“I requested … I definitely gave the number of 10,000 National Guardsmen, and [said] 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 they didn’t think it would look good. So, you know, that was a big mistake.”
—Former president Donald Trump, in an interview with Steve Hilton of Fox News, Feb. 28, 2021
We’re going to try to have a high bar for fact checks of former president Donald Trump. His speech Sunday to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was mostly a replay of false claims he has said many times before, all documented in our Trump claims database. So we took a pass on that.
A large majority of senators — even those who did not vote to convict him at his impeachment trial — regard Trump as responsible for the riot and believe he failed to act decisively as the violence unfolded. So it would be significant if Trump actually requested the dispatch of National Guard troops at the Capitol — especially if, as Trump suggests, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) then blocked that deployment.
But it did not happen. Continue reading.