Rep. Sara Jacobs on the Capitol mob, impeaching Trump and her priorities in Congress
Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-San Diego, was in her first week in Congress when a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters overwhelmed police and broke into the Capitol building where she and her colleagues were gathered to certify the results of the 2020 election. Five people died and the siege lasted several hours. Now there’s talk of an unprecedented second impeachment of Trump, who incited it.
That morning, Democrats were celebrating a sweep the night before in two Senate elections that gave Democrats control of the Senate, in addition to the House and the White House. At 31, Jacobs, who was elected to represent the 53rd Congressional District, is one of Congress’ youngest members.
“I actually brought in a bottle of champagne to drink with my fellow freshmen — one of whom is the chair of the Georgia Democratic Party — so we could celebrate that we had just flipped the Senate,” she told the Name Drop San Diego podcast. “We were told to get into the office early so we would be inside because we knew protests would be outside. I think all of us kind of felt that ... once we were inside, we would be safe.”
At a delicate time for democracy, Jacobs said she wants to share her account of what happened to “bear witness” and to “make sure people know exactly how close their elected members of Congress got to a real tragedy.” She joined the Name Drop San Diego podcast to discuss what unfolded on Wednesday, what she thinks should happen to Trump now and her priorities in Congress. Read excerpts of the conversation below or listen to the entire conversation in the podcast player above.
Can you recount what happened on Jan. 6?
“I was really honored that I was one of around 20 members of Congress who were chosen to be in the House Chamber during the opening of the proceedings, so I was sitting in the House gallery, which is the balcony above the House floor. It all started pretty normally. We started getting alerts on our phones that certain office buildings were being evacuated, but I was in touch with my staff who were in my office and we decided I should stay where I was. I even texted my parents, ‘Don’t worry, the House floor is the safest place I could possibly be,’ which turns out to not be true.
“My poor parents, who lived through me being abroad in difficult places and thought they finally could sleep easy at night, are realizing that unfortunately that’s not quite the case. I was in the gallery, and all of a sudden we saw Capitol police running behind us, trying to lock all the doors. Every balcony has its own door. There was commotion on the floor. The Speaker (of the House Nancy Pelosi) was taken out. We were still in proceedings and debate continued, actually, and then quickly they told us to get our evacuation hoods out. It’s like a combination of a gas mask and a fire hood. They told us to get that out and be ready to use it if we had to, but for now, everything was ok.
“We kept going, and then all of a sudden they said, ‘Put your masks on and get under your seats.’ We could hear the mob banging on the glass doors right behind us. We heard gun shots. We heard flash bangs. Then they told us to evacuate. The gallery does not have a straight way to get from one side to the other so we had to climb under handrails and over chairs. I was with some of my colleagues who are a little bit older, a little bit more movement-impaired, so I was helping them make sure that they could get under the handrails and over the chairs. I still have some bruises on my side.
“At one point, while we were evacuating, Capitol Police told us to get down again. They thought that there might be something, so we had to quickly go under the seats. Finally we got out into a stairwell and were going down the stairwell and saw, on the ground, members of the riot subdued by the Capitol Police on the ground. That’s how close they were to us. We were taken to a couple safe rooms before we were eventually secured.”
How did you feel during all of that?
“You know, I was afraid. I’ve been in some pretty tricky situations. My background is working in conflict zones. This is definitely the closest I’ve ever felt to feeling like my life was really at risk. There was a moment there when I was really thinking to myself, ‘Well at least if the mob gets us and they kill us, hopefully it will lead to positive change in this country,’ and thinking about what messages we needed to send out to make sure that would happen.
“It was pretty scary. I was really fortunate because I happened to be sitting right near (Florida) Congresswoman Val Demings, who is a former police chief, and Congressman Jason Crow, who is a former Army Ranger. (Virginia Rep.) Abigail Spanberger, (New Jersrey Rep.) Mikie Sherrill, were all in my little area so, we had folks who were literally, them, as members of Congress, standing at the doors, protecting it, making sure everyone knew what to do. But it was really scary. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I was scared.”
Why try to remove Trump before his term is up?
“It’s important that this current president, who is clearly not well, does not have access to the nuclear codes. There are a lot of national security incidences that he can cause in a very short period of time and not a lot of constraints on his power to do so, absent the 25th Amendment. And we don’t know what else he could do in terms of inciting more riots and mobs because he knows that he is losing power. So I think for our national security, it’s important that we get him out of office.”
Does this change your legislative priorities at all?
“If definitely adds a layer to my legislative priorities. I think that there was always going to be a lot of work that we need to do to repair from the four years of the Trump presidency and the real divisions in our country that were not created by Donald Trump but were used by Donald Trump to his own ends. So I think that that is only heightened. I think that we will have a lot to do to hold people accountable and heal the divisions and to make sure we fix the enabling environment, addressing the fact that social media was a place where many of these people were radicalized.
“Unfortunately, my background is really relevant to these issues. I worked in countering violent extremism and conflict prevention and stabilization and post-coup transitions, so I think there’s a lot we’ll need to do. And we have to be able to walk and chew gum. We have to do this accountability and healing, and we have to also rebuild our country from the pandemic and the economic crisis that we’re facing. We can’t do one without the other, so it will just be in addition to my priorities. I don’t think it really shifts them.”
Source: By Abby Hamblin, Kristy Totten | San Diego Union-Tribune