A video shared online shows former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi snapped back at a conservative reporter accusing her of refusing the National Guard during the January 6, 2021, riots.
Pelosi (D-Calif.), 85, was holding the arm of an aide while walking outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday (October 15) when she was approached by Alison Steinberg, the Washington, D.C. correspondent for LindellTV, a far-right media platform founded by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who suggested that the former House Speaker would potentially be found “liable” by a new Republican-led committee investigating the insurrection.
“Shut up!” Pelosi responded. “I did not refuse the National Guard. The president didn’t send it. Why are you coming here with Republican talking points as if you are a serious journalist?”
The Republican majority House of Representatives voted to launch a new panel investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol last month, with the committee being chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who said he will focus on security failures that ultimately led to the riots being carried out. Both parties have blamed each other for the security breach, with Republicans claiming Pelosi was at fault for not calling the National Guard, while Democrats argued that President Donald Trump, who was weeks away from concluding his first presidential term at the time, was responsible for the actions carried out by his supporters as his administration took more than three hours to deploy National Guard members once the riots occurred.
“Donald Trump delayed deploying the National Guard on January 6th when our Capitol was under violent attack and lives were at stake. Now, he’s activating the DC Guard to distract from his incompetent mishandling of tariffs, health care, education and immigration — just to name a few blunders,” Pelosi wrote on her X account in August.
Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, however, claimed that Pelosi ignored his requests to deploy the National Guard days ahead of Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally that preceded the Capitol riots.
“Ma’am, it is long past time to be honest with the American people,” Sund wrote in response to Pelosi’s post on X. “On January 3, I requested National Guard assistance, but your Sergeant at Arms denied it. Under federal law (2 U.S.C. 1970), I was prohibited from calling them in without specific approval. That same day, Carol Corbin at the Pentagon offered National Guard support, but I was forced to decline because I lacked the legal authority.”
Sund added that Pelosi continued to delay his requests to deploy the National Guard on the day of the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.
“On January 6, while the Capitol was under attack and despite my repeated calls, your Sergeant at Arms again denied my urgent requests for over 70 agonizing minutes, ‘running it up the chain’ for your approval,” Sund said.
Additionally, footage released by HBO last year showing Pelosi exiting the Capitol on January 6, 2021, showed her admitting that Congress should’ve been better prepared for the riots.
“We’re calling the National Guard now? They should have been here to start out,” Pelosi said. “How many times did members ask, are we prepared? Are we prepared? We’re not prepared for the worst … We will have totally failed. And we’ve got to take some responsibility.”
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