Native Lampid is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media. Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home everyone. This is another edition of Native Lampod. I am your host of this solo pod. I'm ANGELAUII, and today we are talking about something that is near
and dear to my heart, a very sobering reality. Just five years ago, on January sixth, twenty twenty one, the world that I knew it, the Capitol Hill that I worked on, that built my career professionally, was changed forever.
On that day, Donald Trump denied election results that were very clear and encouraged protesters, an angry mob from all over the country that had descended onto the United States Capital to challenge election results, to push back, telling them that the Democratic Party what had stolen the election, that it had been rigged, that he never saw rigging like
that before. He blamed tech companies and everyone else for an election outcome that was clear and decisive on the other side of a COVID nineteen pandemic, on the other side of George Floyd's murder, and the people who always talked about backing the Blue the people who always talked about blue lives matter.
This is what they did instead.
O gun, We're.
Gonna stop this crowd.
Yeah, so this he said, you know, do you think your p shooter guns are going to stop this crowd, meaning that they're willing to get shot to accomplish their goal to go inside the building and carry out whatever violence they had in mind.
A lot of people who maybe didn't know the context of January sixth, would ask why were there's no arrests?
Could you just explain that. Sure, to make an arrest, you they require usually at least two officers, and once you have someone under arrest, you are responsible for them. You are responsible for their health and their safety, and you're responsible for transporting them securely to jail to where they would be processed. I mean, we couldn't guarantee our own health and safety, let alone those of anyone else.
And if we were to try to make arrests, every rest would require at least one officer leaving the scene, and we needed every single officer we had. So it was just it was not feasible to make any rest. It would be irresponsible, it would be ineffective to our own defense, it would be dangerous. It was just not possible. Yeah, there's so many of them, so a few of us that you know, once we lose the line, there's no way of getting it back. So they break through and
it devolves in the the West Front. It devolves into a series of pitched battles in between individuals. And I can't commit to an attack on anyone because once I do, ten more people are gonna come at me. Scott pushes me on the chest, pushing me back. This Champo over here, thanks the capital belongs to him, and here I get pinned against this wist tile wall. You can hear it
right here. That's me screaming because someone of the guy in the strided sweater thing is reaching underneath my visor and trying to gouge out my eye with.
His thumb, trying to goadge out his eyes.
And that is Officer Danny Hodges, who is a Capitolhill police officer, talking about his experience. And what NPR did is they showed footage from the bodycam footage of officers and allowed them to respond to what was happening on January sixth, twenty twenty one. Next, I want you to hear from at the time the Commander in Chief, Donald Trump at this rally, which really ended up being a riot.
And again, most people would stand there at nine o'clock in the evening and say I want to thank you very much, and they go off to some other life. But I said, something's wrong here, something's really wrong. Can't have happened. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun, my fellow Americans, for our movement,
for our children, and for our beloved country. And I say this, despite all that's happened, the best is yet to come. So we're going to we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we're going to the Capitol and we're going to and give the Democrats are hopeless. They're never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don't need any
of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I want to.
Thank you all.
God bless you and God bless America.
Thank you all for being here.
This is incredible. Thank you very much.
So now I want to bring in someone who also was there that day on January sixth, twenty twenty one. His name is Officer Harry Dunn. He's a Capitol Hill police officer. Folks who became like family to me, and Harry is one of them. So let's bring him in. I want you all to hear from him. Hi, Harry, thank you so much for being here today.
Hey angela happy New Year to you. Thanks for having me.
Happy New Year.
I know you are running all over the place today having to relive this really awful experience, But I do think it's important for those people who are at home, Harry, who may have never set foot on Capitol grounds, to talk about what happened that day and what your experience was. We know when Donald Trump came in this term, he pardoned more than sixteen hundred people who were affiliated with the violence and the havoc that was reaked on Capitol Hill.
So can you talk a little bit about your experience and what you saw that day?
Sure, one thing that you just said actually really stood out to me, just that quickly people that have made never stood foot on Capitol ground or the Capitol they were under attacked that day, whether you stepped there or not, because your representatives were under attacked, the people that represent you in the communities wherever you're listening to the show from. They wanted to overturn your vote or not even counter
your vote. They wanted what they wanted to install install Donald Trump to be president again when he lost an election. There was no evidence of that to the contrary to say that he didn't lose it. But I say this often, we don't need people to tell us what happened on January sixth. You know I've been doing it because clearly there's a battle going on right now, people conflating, not even complaining, just with out lying about what happened on
that day versus what happened. We don't need people to tell us, Like we saw the footage that you just played that just press play. You don't need anybody to analyze that footage. But it's unfortunate that we have to push back and say, yes, it's really happened, and it was one hundred times worse than what the footage actually shows. That nobody in their right mind watches that footage and say,
oh wow, that's that's an acceptable thing to do. If somebody is thinking that, like they need they say one hundred miles from me, like, that's not this isn't cool. But these people, these terrorists, these thugs, insurrectionists attacked me and my coworkers and everybody else listening like this was an attack on American principles, American democracy and free and fair elections, all because of one man. Donald Trump solely,
solely could have prevented January sixth. If Donald Trump didn't tell his writers to go to the Capitol, they wouldn't have been there. They were emboldened the most powerful person and the are going to be the world told them to go to the Capitol. Now listen, when my mom tell me to do something, I don't care who tell me to the contrary, my mama said do it, I'm gonna do it. Imagine the most powerful person in the world giving you marching orders. You're like, oh, okay, we
can do this. So that's where the audacity came from of these individuals feelings they had the right to do what they were doing. They thought that they were right. Now they're stupid for thinking that, But that goes to the mindset of the people that were there and the power and the whole that Donald Trump has over them.
Well, what's scary now, Officer Done, is you know, we all know what happened, but if you go to official government websites now, the way that they are framing January sixth is vastly different than what we are seeing with our own two eyes. So I do think it's important for people to understand when you say, me and my colleagues were attacked, what was that experience?
What was your role? Where were you on January sixth?
Sure? So, I fortunately I was blessed.
I didn't suffer a lot of the physical attacks that a lot of my coworkers did.
I was on an Overwatch post.
I had a long rifle attached to me, and I was kind of like Overwatch, and I made the conscious decision not to go down in the crowd because that weapon's going to get snatched from me and you're just going to be outnumbered, like one person. You know, I feel like I could throw hands a little bit, you know, one person going in there he's not going to make a big difference. When you got all those people down there, we needed help from the National Guard.
We needed help.
Like people asked, well, how did the rioters finally get under control? It wasn't no secret code that we use or some magic word. Help backup arrived. The National Guard showed up. Law enforcement showed up from all other precincts and jurisdictions across from the eastern the eastern East coast, from New Jersey, Virginia, New York.
There were officers all up North Carolina.
People came to help, and that's how we finally got the crowds under control. But these people were beating officers, calling us traders and talking about we can do this the hard way, the easy way of the hard way. We don't want to hurt you, but we will. These are quotes from them. Stand with us. They're telling stand with us, We're here to stop the Still these are quotes from that day.
When you think about how long it took, one of the things that we hear often from members of the Democratic Party is that Donald Trump refused to send in the National Guard. If you can recount at that time, like how long you remember it taking How long was.
It before the National Guard arrived?
Well, thim's a blur. Time is a blur that day. No, I don't. I don't have any at least in that moment.
Obviously, in the aftermath and being able to see for one hundred and eighty seven, one hundred and eighty nine or whatever the exact number was, we're able to see three plus hours. But in that moment, I didn't know whether it was ten minutes or four hours. I didn't know. The only thing we were working focused on is survival. As a police officer, your goal at the end of
the day is to go home. Some people did not go home at the end of their shift that day, and we were all focused a man, woman, black, white, getting each other home to their loved ones and to their families.
And that's I think is the part to me, And maybe this is my bias, so I'll acknowledge that the Capitol Hill Police is built different to me. Officer done like, these are the people who when we worked super late at night, I'm walking around the building like Longworth or ray Burn with no shoes on feet are done.
You know.
These are the people who, when I could finally put those shoes back on. They will walk us to our cars. They're asking about our families. They met, some of them met my parents. You know, the ones that are checking you and screening you when you first get in. How's your mom doing, how's your dad doing? Like they're different. It's not like a traditional police force, so these it felt like family.
So I'm looking now there are.
Some like the guy I cannot think of his officer's name, but you probably know who I'm talking about behind cannon that he's at. I'm sorry, y'all, this is and I'm not shaming, but he's a chubby or white guy, older and he's always yelling at people, even in the crosswalk. I don't even know if he's still there, but like, right, but there are the exception and not the norm.
And so what I what I'm curious.
About is like what you all were thinking, because even though we weren't your colleagues in uniform, we were your colleagues too.
We're your extended family too.
What were some of the thoughts you had about folks you really cared about and if they were okay.
Keeping them safe?
And if you look the number one goal of the Capitol Police is to create a safe environment so Congress can fulfill their constitutional obligations. That's literally the mission statement of Capitol Police. And I would like to say say at the end of the day, that mission was upheld. Now it took a hell of a detour, you know, it took a moment, but Congress went back and certified the election in the wee hours of the morning, early in the morning. So that's one of the things that
make me proud. I remember seeing I never it was an officer in the midst of the chaos, and this image always stands in my head was carrying what appeared to be a staff member, carrying them running through the crypt as rioters were approaching. I don't know if the person was hurt. I don't I don't even know who the officer was. I just saw somebody and they were carrying that person like a football, and they would just
keep these people safe. And not one member got hurt, not one staffer got hurt, Not even a hair on their head was harmed.
And I'd take very much, very pride in that.
And like you said, Capitol Police are different than your normal police force, and I just take pride in that.
Well.
I thank you so much officer them for your time. I know that you're going to continue to do this work. What's the thing that you would tell people at home to do to make sure that one we remember what happened and we prevent what happens going forward.
What would you tell us to do?
Stay engaged? Simple, simple, right, But it's so easy to check out. Listen a lot of people. I think when somebody tells you, hey, everything's going to be all right, whether it's you're going through a breakup or whether you're dealing with the Hey, it's gonna be okay, I don't know. That's the biggest gas lighting phrase I've ever heard of my life.
It's going to be okay. We don't know.
I don't know if we're going to survive these next three years coming up with this Trump administry.
I don't know.
However, I do know if we don't show up, if we just roll over and accept it, then we absolutely will not survive it. But showing up gives us a fighting chance. So stay engaged, stay involved, stay in the game. Do whatever you can do, whether it's calling, whether it's
calling educating a friend, registering somebody to vote. Voting is just something you have to do something to stay engaged, to stay involved, because you don't want to just say damn if I could have, I should have, could have would have do so well.
I'm so grateful that you stay engaged. Thank you so much for practicing what you preach, for joining me and please come back to an Officer Done.
Absolutely, thank you.
I appreciate you absolutely.
Likewise, well, y'all, we are just getting started into this show. Officer Done is tremendous, so brave for sharing his story consistently on and off air, making sure that we know to stay engaged, and on that I think in order to stay engaged, we have to understand the facts. So I want to take us back into January sixth, twenty twenty one, and what I want to do first actually
is bring in the clip that I recorded. It was the Instagram Live right when all this was going on, and I'll tell you, as I was recording this particular clip, I was thinking about all of my Hill family. I was calling my members and telling them to please not move from where they were, to stay locked in their offices in case they thought they could move around. I remember Congressman Joyce Beatty was having a meeting organizing meeting for the Congressional Black Caucus, and she began her tenure.
I asked her to please not leave her office. I called Congressman Carson and Congressman Thompson. I was texting and Congressman Cleaver asking them where they were in one particular moment. We have a Congressional Black Caucus family thread, and that is with my former team, and Brandon and Stephanie were already off the Hill, as was I, but our sister LaTrece Powell was still there and she worked for Nancy Pelosi, and we saw that Nancy Pelosi was a prime target.
The Republican Party has long made Nancy Pelosi a boogeyman, and so we began to think about Trees, and so we asked Trees where she was. And we didn't hear from Latrese for three hours, and I was so scared in the midst of that I recorded this video. I just am kind of in shock. I'm not in shock
that this is happening. I'm not in shock that the Capitol Hill police, not all of them, because there are some great officers, but there are definitely some who were taking selfies with protesters, with terrorists and there were those who.
Helped to move the gates.
And so when I think about Congressman Cleaver or Congressman Carson or Congressman Jeffries, or Congresswoman Omar or Congresswoman Presley or congressmanber Bass or the new chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, I'm thinking about people who are my family members, congress Congressman GK. Butterfield, who are in these buildings on the House floor to do the people's business.
You know, staffers who.
Are working to ensure that the whole of America is good, whether you voted for their bosses or not. Right, the fact of the matter is, this is not a game. It's never been a game. It was not a game when Donald Trump was campaigning off this bullshit in twenty sixteen.
It wasn't a game when I was.
On CNN arguing with people who did not have the credibility to even be sitting opposite of me. This has never been a joke. It's never been about a rating. This has never been about, you know, a divided America, and we tap into it and study the impact. This was always going to be the consequence of giving airtime, on social media, on cable news, on radio to domestic terrorists.
This was always going to be the consequence of this, And so what we really have to imagine is how long we are going to continue to be terrorized, because that's what's been going on since fourteen ninety two. It's not a surprise that white people who are threatened that their power is gone will behave this way.
It's not surprising to any.
Of us because it happens in our neighborhoods. It happens every time someone in our family is pulled over by a police officer. This is what happen, happens, This is what we are telling you, this is what we've been saying. So when you talk to me about how defund the police is terrorism, when you talk to me and you tell me how Black Lives Matter is terrorism, I don't want you to say shit else to me about that, because it's not real. The terrorists are the folks who
are on my TV right now, making it so. Members of Congress who I love and even those who I don't, are stuck in their offices, stuck together in undisclosed locations, afraid and really ready to go home. But don't know where all the protesters may be, the folks who are concerned that there might be another explosive device in the Capitol. At the bottom line is we're talking about what domestic terrorism looks like. And I think that what you are
very clear about. No matter how they try to whitewash pun intended history, it was a terrorist attack on Capitol Hill that day. And it wasn't a foreign terrorist attack on Capitol Hill that day. It was a domestic terrorist attack encouraged incited by the commander in chief at that time. So I want to remind you again with your own two eyes of what that terrorist attack looks like.
Let's throw the clip.
That's why do you want to go?
You want to go back to.
Get what is your kids? Now?
I do.
It's my partner, Mike staying there, Buddy, Mike, it's Jimmy.
I'm here.
Take Mike, I'm here for you.
Come on, dud Well, Mike, Buddy, We're going to hellcott sit. No, k take that doorback. Yeah we did, Yes, we did.
We took the funt door back all outside.
Do you even remember saying that?
No? No, It's like.
In character, I was always like a pretty mission focused cop and that was a goal plus like I mean shit, I guess like subconsciously I was thinking if I just went through all of that and we lost the goddamn door.
OK.
That was former officer Michael Fanone who suffered a mild heart attack in that clip. That's what was happening. And so I think it's important as people tried to whitewash history and claim that it was patriots that descended down on the Capitol, that we remember the officers like Michael Fanon who were standing trying to guard and protect democracy,
literally with their own lives on the line. There's one other that I think is important to hear from UH as we talk about what happened that day, who had what constitutional requirement to fulfill. One of those people was Mike Pince, whose memory was jogged right in time to run for president in twenty twenty four, and in that presidential announcement he had this to say.
It begins with a promise that I made to the American people and to Almighty God, and it ends with different visions for the future of our nation and our party. January sixth was a tragic day in the life of our nation. But thanks to the courage of law enforcement. The violence was quelled and we reconvened the Congress the very same day to complete the work of the American people under the Constitution of the United States. As I've said many times, on that fateful day, President Trump's words
were reckless. I endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol. But the American people deserve to know.
That.
On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution, and I always will. My former running mate continues to insist that I had the right to overturn the election. But President Trump was wrong then and he's wrong now. I will always believe, by God's grace, I did my duty that day.
I kept my oath to ensure the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States of America.
Vice President Mike Pince was loud then in twenty twenty four preparing to run for president, but he's quiet now. He's quiet in the face of governmental websites being changed to tell a completely different story. Despite the fact that Mike Pence himself his name plastered across hanging gallows with a noose attached, with threats being experienced, people literally going
throughout the Capitol to hunt him down. And while they were doing that, moderately encouraged by Donald Trump, who called Mike pincer coward, who urged him to do the right thing, which was opposite of Spike Lee's do the right thing and actually the very wrong thing. This is the same man who, in his silence, I don't know if he ever told Donald Trump that he should call in the National Guard, but what we know is it took the
National Guard a long time to get there. With Mike Pence's life on the line, Nancy Pelosi's, Hakim Jeffreys, Jim Clyburns, Benny Gordon Thompson, Everybody's life on the line, and not to forget all of the many staffers, and if you think they were going to be checking for who was a Democrat or a Republican, you're wrong.
Everybody's life was on the line that day.
And that is why I cannot understand why, on a bipartisan level, there wasn't an all out effort to ensure that this man who put democracy on the line, who demonstrated just how fragule. It was to this country wasn't challenged in a more forceful way, except for when greed gets in the way. But nonetheless, the National Guard was hours late to show up.
And here's what this gentleman had to say about that.
What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that we had a force equipped and ready to respond, and despite the inaccuracies of the Dodig report, we had a plan and would have liked the opportunity to try. Instead, we waited for hours less than two miles east of the Capitol building, absolutely frustrating, knowing our capital had been breached and not understanding why we had not received the authorization to respond. I cannot tell you the number of
times someone has asked me where were you? Where was the National Guard? Or how can you call yourselves capital guardians? There's no easy response to those questions. And the truth is we were there and we were ready. We just weren't authorized to respond, and that is difficult to explain. The soldiers and airmen of the DC National Guard deserve better.
And we all deserve better.
And I think that the reality of it is is we have found out since then this full year, this past fell year twenty twenty five, that Donald Trump knows exactly how to call on the National Guard. He knows how to call on the National Guard for everything.
That does not matter.
But he does not know, or did not know, or pretended not to know, how to call on the National Guard when it mattered. Most the people who he has to work with day in and day out to sign sign bills into law, he turned a blind eye to them. The staffers that work tirelessly to ensure that the American people are protected and covered and policy is fought for, whether you agree with the solutions or not. He turned a blind eye to all of them. But the National Guard.
He can call the National Guard in the cities over full crime. He can call the National Guard into cities when he thinks that immigrants are the real problem. He can call in the National Guard for everything and anything other than to protect the capital, to allow them to fulfill their duty of being capital guardians. And despite all of that recklessness, the wanton disregard for life, the irresponsibility that your president had that day, they're rewriting the history
and we will not allow them to do that. Five years later, it was still one of the worst terrorist attacks domestically on our soil, and.
We should never never veer from that truth.
I just want to take this moment to shout out someone who at the time was a member of Congress representing Delaware, an House member representing Delaware. Now she is a member of Congress, but as the first black woman Senator, things could have gone very differently for Lisa Blant Rochester on January sixth, twenty twenty one. But she chose to call on a higher power. She chose to summon the
heavens and pray. And I think in moments like these, when we feel like things are completely beyond our control, it is our obligation to call on something bigger, someone bigger than ourselves, because it's like, what else can you do when you can literally hear bullets ringing out? In this video that's going to play next, she called on She got on her knees and she called out to God.
This is video from and said the House yes earlier. So where this is being shot from is actually the side of the House chamber where the first lady.
Normally say yes correct during.
A stadium There you can see members of Congress. That's Primila Gai.
Apartmlajiapaul from Washington.
Correct, you remember speak there you go and you can. Let's listen.
And that woman there is a number of Congress I think time they got pooh exactly.
She appears to.
Be making a video or a statement because she's getting this one of the speech.
She's praying, she is proud.
And that I will stay down, Stay down, shouts a member of Congress inside the hallowed halls of our United States cons.
And that's not a shower cap. That's the kind of masks there that are under the seat in the event of some kind of chemical agent being released in the chamber. So remember we reported earlier that members have been instructed to use the gas mask under their seats and have them ready or to shelter under their chairs. And this is the video showing that in fact, many.
Did do that.
Well, this is why it is important to recall history correctly. It is important to recall history with people who were actually there, who know what happened, who experienced it firsthand, whose responsibility it was to be guardians of the Capitol. I want to point out to you that that is
what happened on January sixth, twenty twenty one. And when Donald Trump was sworn in last year on Martin Luther King Day, one of his first acts was to pardon the sixteen hundred men and women and people who were involved in that terrorist attack on the Capitol building.
That insurrection.
He partned sixteen hundred people, and since then several of them have been rearrested thirty three at least thirty three who were pardoned, have now been convicted of, or charged with or arrested for additional crimes since that violent attack on the Capitol. This is coming from a report from where are they now? The perpetrators of January sixth and the Defenders of democracy who stop them? From the House
Committee on the Judiciary led by Congressman Jamie Raskin. Some of the crimes that they have the rioters were convicted of or have been charged with or arrested for include child sexual assault, production of child pornography, possession of child pornography, rape, conspiracy to commit murder of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated robbery, reckless homicide, driving under the influence
causing death, illegal possession of firearms, domestic violence by strangulation, burglary, vandalism, grand theft, stalking, violation of protective orders, threatening public officials, and drug trafficking. If you're wondering why there's this long list of bolonious activity from insurrectionists, I'd invite you to look at your president, who was also had a laundry list of felonies that he's either been charged with, accused of and died it for, or investigated about.
With that, y'all, Welcome home.
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