Donald Trump was reportedly mystified that his staffers didn't share his enthusiasm for the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The former president watched the violent riot unfold on television at the White House, according to former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, and he even rewound the footage and watched choice moments -- but he was confused why aides and associates weren't as excited, reported the Associated Press.
“Look at all of the people fighting for me,” Trump said, according to Grisham.
As the former president fixated on news reports of the violence, his staffers and outside advisers begged him to call off the mob of his supporters, and text messages turned over to the House select committee show them frantically urging Ivanka Trump to convince her father to take action.
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“We’re working on it,” she told Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
But staffers also feared what he would say if they could not carefully script Trump's message.
“Apparently, certain White House staff believed that a live unscripted press appearance by the President in the midst of the Capitol Hill violence could have made the situation worse,” House investigators wrote in a letter to Ivanka Trump asking for her cooperation.