional leaders had arrived on the night of Jan. 6, when the facility was transformed into a command center for those in the order of presidential succession. “We should be ashamed. I'm suspicious of them and their motives, to be honest.”
The House January 6 committee ultimately avoided focusing on law enforcement failures in the lead-up to the attack. Instead — as Pelosi had done immediately after the Capitol riot — it focused on Trump's role.
The new video also shows that Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, made a joke about Trump pardoning the rioters, a stance that Trump, the re-elected Republican presidential nominee, has supported, calling the Jan. 6 accused “hostages” and “incredible patriots.”
When Pelosi's daughter asked her on Jan. 7 how she feels now “tied” to Trump after Congress certified his election loss, a weary Pelosi says in the new video that there must be consequences for his actions.
“I am deeply saddened by what they did to the Capitol and to the country today,” Pelosi says. “They will pay a price for this.”