While House members were sequestered, Brooks heard some noise, but just “a little bit of loudness.” He definitely never heard any gunfire. He never saw anybody panicking. He never saw any weapons. Indeed, never saw a single protestor. And no one was ever instructed to put on a gas mask. Brooks was on the baseball field in 2017 practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity when a gunman opened fire on him and his colleagues, wounding then House majority whip Steve Scalise. On the “scary meter,” noted Brooks, that was a ten. The January 6 invasion of the Capitol, during which 140 were injured and at least five people died in connection with the riot, was, on Brooks’s scary meter, a one.

Brooks says he has “no recollection” of speaking to the White House on January 6 (Meadows though was in close touch with Brooks’s conservative Freedom Caucus colleague Jim Jordan). But, at least until later in the afternoon, Brooks’s version was largely the view of events that the president was holding to: it wasn’t that bad; the Capitol Police had it under control; everybody was safe.

Meadows, Herschmann, and Scavino began pressing the president to make some public acknowledgment of what was happening and to admonish the protestors, but his attention was elsewhere, still focused on the vice president. Fourteen minutes after his tweet attacking Pence, at 2:38 p.m., the aides managed to get a tweet out from the president composed by Scavino: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

The president spoke to retired general Keith Kellogg, who was one of his favorite military guys and was the vice president’s national security advisor, to ask about the vice president.

Kellogg was in touch with Marc Short, who was with the vice president and the VP’s Secret Service detail. The vice president was okay, Kellogg reported.

At least this would become the White House’s stated instance of the president’s expression of concern for the vice president. The vice president’s team, in the secure location, registered no direct conversation with the White House until after 5 p.m.

And at no time did the president call the vice president.

Approaching 3 p.m., the pressure for the president to say something quickly mounted.

Ivanka Trump had been floating around the West Wing, chatting to a variety of people. Her children had gotten into private school in Florida, and she was pleased about this—an excited topic of conversation. She was pulled away from her discussion about schools to join the increasingly tense discussion about how to respond to the news.