On Sunday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed that former Pres. Donald Trump is lying when he says he offered 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the Capitol three days before the January 6, 2021 riot – but, on the same day, Trump said he has a letter proving she did.
On NBC’s "Meet the Press," Trump told moderator Kristen Welker that that he had offered then-House Speaker Pelosi troops three days before January 6, but Pelosi rejected them:
Pres. Trump: “National Guard not coming?
“I asked it to be there three days in advance, and she turned it down.”
NBC’s Welker: “She says that that request was never officially made. Just so you know.”
Pres. Trump: “Oh, stop it.”
Trump then said that he has a letter from Democrat D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser telling him Pelosi rejects the troops:
“Let me tell you. The mayor of D.C. gave us a letter saying that she turns it down.”
“Okay, we have that.”
However, despite appearing in what he must have known would be a hostile interview, Trump did not produce the letter he says is documentation of his claim.
Trump also said that Pelosi personally turned down his offer:
“Nancy Pelosi also was asked, and she turned it down.”
“I'm talking the day of,” Welker said, prompting Trump to note that the Capitol Police have also said that Pelosi turned the offer of troops:
“Wait a minute. Capitol Police said that he wanted it and Nancy Pelosi wouldn't accept it. She's responsible for January 6th.”
But, in her interview on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart,” Pelosi said that both Trump and the Capitol Police lied, when they said she turned down the offer for the National Guard to protect the Capitol on January 6:
“However, he always projects. Now, he used to say, ‘Well, she turned down my troops -- no, we begged him: Chuck Schumer and I begged him to send the troops again and again.
“His secretary of the Army, McCarthy, another McCarthy, and acting secretary of defense just made it… ‘Oh, too many obstacles, it’s bureaucratic, it's this, we can't do it. ‘ They know their exposure, so they project.”
“So he says, also in that interview, Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 soldiers,” Capehart said.
Pelosi didn’t answer the question about Trump’s offer made prior to January 6.
Instead, she implied that she wouldn’t have rejected the offer of troops, if it had come while the riot was occurring. She then called for an “intervention” to address the “sickness” of Trump’s claim:
“Well these Trump-ites were attacking the Capitol, fighting the police, threatening my life, and the life of the vice president, we’re turning down the troops? Why, there is the sickness here, there that has to be an intervention.”