Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Weeks after a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he said he had done what he could before the event to make sure the building was protected. He had offered then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thousands of National Guard troops to surround the building, but she declined.

He told the story on Fox News on Feb. 28, 2021, and has repeated it many times since, including during the current presidential campaign.

Key 2024 election dates

Nov. 5 general election

The general election is Nov. 5, with a new set of deadlines.
Oct. 19 to Nov. 1: Early voting from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Main Public Library, 613 Pleasant St.
Nov. 5: General election. Polls open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

More voter info

Where do you vote? To find your specific polling location, enter your street address and postal zip code in this online form. Check the list of New Bedford’s polling locations here.

Get additional info on voter registration, eligibility, requirements, etc., at the Massachusetts Secretary of Commonwealth website.

Find a list of Massachusetts candidates in the Democratic and Republican primary races.

Learn more about voting in New Bedford and find applications for absentee ballots and applications for voting by mail at the New Bedford Election Commission website.

Find additional information about voting in Massachusetts at Vote 411, from the League of Women Voters Education Fund.

The story has been deemed false and debunked repeatedly since early 2021, including during the 2024 campaign. 

The story has not held up to reporting first by Vanity Fair magazine, which had a reporter embedded with the U.S. Department of Defense at the time of the attack, and in fact-checking by The Washington Post and the Associated Press.

One key aspect of it — that Trump suggested the Capitol Police call out National Guard troops before Jan. 6 and that Pelosi rejected that suggestion — is “just fantasy,” The Post wrote in a “Fact Checker” analysis published in March 2021.

“Like many of Trump’s falsehoods, there’s a seed of reality here,” The Post wrote. “But then the former president nurtures it into a bush of fictions as part of his continuing effort to evade responsibility for how his own actions led to the Capitol Hill riot.”

According to Vanity Fair, Trump did have a conversation with his acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller on the evening of Jan. 5. Miller told Trump they would provide whatever National Guard troops were requested by the District of Columbia. Trump suggested they would need “10,000 people,” as Miller told Vanity Fair. Miller said that he replied someone would have to make the request, and Trump replied “you do what you need to do.”

Related ⇢

Miller did not take that as an order; Pelosi was not mentioned. 

Trump has said defense officials “took that number” of troops and gave it to the Capitol Police, but there is no evidence that this happened.

“Trump never made such an offer, and Pelosi never rejected it, as Trump claimed,” the Associated Press reported in a fact check in July 2024. “His military leadership has confirmed that there was no formal offer made, despite some private musings in the days before Jan. 6.”

This version of events is supported by the official Department of Defense memo on planning and execution of Capitol security from Dec. 31 to Jan. 6. The timeline includes a reference to a phone call with Pelosi and then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at 3:19 p.m. on Jan. 6 about a request for more forces from Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

That is the only reference to Pelosi in the memo.

Aside from Trump’s debunked claim, how does Pelosi figure into this?

As House Speaker, she and then-Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell each appointed a member to the three-member Capitol Police Board, which can order the National Guard to the Capitol. There is no evidence the board deployed troops before the assault began, according to the Associated Press.

House Republicans have seized on Pelosi’s appearance in video taken during the Jan. 6 attack that surfaced in August 2024 as evidence that she was responsible for the security failure. 

At one point in the video, Pelosi talks with aides as she is escorted out of the Capitol during the assault.  

“I take full responsibility,” she said. At another point, she said “Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with? They clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepared for more.”

Reporting on the video shows Pelosi was blaming herself for not having pushed for better preparation. She also blamed Trump for instigating the attack.

In July 2022, Reuters reported, the Democrat-led House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack asked former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone “question after question in the recorded testimony about Trump’s actions: Did he call the secretary of defense? The attorney general? The head of Homeland Security? Cipollone answered ‘no’ to each query.” 

Testimony before House committees has shown mixed views from military officials on whether Trump’s intervention could have brought a more prompt National Guard response.

According to Politico, Michael Brooks, senior enlisted leader of the D.C. National Guard at the time, and Brigadier Gen. Aaron Dean, the D.C. Guard adjutant general, told House Administration Committee staff members that “if Trump had reached out that day — which, by all accounts, he did not — he might have helped cut through the chaos amid a tangle of conflicting advice and miscommunication.”

Ryan McCarthy, who was Army secretary at the time, expressed a different opinion to the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack. According to Politico’s summary of McCarthy’s testimony, he said that “a call from Trump would not have hastened the National Guard response because he [McCarthy] was already moving as quickly as possible.”

The House Committee on the attack — after interviewing about 1,000 people and holding televised hearings in 2022 — concluded that Trump was to blame for the attack. The committee in December 2022 voted unanimously to refer Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution.

Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.com

11 replies on “Trump’s claim that Pelosi turned down National Guard help on Jan. 6 is ‘just fantasy’”

  4. & WHAT YOU STATE IS BS.. PRESIDENT TRUMP TOLD THE TRUTH.. YOU JUST CHOOSE TO IGNORE THAT TRUTH & LIE ABOUT UT.. THAT IS MY OPINION!!!

  5. It’s my opinion that a President of the United States could do more than “offer” or “suggest” that 10,000 troops be deployed. A “order” would have been nice.

    1. You mean like this?

      “GENERAL MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF:
      “[January 3, 2021] The President just says, ‘Hey, look at this. There’s going to be a large amount of protesters here on the 6th, make sure that you have sufficient National Guard or Soldiers to make sure it’s a
      safe event.’” *
      “[POTUS said] ‘Hey, I don’t care if you use Guard, or Soldiers, active duty Soldiers, do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it’s safe.’” *

      https://cha.house.gov/_cache/files/b/8/b8310e3b-5966-4ae5-bae8-330fc3a7705b/1CBF2FE8BF862BCB77CDA87CBCBAF473.dod-transcripts-one-pager-final.pdf

      1. Take one truth and turn it into a lie. Trump’s own staff didn’t listen to him. Pelosi had ZERO to do with it.

Comments are closed.