Trump bellowed at Mark Meadows to go 'bust some heads' of protesters: new book

Writing in his new book, Mark Meadows recounted an incident in which President Donald Trump had ordered that protesters be cleared out of a public park in Washington, D.C.

"Upstairs in the Residence, President Trump was growing anxious," the book describes. "He had given an order for the park to be cleared, and it was not being followed. The various law enforcement agencies that were supposed to be under the command of Bill Barr were clearly not communicating with one another, and it did not seem that a single arrest had yet been made."

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Meadows writes in his book that protesters were trying to topple a statue of former President Andrew Jackson in D.C.'s Lafayette Square on June 22, 2020. He called Trump asking what he had the authority to do.

“Not only do you have the authority,” Trump bellowed according to the Meadows book. “I want you to go out there and bust some heads and make some arrests. We need to restore order.”

"Then I walked out to Lafayette Park, just shy of the Andrew Jackson statue, where rioters were loosening bolts so that they could topple it. I ordered law enforcement surrounding the statue to go in."

He explained that the leaders of the Secret Service were resisting the idea that should intervene.

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“Now?” they said, according to the book.

“Yes, now!” Meadows said. “Go in. Stop them from taking down that statue.”

The Meadows book was released Tuesday, just as the former chief of staff announced that he would no longer cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee.

(A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Mark Meadows’ book claimed that Donald Trump made his “bust some heads” remark prior to his photo op at St. John's Church on June 1. He was referring to another incident on June 22.)