Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live at the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. On today's show, New York is filled with great places to eat, and many of them have lines. We'll talk about which ones are worth the wait with Grub Street and New York Magazine writer Tammie Teclemariam. The Under the Radar Festival kicks off tomorrow, and its creative directors join us to talk about some of the highlights. It's time to start reading our January Get Lit with All Of It book club pick. We'll preview this month's pick with author Ocean Vuong. That's the plan, so let's get this started. [music]

On this day five years ago, a mob broke into the US Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. American citizens brutally attacked Metropolitan and Capitol police officers as the rioters searched for lawmakers. The people, everyone from a construction worker from Ohio to a former exterminator from Iowa, wanted to "stand up for Donald Trump." They called for violence against Vice President Mike Pence and against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, second in line to the presidency.

Congressmen and women senators, journalists, staffers, and more hid in rooms throughout the Capitol as it became clear it was a vicious attack. It was hours before the mob was cleared from the building, and the election of Joe Biden could be certified. On his first day as a second term in office in 2025, President Trump issued clemency for everyone convicted of a crime on January 6th.

One person who experienced this insurrection firsthand is Associated Press Reporter Mary Clare Jalonick. She was there that day covering Congress. In the five years since, she's been dedicated to interviewing everyone she could about what happened. The result is in her new book, Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th. Kirkus calls the book, "A document of central concern to all those concerned with the future of American democracy." It is out today. Mary Clare Jalonick, welcome to All Of It.

Mary Clare Jalonick: Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we'd like to hear from you what you remember the most about January 6th. Were you there that day? How do you hope January 6th is remembered in the future? We're reflecting on the 5th anniversary, anniversary of the January 6th attack. You can give us a call now at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You were at the Capitol on January 6th.

Mary Clare Jalonick: I was.

Alison Stewart: What do you think is an aspect of the January 6th attack that's hard to explain to someone who wasn't there?

Mary Clare Jalonick: Well, I think the basic facts are pretty easy to explain, but I think something that a lot of people don't realize, even people who are plugged in, is just how violent it was, especially outside the building when rioters were pushing past police to get into the Capitol and stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory. It was very, very violent. As you just mentioned, there were more than 140 police officers who were injured, some who never went back to work after that.

As one officer told me in an interview for the book is, there are probably a lot more than that who were injured, but a lot of them just went back to work the next day without complaint. Some didn't have that luxury and had permanent injuries. I think that even talking to people who do know what happened, I think that a lot of people don't understand just how bad it got for a lot of these officers outside. There were a lot of homemade weapons. People were beating them with flagpoles, tasers, all sorts of things. People had weapons. It was very violent.

Alison Stewart: When did you decide to do an oral history of January 6th?

Mary Clare Jalonick: Well, I had all these interviews. I'd been covering it. I cover it. I'm a congressional reporter at the AP, at the Associated Press. I'd been covering it for a while, and I had been there. I just made it a practice to talk to people when I was interviewing them about something else even, and get their stories about January 6th. I had a lot of that, especially from lawmakers. It just seemed like it was a really good format for a subject that does have a lot of divisions over how people see it.

My thought is just if you're hearing from the actual people who are there and out of those people's mouths as opposed to somebody's "Not my narrative, it's not anybody's narrative, it's not a partisan narrative," that that might be a good way to just try to lay out the facts of what happened that day.

Alison Stewart: You include stories in the books from rioters. How did you find people who wanted to talk to you?

Mary Clare Jalonick: Well, all of them didn't talk to me. Some of them are from-- About half the book is my own interviews, and then the other half is public documents. There's been so much that has come out in trials. There are dozens and dozens of trials, and more than that, and there was testimony in every trial. A lot of the rioters testified on their own behalf. Then, in every trial, there were police officers who testified, and there was Secret Service who testified. There were all sorts of interesting things that were buried in these court documents. I was really able to use some of that as well for people who might not have wanted to talk to me, but I did talk to some rioters as well. I talked to a lot of police officers, and I tried to talk to as many people as I could possibly find.

Alison Stewart: When you talked to the rioters and you read the rioters statements, what categories would you put them in? Because that really came out to me when I read your book, that there are definite categories that people fell into.

Mary Clare Jalonick: Yes, I totally agree. I think it is interesting, and that's something that I feel like I learned from doing this, is there really were such a diverse set of motivations of people who were there. There were certainly people who were there set on violence, who were set on stopping the certification, people who had guns in a hotel room nearby in case things got escalated. There were also people who were there who were just along for the ride. They may have believed the election was stolen; they may not have, but some people just got caught up in the moment. Some people just walked in and walked around.

One rioter I talked to said he saw it as a party. His name was Jason Riddle. He actually tried to reject the pardon that he got from President Trump at the beginning of his second term. Anyway, he really said that when he was inside the building, he saw it as like euphoria, almost. He drank a bottle of wine that he had stolen, and when went out, he talked to someone who said that they'd seen someone carried out of the building who had been shot, which I assume was Ashli Babbitt, who was a rioter, who was tragically killed when she was trying to get into the house.

He said he heard about that, and he said, "No, it's a party in there." The person said, "No, I saw this." He said he was never the same again. He just ran and he left. He realized what he was doing was wrong. Certainly, a lot of people never did have that kind of a moment and certainly still think that it was justified and that the election was stolen. There really were a lot of different types of people there, but it became one big violent mob, as can happen in those situations.

Alison Stewart: The Oath Keepers, who are in the book, they had a definite plan.

Mary Clare Jalonick: The Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were two groups that were there. I think The New York Times did a good investigation sort of early on, showing how they really almost seem to have planned their entry and some of the ways that they got through. That was something that was really interesting to me putting it together, was seeing how they approached the building and found holes and found a way to get past police lines with a group mentality. Some of it certainly does seem planned, while some of it wasn't. It's a large group of people. I felt like that was really important to get some of their voices in as well, because you can't really have the complete story without having their thoughts in the moment as well.

Alison Stewart: It's the fifth anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. My guest is Associated Press congressional reporter Mary Clare Jalonick, whose new book is called Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th. Let's take a few of your calls. Michael is calling in from the East Village. Hi, Michael. Thanks for making the time to call, All Of It.

Michael: Yes, thank you very much. I'm curious if your guest would have any insight as to why the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Trump in 2024 after so many police officers were attacked and injured. I'm just wondering if she would have any insight as to why he received their endorsement. I'll take the response off the air.

Alison Stewart: Sure. Do you have any clue, Mary Claire?

Mary Clare Jalonick: I actually don't. I don't have any, like, specific insight into that, but I do think that there are a lot of police officers, even some who are there, who wouldn't speak out about what happened that day or maybe just have more complicated feelings about it. Talking to the police officers I have interviewed, they said that some of their colleagues are very supportive of Trump still and don't really see it in the same way that they do, even if they did experience some of the brutality.

I think that there's probably a complicated answer to that, but that isn't something that I've particularly covered, and I wouldn't probably give you the correct answer on that. There is an interesting dynamic there.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "I spent that January 6th on the phone arguing with my MAGA father about what was happening. He was watching Fox News and was adamant that the riot was caused by FBI plants in the crowd. I watched on CNN and believed a different story. In your book, you talk to people who are conspiracy theorists.

Mary Clare Jalonick: A lot of people who testified in court, certainly. As we see with kind of everything these days, people have all these theories blossom about everything pretty much. Certainly, this one has not been immune to that. There's a lot of different things that people say. Every day I'm hearing new things that I hadn't even heard before. My thought is just to try to get it out as much as I can just from eyewitnesses, people who were there and can really give a solid, definitive, nonpartisan look at what happened. Because there's Republicans in the book, obviously, as we've discussed, there's rioters in the book. While people might have different viewpoints on the significance of the day, this set of facts is pretty consistent in terms of what happened that day.

Alison Stewart: A lot of people, with hindsight, talked about how the morning before it all happened, it felt very different in Washington, D.C. I can remember going on Twitter, and I think it was a reporter from The New York Times saying, "Hey, there's something weird in the air." I'm paraphrasing there. Did you have that sense?

Mary Clare Jalonick: Yes and no. I think I was definitely shocked when it happened, but I drove in that day. What did, not shock me but surprise me, was I saw a lot of people on the streets. A lot of people on the streets. It was during COVID, so the streets were pretty empty. It wasn't like your average commute. Then there were tons of people. It definitely gave me a clue of what the day might have in store, although not fully. There were a lot of people walking toward the mall, and most of them just looked like regular protesters. It wasn't really a flag, like, these people look violent, but I did just notice how massive the crowd was.

A lot of people I interviewed said similar things about driving in. Several people said it was sort of eerie. I think it was just everyone had so much anticipation, and people probably don't really remember the timeline, but we knew that Trump was pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to somehow delay or obstruct the count, but nobody knew what Pence was going to do. Pence himself had already decided that he was not going to do that, but he hadn't told anyone that. Trump was on the phone with him on that morning, still trying to get him to change his mind. He sent out a letter that everyone received at the same time at about one o'clock, which was right when the certification began.

Really, until then, everyone was on pins and needles to really didn't know what was going to happen that day. I think everyone just had a sense of anticipation, but very few people I talked to thought that it would be that violent. I interviewed Nancy Pelosi for the book, and she said, "We expected mischief in terms of process. We never expected violence." Maybe everyone should have expected violence, but I think that there's protests all the time around the Capitol, there's always something going on, and certainly nothing like that has ever happened in recent history that we've experienced.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Associated Press congressional reporter Mary Clare Jalonick. Her new book is called Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th. It is out today, the 5th anniversary of January 6th. Listeners, we want to hear from you. What are your memories of January 6th? Were you at the Capitol that day? How do you hope January 6th is remembered by history? You can give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Let's talk to Dennis from Manhattan, who has a question. Hi, Dennis, thanks for calling in with your question.

Dennis: Hi, thank you. Something I've been curious about from the very day. Why didn't the Metropolitan Police and the Capitol Police resist more vehemently when it became obvious that this mob was going to breach the Capitol? It's often been said, if the rioters were Black or brown, there probably would have been a lot more violence to prevent them from getting into the building, much less do the havoc they did inside. Did you talk to law enforcement people about was a decision made not to push? It seems to me they just fell away. They just fell away, and they let these people breach the barriers and get into the building.

Mary Clare Jalonick: No. I think what happened, from my interviews and from talking to people, is not that they wanted anything to happen or that they were in any way conspiring. They were so outnumbered. It was like a surprise attack, almost, or at least that's how it seemed to them. The Capitol Police, who were there the Metropolitan Police were there about 10 minutes into the fighting, but the Capitol Police that was originally there, there were so few of them, and there were so many rioters.

Talking to some of these law enforcement they said they thought that these people probably had weapons. They were trying to just figure out a way to manage the situation so it didn't become a bloodbath. It's really kind of amazing that none of them did pull a weapon when they were being attacked. I think most of them, talking to people, they really thought that just going toe to toe would be an easier way to try to push them back. A lot of them just knew that they wouldn't be able to. The crowd was so large, and there were so few of them that they wouldn't be able to. In some cases, they were overwhelmed, and people got past them.

I chronicled this in the book, but there was a big final fight in a tunnel that was really on the very front of the West Front. It's where Biden did walk through two weeks later to be inaugurated and on the inauguration stage. I think those police officers who are in that tunnel, they received some of the worst of the injuries. They were going toe to toe with these rioters, and they certainly didn't fall back and let anybody go anywhere, and they actually held the line. That crowd that was behind those rioters in that tunnel was thousands of people.

While a lot of people did get into the Capitol, if they had fallen back in that tunnel, it would have been much worse, and who knows what could have happened inside if that final large group had gotten in.

Alison Stewart: I have a question for you. From your book, what instructions were the Capitol Police given, and what instructions were the Metropolitan Police given, the D.C. police?

Mary Clare Jalonick: You mean from their superiors?

Alison Stewart: Yes. Early on in the book, which I found interesting.

Mary Clare Jalonick: They weren't given many. I was going to answer that from the question as well. There was not an order. There was not a plan. Metropolitan Police really came in and saved the day because Capitol Police were so overwhelmed. Not that those officers weren't doing everything that they could, but they didn't have a lot of orders over the radio. They didn't really know what to do. Pretty much everyone I've talked to has talked about how it was just total chaos on the radio, and they could hear their colleagues being attacked, and they really didn't know what to do. A lot of it was just individual officers trying to figure out a place to go and where they were most needed.

The Metropolitan Police did have people, and you saw in the end, they did hold the line there at the end, but they did have people trying to manage everything. Again, it was just such a huge crowd. It was almost an impossible situation. The Capitol Police has spent the last five years trying to beef up their security. I talked to the former police chief, who came right after January 6th last week for an article, an AP article on The Wire about police officers five years later, and he says if they tried this again, they would not get into the building.

There has been a lot of effort to try to just beef up not only intelligence but training and equipment. There was bad equipment there, for a lot of the officers had shields that were breaking in half. It was a security failure. I think that's what we saw with people getting inside.

Alison Stewart: We're talking to Mary Clare Jalonicka, whose new book is called Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It's the fifth anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. My guest is Associated Press Congressional Reporter Mary Clare Jalonick, whose new book is called Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th. It is out today. It's really interesting the way your book is, and it's a really important read, and everybody should go buy it. I'm just going to say that hold on to it. Because it's a TikTok of what has happened, but it also gives a little bit of perspective.

The one thing that I thought was very interesting was that inside the chamber, they weren't sure what was going on because of the no cell phone ban. They knew something was going on, but they didn't understand the magnitude of what was happening outside or about to happen inside the building. When did it become clear to lawmakers that this was a real problem?

Mary Clare Jalonick: The moment that people broke in, the House and the Senate had actually split up. The certification is one joint session, but because Republicans had challenged the Arizona's electoral votes, the two chambers had split up. Then they had like up to two hours to each debate and vote on whether to reject Arizona's electoral vote. They were doing that when people broke in. The Senate was in the Senate, and the House was in the House.

They broke in on the Senate side. The first rioters who broke in broke in on the Senate side. The senators were still just huddling in the chamber, and they could hear people. The people came right up against on the other side of the doors. Almost the entire Senate was there, which is actually really extraordinary because that doesn't happen very often, only in special cases is the entire Senate in the Senate. Security officials were trying to figure out what to do. Mike Pence was pulled from the chair because he's the president of the Senate. They eventually did evacuate. When they evacuated, people were already just right on the other side of the doors. They did eventually get into the empty Senate chamber.

In the House, that's where I was that day, it was pretty wild because they just kept going. They didn't actually recess even past when the Senate was evacuating. They kept going. People were looking at their phones, trying to figure out what was going on. It really was like an island, and a lot of people describe those moments in the book, just like not really knowing what was going on, but looking at their phones. We couldn't see what was going on outside. It was just we didn't know. Eventually, they did, but they didn't evacuate the House until people were at the doors, beating on the doors, trying to get in, breaking glass in the doors. There were the police officers with guns at the doors.

I was in the gallery with other reporters and also some members who were up there spacing because of COVID. Most of the House got out, but then those of us who are in the gallery, it took a little bit longer for us to get out.

Alison Stewart: I thought it was also interesting. It wasn't until Nancy Pelosi had to be removed that people really realized there's something going on. She didn't want to go. Her security detail was like, "You have to go. It's serious this time."

Mary Clare Jalonick: The way she describes it is she was just like, "No, I can handle this." They were like, "No, you're going." They pulled her off and brought someone else in to be the-- I did not see that personally. I was up in the gallery above her, and we don't have-- We can lean over and look, but I didn't even notice until after she was gone. Then suddenly we were like, "Oh, she's gone." I think a lot of lawmakers felt the same way. They just looked up, and there was someone new there.

Yes, it was very fast and certainly dramatic because everyone knows if the speaker has suddenly been pulled from the chair, that things are not okay. Then they started pulling all the other leadership, Republican and Democrat leadership, out too, and they were all whisked off to a secure location.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Jesse from Mount Kisco, New York. Hi, Jesse, thank you so much for calling All Of It. You have a question?

Jesse: Hi there. Yes, thank you so much. I have a question about Mike Pence. First of all, just want to say thank you so much for writing this book, and I want everyone to know that we will not forget January 6th ever. Thank you so much. My question is about Mike Pence, and I'm wondering if the AP reporter, Ms. Janet, can walk us through that. One of the things that emerged from this violence was that I learned through reading about it that Mike Pence decided not to get into the car that who, I don't know who the self service or somebody was offering him to drive away from the Capitol.

I just wonder if you could walk us through that a little more. Who were the people who were driving him? Who made those decisions to take him from the Capitol? What does that whole thing look like, basically?

Mary Clare Jalonick: That was first detailed in the January 6th Committee, the Democrat led January 6th Committee a couple of years ago, interviewed a lot of his staff and found that they told that story. I used some of those interviews in the book, and then he wrote his own book where he also talked about this. He was in his office behind the Senate as people were--

Mike Pence was within feet of rioters, basically. They got him evacuated eventually, but when he left the Senate area, he was right there with people coming around the corner. They got him to a garage, which is where they were trying to evacuate.

The Secret Service doesn't mess around. They were like, "We need to get out of here right now." They had a car. I think the way he described in his book was it was slowly moving when he approached it. He said, "I am not getting in that car." He said, "The world cannot see the Vice President fleeing the Capitol in a car because people got into the building." He felt really, really strongly about that. One of his aides, I think, said that maybe they got into the car, and he said, "I'm not getting in." I think they promised him, "Oh, if you just get in the car, we won't move." He said, "No, I'm not getting in the car," because I don't think he trusted that.

He felt really strongly that he needed to stay in the Capitol. He was in that garage all day and communicating with the Capitol Police, calling the Pentagon, telling them to clear the building, get National Guard there. He really felt strongly that while congressional leaders were whisked away, he stayed in the complex the entire time.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Lorraine in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. Hi, Lorraine. Thanks for calling, All Of It.

Lorraine: Thank you. Again, as the previous commenter guest said, thank you for such a wonderful reminder to all of us of not only the event, but the education it gave all of us as individuals and citizens. My immediate reaction that day working was my children. I'm an older parent, actually, was in my late 60s, and I still had children, 10 and 11 years old. My immediate reaction was fear for their safety because I only heard pieces of what was going on.

Once I arrived home and realized the extent of what was happening, I think this reminder has to be more than just a memorial, although the memorial is important for all of the victims that continue to suffer and gave their lives. I think we had quite an education. I'm born and raised in New York City. I grew up on the Lower East Side. I never knew what fear was ever. That day, I understood fear on a very primal level and a very individual level.

I think the only service, except for all these recollections and wonderful commentaries that have been written and reviewed, is that we have to understand we may not be able to write a book, we may not be on-scene reporters, but we're individual citizens and we have to make sure that we individually do everything we can because our rights, our votes were violated that day. The reason Pence didn't want to get in the call, aside from fearing for his safety, was because he knew that if the vote was challenged and if Nancy Pelosi was endangered, our government would have fallen that day.

Alison Stewart: Lorraine, thank you so much for the call. We're going to wrap up. There's so much we could talk about. I wanted to ask you, Mary Claire, what has surprised you about the way that January 6th is remembered or forgotten five years later?

Mary Clare Jalonick: I think that we have seen a lot of people try to downplay the violence and to just really not talk about it at all. I think that's a lot of what we see in the Capitol. I do think that there are a lot of people who still want to remember it, and that's not just Democrats in the Capitol. I think there's a lot of Republicans, too. I was pleased that while a lot of people wouldn't talk to me, a lot of people did talk to me about what happened that day and their own experiences. I think that it's not going away. There's a lot of different ways that people are seeing the significance of it, but I think that people are still remembering it, and I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th. It's by Mary Clare Jalonick. Thank you for your time today.

Mary Clare Jalonick: Thank you so much.