12 Senators Describe What It Was Like as Rioters Stormed the Capitol on January 6

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

This is an exclusive excerpt adapted from “Storm at the Capitol: An Oral History of January 6th” by Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick. The book draws on personal interviews by the author, testimony, court documents and other public sources to compile a definitive account of the hours leading up to, during, and just after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

This excerpt begins in the 2 p.m. hour, just after the first rioters had broken into the Capitol one floor below the Senate chamber. Almost the entire Senate was huddled inside as the people were coming closer and security officials debated what to do. Secret Service agents had already evacuated Vice President Mike Pence, who had been presiding over the debate on Arizona’s electors.

As the senators waited, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, received a call from the White House. It was President Donald Trump on the line — but he was looking for Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a loyal supporter who had just been elected. Trump had mistakenly dialed Lee’s number. 

The quotes in this excerpt are taken from interviews with the author, court testimony, pool reports and other published and spoken accounts. The words of Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are from a Feb. 20, 2021 article in The Salt Lake Tribune by Bryan Schott: “What Sen. Mike Lee told me about Trump’s call the day of the Capitol riot.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL: When he brought me the phone, it said “White House” on it. It was the president.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD: And so I was sitting here, and Coach is right next to me. And the conversation—I’m only hearing one side of it, but it is “No, we’re not doing much right now. No. Well, there’s, you know, we can hear stuff outside. It’s—no, Mike, no, they just took him out. They’ve taken him out. No, well, I don’t know.” And there is a little bit of discussion back and forth. Basically there’s a lobbying effort going on. Coach wasn’t answering directly back.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT: I stood nearby for the next five or ten minutes as they spoke, not wanting to lose my phone in the middle of a crisis. Then the Capitol Police became very nervous and ordered us to evacuate the chamber immediately. As they were forcing everyone out of the chamber, I awkwardly found myself interrupting the same telephone conversation I had just facilitated. “Excuse me, Tommy, we have to evacuate. Can I have my phone?’

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL: He said a few things. I said, “Mr. President, they’ve taken the vice president out. They want me to get off the phone, I gotta go.” So I’m probably the only guy in the world who hung up on the president of the United States.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD: And he says, “Well, Mr. President, I gotta go. I guess they’re gonna get us out of here now.” And I never forgot that. Because while we were in the room, and there was enough going on to where they were going to remove us, there was still a lobbying effort going on by the president of the United States to stop the ballot from moving forward.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-NV: The Capitol Police officers then told all of us to get up and move quickly.

Officer Mark Gazelle, US Capitol Police: At this point, there were so many breaches, and the doors that we have really weren’t going to—the outer doors weren’t holding. We knew the inner doors weren’t going to hold. So we needed to get the Senate out of there.

Andrew Taylor, congressional reporter, The Associated Press: The officers announced an evacuation. Take the elevators to the basement, then cross underneath Constitution Avenue by tunnel to a secret location in a nearby office building, they said.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT: The group that I was with was not running, we were walking out. But it was pretty shocking how disorderly it was. I mean, it was pretty shocking how little police protection we had as we were leaving.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT: I was right behind Mitch McConnell as we came from the floor. He moves a little bit more slowly because of the polio he had as a young person. I remember thinking, I am standing behind one of the most important people in the United States, and I want to get around him. 

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL: I was behind [California Sen.] Dianne Feinstein, concerned about her physically as we were moving. But she was doing well.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME: I had high heels on, and they were saying, “Run! Run! Hurry! Hurry!” And I was trying to run in my high heels and trying to decide whether I should just take them off.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD: Most everybody was leaving through the left-hand side, where the Democrats normally sit, but out the back doors behind the chamber. I was in the back. The thoughts that were going through my mind were number one, somebody is trying to tell us not to do our job, and it is disrupting the peaceful transfer of power. The second thing that went through my mind was—I started seeing all of the protection that we were being given and the concern that they had, and we could hear people pounding on stuff. We could hear stuff breaking. My thought was that this is going to be a very bloody day in this Capitol. And it wasn’t a fear for us. It was a fear that people were going to get killed if they got anywhere close to us. Because these guys were very serious about the protection of the elected officials who had to do their duty.

As senators evacuated, quick-thinking Senate staff grabbed the mahogany ballot boxes.

Paul Kane, reporter, The Washington Post: In a moment of incredible historical importance, they grabbed the boxes and envelopes with all of the Electoral College votes and certificates.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD: I just thought, we’ve got to make it clear all of us want those ballots to go with us. So [Republican Sen.] Ben Sasse and I were the last two guys in line going out. And we just walked up and we just said, “Let us help you with these things.” And they said, “These are not getting out of our sight. We’re responsible for them.” We said, “Rest assured, they’re not getting out of our sight either.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-NV: And that’s when everybody came together. All of the senators, whether you are Republican or Democrat, our floor staff that was with us, grabbing those electoral votes. And we all started going up and down stairs, through hallways until we could get to a secure location.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-PA: All of us had to file out of that one exit, and I remember lining up to go out the door. And when you come out of the door, you’re in an enclosed hallway where we go in and out to vote. And for some reason when we went into that hallway, that’s the first time when I had—my concern must have been building, because when I walked in that hallway I thought, someone could be shot in here. I don’t know why I thought that. But at that point, I must have reached the level where I had a sense that they were in the building and that they could be armed.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD: As we went down, and we were going to that secure location, I remember we could still hear the noise. We couldn’t see people, but we could hear the noise. More security with long guns, with [automatic rifles] and so forth, were showing up. 

Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC, a longtime member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was furious that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger, along with Pence’s military aide who was carrying the backup “nuclear football,” or a briefcase that contains equipment to communicate with the office inside the Pentagon that transmits nuclear attack orders.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC: [Trump’s] breach of office was leaving the vice president uncovered with a nuclear football. To me, that was a breach of his oath.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD: I was angry. I was really angry that this was going on. I also was like, how do we explain to the next generation that we had a bloodbath here today in this building? What drove this to the point where people are going to die because they tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power?

While there was an evacuation plan for the senators, others in the building weren’t sure where to go. Restaurant workers in the basement carryout where Marc Short had just ordered his lunch locked themselves into a food storage closet. Reporters in the Senate gallery had been told to go to the Capitol Visitor Center, a large underground area that is accessible from the Senate basement.

Paul Kane, reporter, The Washington Post: There was a lone Capitol Police officer just sort of holding the doors to the Capitol Visitor Center. And he was screaming at us something like “It’s been infiltrated!” and at that point we merged in with all of the senators.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-MO: I’m generally pretty calm, and I was pretty calm. We go out the lobby door, and the officer standing at the top of the stairs just keeps saying, “Time is not our friend. Time is not our friend.” Still, nobody’s running or anything like that. But you get down to the tunnel, and as I’m walking through the tunnel, I saw Schumer, who just that day knew for sure that he was going to be the majority leader. His two uniformed guys—I think they were uniformed—they had pretty good-sized weapons drawn, and they’re basically whisking him down the hall. And I thought, this may be a little more serious than I thought.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY: A police officer in a big flak jacket and a large rifle grabbed me firmly by the collar like this. I’ll never forget that grip. And said to me, “Senator, we’ve got to get out of here; you’re in danger.”

Excerpted from STORM AT THE CAPITOL: An Oral History of January 6^th by Mary Clare Jalonick, copyright ©2026 by Mary Clare Jalonick.  Used with permission of PublicAffairs, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.