It has been noted that former White House Situation Room officer Mike Stiegler recently revealed that then-President Donald Trump never called down to check on then-Vice President Mike Pence and Trump fans tracked him at the Capitol, and that we were “that close” to losing the VP via Mediaite.
On Tuesday’s edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, anchor George Stephanopoulos sat down with Stiegler, whose account of the Capitol riot is included in the host’s new book “The Situation Room.”
Stiegler has divulged just how close Pence came to getting killed and to the point of asking “Where’s the second in line?” — and that Trump never called down to the White House nerve center to ask about Pence:
MIKE STIEGLER: How do we keep moving? Where’s the third– where’s the second in line?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s kind of remarkable. And you know, what you’re describing there is that you started to implement and go through the checklist and.
MIKE STIEGLER: The Situation Room did, yeah.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: The Situation Room (correct) of what is called the continuity of government (yeah) procedures. Describe what those are.
MIKE STIEGLER: Those are originally instituted for if there’s an attack on the US government, how does the government, especially the executive branch, keep going?
So that means line of succession. That means, how do we move to different locations and how do we keep the government going.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: During– in– a riot of our own people?
MIKE STIEGLER: Yeah.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Inspired by the man sitting upstairs.
MIKE STIEGLER: Correct. But at the time, that’s not even in the forefront of our mind. It doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here. How do we execute? How do we move forward?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Did the president ever call down to the Situation Room on that day?
MIKE STIEGLER: Not to my knowledge.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Not once.
MIKE STIEGLER: No, sir.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Didn’t ask what was going on.
MIKE STIEGLER: Not to my knowledge.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Didn’t ask how the vice president’s doing.
MIKE STIEGLER: Not to my knowledge.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Some people even questioned, elected officials, whether the vice president was really in danger. You see a lot of revisionist history going on about January 6th.
As someone who was inside the room that day. What’s your reaction?
MIKE STIEGLER: It’s important to me that we don’t forget that it did come that close. And that we did have discussions. If we lose the VP, if the 25th is invoked. We started running through all of these game plans because it was getting close.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: 25th amendment.
MIKE STIEGLER: Correct.
