- An ex-aide to Meadows said she wanted him to "snap out it" and pay attention to the Capitol riot.
Cassidy Hutchinson said she asked Meadows if he could see what was transpiring on his TV on January 6.
A former top aide to ex-Trump White House chief of staff
During her testimony before the January 6 committee, Cassidy Hutchinson said she sought to engage with Meadows on what was going on at the seat of the national government, as rioters upset about the certification of now-President Joe Biden's electoral victory breached the Capitol and sent lawmakers fleeing to secure spaces within the complex.
"I remember him being alone in his office for most of the afternoon. Around 2:00, 2:05, we were watching the TV and I could see that the rioters were getting closer and closer to the Capitol," she said.
Hutchinson continued: "Mark still hadn't popped out of his office or said anything about, and that's when I went into his office and saw that he was sitting on his couch, on his cell phone."
When she asked Meadows if he'd seen the television, his response was, "Yeah," per Hutchinson's testimony.
She responded: "The rioters are getting really close. Have you talked with the president?"
Meadows reportedly replied: "No, he wants to be alone right now."
She then spoke of her exasperation at his lack of urgency while the Capitol was being ransacked.
"I start to get frustrated because I sort of felt like I was looking at a bad car accident about to happen where you can't stop it but you want to be able to do something," she said. "I remember thinking in that moment, 'Mark needs to snap out of this and I don't know how to snap him out of this but he needs to care.'"
She proceeded to ask Meadows to reach out to Rep. Jim Jordan, one of the former president's most loyal political allies, who had spoken on the House floor about the 2020 election shortly before rioters broke into the Capitol. Meadows told her he would call the Ohio congressman, Hutchinson testified, adding that she was later asked to be on the lookout for any calls for Jordan.
About a minute later, then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone appeared and pressed Meadows to act on the events at the Capitol.
"I remember Pat saying to [Meadows], something to the effect of, 'The rioters have gotten to the Capitol, Mark, we need to go down and see the president now,'" Hutchinson said.
"And Mark looked up at and said, 'He doesn't want to do anything, Pat,'" she added.
Cipollone, per Hutchinson's testimony, told Meadows something to the effect that "something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood's going to be on your effing hands."