The Atlantic
The veteran congressional reporter shares his firsthand experience of the pro-Trump mob storming the Capitol.
January 9, 2021
People shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.AP / Andrew Harnik
John Bresnahan has covered Congress for decades, previously as
Politico’s Capitol Hill bureau chief and now as co-founder of Punchbowl News. On the podcast
The Ticket, he describes what he saw inside the building as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol this week and what implications the searing event could have going forward.
Young Toseland Oldknow Tolly, please, if you must give him a nickname, not Towser, or worse,
Toto (I am trying to look past the implied insult to Oz here, everyone) is off to live with his great-grandmother in a very old house that to him feels very far away. He is both scared and slightly hopeful: since the death of his mother, his only real family is a distant father and a well meaning but generally clueless stepmother, so a great-grandmother feels like
something. She might even be real family.
Spoiler: she is. What Tolly didn’t expect and couldn’t expect were the ghosts. Or, if you prefer,