The Daily Fuckup

By Jan. 8, the White House was still trying to speak in the language of a normal transfer of power. The problem was that Jan. 7 had already made that harder to sell. In prerecorded remarks recorded that afternoon, after Congress had certified Joe Biden’s victory and after the Capitol had been attacked, President Donald Trump said his focus was on a "smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power" on Jan. 20. The words sounded procedural. The setting around them was not. ([presidency.ucsb.edu](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/videotaped-remarks-the-attack-the-united-states-capitol-the-certification-the-electoral))

That was the point of the messaging scramble: the administration could say the right phrase, but it could not unring the bell of what had happened hours earlier. Trump’s remarks followed months of false claims that the election had been stolen and came after the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6. The timing made the transition line look less like a fresh commitment than a belated effort to contain the wreckage. ([presidency.ucsb.edu](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/videotaped-remarks-the-attack-the-united-states-capitol-the-certification-the-electoral))

The fallout kept moving on Jan. 8. House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats said Trump should be impeached for instigating the attack on the Capitol, arguing in a letter that his conduct had endangered the country and its democratic standing. Their statement was part of a wider push in Congress to treat the Jan. 6 attack as the consequence of Trump’s role in inflaming it. ([democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov](https://democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov/2021/1/house-foreign-affairs-committee-democrats-call-for-impeachment-of-donald-j-trump))

Trump then added another signal on Jan. 8: he tweeted that he would not attend Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Later that day, Twitter permanently suspended his account after reviewing the posts and the surrounding context, saying the decision was based on the risk of further incitement of violence. The platform also said the inauguration tweet and the earlier praise of supporters were being read as encouragement, not restraint. ([presidency.ucsb.edu](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/tweets-january-8-2021))

So the White House’s transition talk did not mark a reset. It marked a final attempt to wrap a crisis in familiar presidential phrasing. Biden had won, Congress had certified the result, and Trump was leaving office under the shadow of an attack on the Capitol and mounting demands that he be held accountable for it. ([presidency.ucsb.edu](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/videotaped-remarks-the-attack-the-united-states-capitol-the-certification-the-electoral))