Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Iraq War vet, said he was prepared to 'kill somebody' on January 6

• Rep. Ruben Gallego said he was prepared to kill someone if it came to it on January 6.
• The Arizona Democrat, who is also an Iraq War veteran, said he was prepared to survive the insurrection. "Like, I survived a war," he said.

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a former Marine, said he knew that he was not going to die on January 6, 2021, and was prepared to kill any rioters if it came to it.

"I'll be honest, I was going to kill somebody that day," Gallego told Politico Playbook's Ryan Lizza in an interview published on Friday. "I was not going to die that day. I didn't give a fuck."

Gallego, who grew emotional as he described a draft text that he prepared for his wife, said he "would have killed all those motherfuckers to save this democracy."

"Like, I survived a war," he said. "Whatever it took, I was going to survive."

Gallego, an Iraq War veteran, previously told Insider about teaching his colleagues how to defend themselves as the insurrectionists closed in on the US Capitol.

"I tell [Rep. Eric] Swalwell and [Rep.] Colin Allred to take off their jackets, in case we were going to have to fight our way out of this," Gallego said of his efforts to prepare fellow Democratic lawmakers for hand-to-hand combat. Allred is a former NFL linebacker.

"It looked like we were going to get overrun," he said during an interview for Insider's oral history of the January 6 siege at the US Capitol.

With his options limited in the chaotic House chamber, Gallego recalled mentally preparing for the worst.

"I didn't find any weapons. The best thing I found was a pen and that was going to have to be it," he said, adding, "It looked bad."

Gallego echoed the sentiment in his interview with Lizza.

"I was teaching [my colleagues] how to stab [the rioters] in the neck and stab them in the eye … We had pens … I don't give a fuck. Like, I would have killed all those motherfuckers to save this democracy. Fuck those guys," he told Politico Playbook.

Shortly thereafter Capitol Police swept in and led the trapped lawmakers away from the attack.

"Capitol security comes in, heavily armed, and announces that they have secured a path for us to get out there and go to a safe room," Gallego told Insider.

He figured, however, that doing one more sweep couldn't hurt.

"We were dealing with a very panicky situation. People tend to freeze. Maybe they cocoon somewhere," Gallego said. "So I checked every row and made sure that everybody that wasn't security had left and walked out."