The vice president, who for four years remained loyal to Trump to the point of subservience, was furious in return for the president’s public lash. Senator James M. Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, told The Tulsa World that Pence in particular expressed a feeling of treachery for Trump “after all the things I did for him”.
Even when the vice president had to be evacuated during the siege on Wednesday, the president never personally checked with him to make sure he was okay. Secret Service agents wanted the vice president to leave the building, but he refused and took shelter in the basement, according to two officials. Congressional leaders were rushed to Fort McNair for their safety, but the vice president later asked them to finish counting on Capitol Hill.
On Thursday, Pence did not go to the White House complex, but instead worked at the vice president’s residence, according to government officials.
He was not the only one to feel betrayed by the president. At the White House, advisers were exasperated and discouraged, convinced that Trump had effectively canceled four years of work and assured that his presidency would be defined in history by the image of him sending a crowd to Capitol Hill in an attack on democracy.
Ms. Chao stepped down the day after her husband, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, strongly repudiated Trump’s effort to overturn the election. “Yesterday, our country went through a traumatic and totally preventable event when supporters of the president broke into the Capitol building after a rally he led,” she wrote in her letter of resignation. “As I am sure that is the case for many of you, it bothered me deeply in a way that I just can’t seem to let go.”
In her own letter, Ms. DeVos placed the responsibility for chaos directly at Mr. Trump’s feet. “There is no doubt about the impact that his rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the tipping point for me,” she wrote, just weeks after Trump pardoned four security contractors convicted of war crimes committed in Iraq while working to her brother, Erik Prince.