The “Gaslighting” of Jan. 6: TV News Grapples With Capitol Riot a Year Later

On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, NBC News Capitol Hill producer Haley Talbot was working as the TV pool reporter in the House chamber. There were plans to go into the night, as Republicans were expected to challenge results from some of the states won by then-President-elect Joe Biden.

But those in the chamber were unaware of the chaos that was beginning to foment outside the building. Talbot says that some texts from friends and family clued her in that something was amiss.

“I started to sense that something was a little off. But I still felt very safe in the House chamber. I felt like, I’m in Fort Knox, I’m in the inner sanctum, there is nothing that can happen. This is the one place they can protect,” Talbot recalls, adding that she eventually answered a call from NBC News Washington bureau chief Ken Strickland. “I said, Ken… I am trying to take video of what is happening. I’m trying to write my [pool] note. Call [then-NBCN Capitol Hill correspondent] Kasie [Hunt] and [NBCN senior Capitol Hill correspondent] Garrett [Haake]. I’m fine, I’m in the chamber.”

What happened next, of course, shattered that sense of security. A mob of Trump supporters, having walked to the Capitol building from a nearby rally, surrounded the building and ultimately forced their way in.

The pictures and videos were broadcast around the world, but it is the things that TV viewers didn’t see that stick with those who were covering the events that day. And the reverberations are still being felt.

“We went straight from the attack to the impeachment to covering the Capitol as it existed in a world where quickly the two sides stopped agreeing on what really happened that day. January 6 is still present in the Capitol, in a meaningful way. It never stopped,” says Haake.

That dissonance was a recurring theme in the days, weeks and months since Jan. 6. While many Republicans and Trump administration officials quickly condemned the attack, over time those condemnations have wavered, or in some cases vanished. In their place, justifications or dismissal have taken hold.

“I do think there is a certain degree of gaslighting that happens from some Republicans who try to downplay what we all went through that day, and it started immediately,” Haake says. “I remember being in the tunnel that night and asking [Sen.] Ron Johnson [R-Wisc.] what happened and whether he felt like the president had any responsibility for what happened, and he told me, in that moment, ‘no.’ There are plenty of lawmakers on that side of the aisle who try to downplay the severity of what happened that day, and it is just not acceptable, and it is not reality.”

Those incredulous or cynical reactions from lawmakers are even at odds with some of their own actions that day.

“During the [impeachment] trial, they played video I had never seen before, and I saw myself on the security cameras. And to see ourselves on those tapes in an impeachment trial was very jarring. And I felt like we had a responsibility to say, matter-of-fact, ‘This is what happened,’” Talbot says. “When I started to see Republicans minimize what we experienced, those were the same Republicans that I saw on the House floor trying to secure the door or running for their safety because they were scared, then [later] saying it was just another day at the Capitol.”

The chaos, and the response from elected officials, from prosecutors and from others, raised even more questions for those that covered that day’s events.

“I look at it through a filter of, how would other people be treated if they did this? How would the justice system work if this were a different crowd, a crowd that looked different?” says CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues. “I don’t know. I’ve covered the social justice movement; I have covered a lot over the last 30 years. It isn’t a little infuriating when people try to dismiss it. I don’t know if people understand the weight of what happened, in terms of what this means for democracy.”

Before the novel coronavirus pandemic, Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram used to enjoy giving tours of the building to family and friends. Now, he says, whenever the pandemic is over and those tours can resume, he expects to add a new section.

“When I do those tours, when I walk through Statuary Hall, and I look at the statues of Thomas Edison and Rosa Parks looking down, I will talk about how these marauders came through Statuary Hall with their Trump flags,” Pergram says. “When I go in and out of the Speaker’s Lobby, where I have spent an inordinate amount of my time, I will think about these guys using these flags as battering rams trying to break into the House chamber, and Ashli Babbitt trying to vault the transom, and the officer shooting. It will be part of the tour; it has to be.”

What made the day so remarkable is how quickly everything turned, and how spaces assumed to be secure became scenes of chaos and destruction.

“I remember leaving for work that day and telling my wife, telling my friends that were worried about the protests that day, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m going to be in the Capitol. It is the safest possible place I could be,’” Haake recalls.

“What was clear to me was there was a palpable tension outside that I had never felt at the Capitol in all the years I covered Congress. You could feel it in the building, the tension in the air,” Pergram says.

Pegues was covering Trump’s rally at the Ellipse, just south of the White House, on Jan. 6. He says he mostly had cordial interviews with those in attendance. “We were talking to militia members before things went south, and we were shaking hands. They were critical of the press, but they were willing to listen to my counterpoints,” Pegues recalls.

Then President Trump spoke, and Rudy Giuliani infamously called for “trial by combat.” Pegues said that is when “the moment changed.” He and his team returned to their truck to follow the crowd, who were beginning to make their way to the Capitol.

“So I get back into my truck, and all of a sudden, this guy starts beating on the truck with a stick, and it wasn’t a small stick, it was a big stick that could potentially kill someone. It was like his eyes were popping out of his head,” Pegues says. “We have been in situations before where someone bangs on our truck, or doesn’t like the media, so of course, I thought, let me see what he wants, let me see if I can de-escalate the situation. Then I realized, there was no de-escalating him, because he had this look in his eyes like he wanted to kill us.”

Pegues yelled for his producer, who was still outside, to get in the truck, and they were able to get away.

Pergram was in his basement studio in the Capitol building, monitoring what was happening inside the chamber.

“[Rep.] Jim McGovern [D-Mass.] was presiding, and I could hear him giving instructions to the members about getting gas masks, protestors are in the rotunda, we are going to try and evacuate. So even though I wasn’t in the chamber, I had this ear in the chamber that told me how severe this was,” Pergram says.

As the pool reporter inside the chamber, NBC’s Talbot flags that as the moment “panic ensued.”

“People started clamoring for these gas masks that I didn’t even know existed in the House chamber. My seat didn’t have one, so I was trying to look everywhere,” Talbot says, adding that she yelled to a police officer to ask where the masks were, and they didn’t know either.

The NBC News producer began climbing over seats and bars to where some House members were gathered.

“I looked over to [Rep. Pramila] Jayapal [D-Wash.] and she had just had surgery and was using a cane, and I looked up to the doors in the gallery, and I said, ‘If the rioters come through here, I am going to use your cane and defend us.’”

After evacuating and being turned away from the secure room where members were being held, Talbot and a handful of other reporters found shelter in the office of Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). She says that group still talk regularly: “We have a group chat called ‘The Lockdown Ladies.’”

Back in his office, Pergram and his team took action to stay on air.

“We barricaded the doors — there are windows there, we covered them up with coats and things like that — and we continued to be on the air for the duration, covering both the riot and the historical significance of that,” Pergram says. “Early on, I said that this was the worst incursion of a government institution since the British burned the Capitol and the White House during the War of 1812.

“This isn’t some office park somewhere in the suburbs. That is amazing to me, astonishing to me, scary to me,” Pergram adds. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy days at the Capitol, I’ve worked a lot of crazy days in the news business, and I have never seen anything like it, and I probably never will, and I hope I never do.”

For the anniversary of Jan. 6, every TV news organization is planning at least some live coverage of the events, which include a prayer vigil, and remarks by President Biden. NBC, ABC and CBS are expected to offer special reports as warranted (NBC’s Lester Holt has an interview lined up with Speaker Nancy Pelosi), with MSNBC and CNN expected to be more or less in rolling coverage. Fox News will have its reports on the ground and will provide coverage throughout the day as well, including an interview with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

“What the country and the world witnessed a year ago was not only a test of our democracy, but a stark reminder of just how crucial our role is in countering disinformation, not just on an anniversary, but every single day,” says ABC News anchor David Muir.

But coverage of Jan. 6 will continue for some time.

As the Jan. 6 Select Committee continues its investigation, and as the reverberations of what happened continue to be felt, the journalists who were there say they expect new information to continue coming to light for a long time.

“It’s always kind of a weird thing to cover, because we know exactly what happened on Jan. 6, right? They [the Jan. 6 committee] are not going to tell us what happened. We all saw it on TV. We all lived through it; it all played out right in front of us,” Haake says. “But now we are getting the backfilling of what could have been there during the impeachment, of exactly what was going on behind the scenes, who was involved, who knew about the planning. And all of that is going to continue. It hasn’t stopped since last Jan. 6, and I don’t think it will stop anytime in the next year.”

As for the long-term impact of Jan. 6, it’s shaping the lives of reporters who witnessed it, both personally and professionally, and will likely impact our politics for years to come.

“To see that unfold, yeah, I don’t think it is the kind of story that can’t shape me as a reporter going forward — just like George Floyd, his murder shaped me as a journalist going forward,” Pegues says. “Over the last year, it has been about relaying to people, as much as I possibly can, the facts. For some reason, we have trouble these days just relaying the facts.”

“In my view, the political atmosphere is such that you have a lot of people literally making things up about that day, and I was an eyewitness. I was an eyewitness from the start to the end,” Pegues adds. “I know what I saw, I know how it started, and I could see it in their eyes — I could see it in that man’s eyes as he was beating on our truck that he wanted to hurt someone.”

“The echoes of this will continue. This is part of our politics now,” Haake says. “We crossed some kind of rubicon in what is acceptable to some portion of the country. I don’t think you can go back on that.”