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Donald Trump repeated a chant his supporters were heard shouting on January 6 about wanting to "hang" former vice president Mike Pence while watching the Capitol riot unfold on television, according to a book.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump's ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, made the claims about Trump's behavior during the January 6 attack in her new book, Enough.
Hutchinson had previously provided some of the most damning testimony regarding the former president's actions to the House Select Committee investigating the events which led up to the Capitol attack.
Among some of the claims Hutchinson made in 2022 was that Trump was aware some of his supporters were armed on January 6, but still told them to march to the Capitol, and that he didn't care that his supporters were chanting "hang Mike Pence" during the riot.
Prior to the attack on the Capitol by his supporters, Trump had repeatedly and falsely suggested that Pence had the power to prevent the certification of the 2020 election results during his purely ceremonial role as presiding officer of the Senate.
According to an extract of Hutchinson's new book, read out during The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Trump repeatedly said "hang" while he was watching the January 6 attack on television in the White House.
Newsweek has contacted Trump's office for comment via email.
Hutchinson wrote that he heard the president repeat the phrase while handing over a cellphone to Meadows so that Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan could speak to him.
"Mark sees me, and I point at the phone screen, where Jim's caller ID is visible. He comes over to take the phone, propping the door open with his body as he talks to Jim," Hutchinson writes.
"I take a few steps back as Mark takes my place in the doorway and I strain to listen to both conversations. The TV in the Oval [Office] dining room is blaring. The president is yelling.
"What is he saying? I can't make it out. I hear him say 'hang' repeatedly. Hang? Hang? What's that about? Mark hands his phone back to me. The cue for me to return to my desk."
Hutchinson adds that Trump then posted on X, then called Twitter, as the violence was unfolding that Pence "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done" by preventing the 2020 election result.
Trump is alleged to have posted the message on social media minutes after being made aware that the vice president was being escorted out of the Senate chamber for his own safety.
"I'm struggling to process what's happening as Mark, [White House lawyers] Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, and Eric Herschmann stumble back into the office. I overhear their conversation, and suddenly everything makes sense," Hutchinson writes.
"They are calling for the vice president to be hanged. The president is OK with it. He doesn't want to do anything. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. He thinks Mike is a traitor."
In June 2022, the January 6 House Select Committee showed part of Hutchinson's under-oath testimony in which she relayed hearing a conversation that Meadows had with Cipollone stating Trump believed that Pence "deserves" to have people chanting about wanting to hang him.
"Mark had responded something to the effect of, 'You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong,'" Hutchinson told the panel.
In November 2021, Trump defended the chants about hanging Pence, telling ABC News' Jonathan Karl, "Well, the people were very angry."
During Hutchinson's interview on The Rachel Maddow Show, her first live television appearance since her January 6 testimony, Hutchinson said the Republican Party is facing a "make-or-break" moment as to whether they should continue to support Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary who is facing 91 criminal charges across four investigations. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the accusations against them.
"Now is the time if these politicians, these men and some women, that are currently in Congress want to make the break and want to take the stand, they have to do it now," Hutchinson said.
"I think it's extremely disappointing, and it's not a hard issue to take. We're talking about a man who at the very essence of his being almost destroyed democracy in one day and he wants to do it again. He wants to run for president to do it again," Hutchinson added.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more