The call from the ex-president was addressed to Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) And was intended to encourage Tuberville to throw further procedural hurdles for Congressional certification of election results.
Lee passed the phone on to his colleague for a brief call before they were ushered out of the Senate chamber to a safe location, minutes before a crowd broke into the room. During the brief discussion, Tuberville informed Trump that Pence had been evacuated from the chamber minutes earlier, the Alabama senator confirmed.
The defense team at the Trump trial said they did not know that Pence was in danger when he tweeted.
Tuberville’s initial disclosure of the POLITICO call earlier in the week raised the possibility that it occurred before Trump tweeted his attack. But the new timeline reveals that Trump’s tweet attacking Pence came just before the discussion.
In either case, Trump made no public comments to tell his supporters to leave Capitol until hours later, and he made no public attempt to defend his vice president as the violence unfolded.
It is not clear whether Trump was aware of Pence’s departure from the chamber by other sources – it was widely televised and the Pence Secret Service team was probably in communication with the White House all the time.