Flew back from London on Sunday to DC on a plane surprisingly full. Check-in now involves proving you have a waiver from the US embassy to travel — check; that you have a negative Covid test — check. I decide half way across the Atlantic to hook up to the plane’s wifi, ostensibly to check football results, but see that there is an astonishing leak — the tape of a conversation between the President and the senior election official in Georgia. Donald Trump is clearly pressurising him to “recalculate” the votes in the state so that he comes out the winner. This is election interference isn’t it? And an imprisonable offence. Could anything be more jaw dropping? I quickly remind myself not to be so silly: with the Trump presidency your jaw can always drop lower.
I have covered dozens of Trump rallies over the time I’ve been in DC. But at the back of the White House, where thousands have gathered to hear a speech from the President, the atmosphere is different. It is sulphurous. Edgy. Angry. I meet a few young men who are dressed as though extras from a Robocop movie. They tell me they’re ready for action. Ready to fight. One says nothing changes without blood being spilled. I later see film of him inside the Capitol building, one of the rioters to storm the Congress.
Watching the riots unfold at the Capitol was simultaneously the most shocking thing I have seen…and not in the least bit surprising. The President had told the crowds to march on Congress. He has always given a latitude to his base that he never gives to his opponents. But the ease with which the rioters just waltzed in was quite something. Hard not to wonder what the police response would have been if they had been Black Lives Matter protesters.
It’s the day after the riots and I am back outside Congress to do a live with Sophie Raworth for the Six O’Clock news — and a group of Trump supporters start heckling me. A father and his 10-year old son are making a right racket. I realise, as I am speaking, they are chanting: “You lost. Go home.” I try to engage them afterwards so they can explain to me what the chant is about — that I lost the election? “No,” the father snarls at me, “You lost in 1776, now get out of our country.” I really don’t think I can be held directly responsible for the madness of George III.
A father and his son are heckling me. ‘You lost in 1776, now get out of our country,’ he snarls
To get to our live position the police needed to see my ID. The atmosphere is edgy after last night. Unfortunately, I hadn’t brought any, and I was panicking that he wouldn’t let me through. “How do I know you’re who you say you are?” Tricky. But then I produced my phone and showed him some photos: me at the foot of Air Force One, interviewing President Obama in the Roosevelt Room, in a Donald Trump news conference. Not a press card, but it seemed to work. “You’re good to go,” he told me.
I am just about to hit send to the editor, and I see an alert that Donald Trump is back on Twitter and has posted a video. Gone are all the claims of election fraud. There is condemnation of the rioters. The day before he loved them. There needs to be a smooth transition of power. I feel I have mental whiplash.
Jon Sopel’s new book, Unpresidented, is published on January 14
