Donald Trump could have cleared up confusion and hastened the arrival of National Guard troops to quell the Capitol riot if he’d called Pentagon leaders on Jan. 6, 2021, according to recent closed-door congressional testimony by two former leaders of the D.C. guard.

Michael Brooks, the senior enlisted leader of the D.C. guard at the time of the riot, and Brigadier Gen. Aaron Dean, the adjutant general of the D.C. guard at the time, told House Administration Committee staffers that if Trump had reached out that day — which, by all accounts, he did not — he might have helped cut through the chaos amid a tangle of conflicting advice and miscommunication.

“Could the president have picked up the phone, called the secretary of defense, and said, you know, ‘What’s going on here?’ Our law enforcement is getting overrun, make this happen!’” a committee staffer asked Brooks, according to the transcript of a previously unreported March 14 interview reviewed by POLITICO.

“I assume he could expedite an approval through the Secretary of Defense, through the Secretary of the Army,” Brooks replied.

But Trump never called any military leaders on Jan. 6, per testimony from senior administration officials to the Jan. 6 select committee — a fact that the panel emphasized in its final report that concluded Trump was uniquely responsible for the violent Capitol attack by his supporters. Rather, he was observing the riot on TV and calling allies in his quest to subvert the 2020 election, as outlined by committee witnesses and White House records.

Brooks’ exchange with the committee staffer underscored the reality of Trump’s inaction: “And to your knowledge, did that happen on January 6th?” the staffer continued.

“No,” Brooks said.

Dean, similarly, noted that if Trump had placed a call to Pentagon leaders at 2 p.m. — around the time the Capitol was first breached — and said “go,” the guard would have reached the Capitol sooner than it did that day.

“I think if the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Defense, or the president had said ‘Go,’ … or a combination thereof had said ‘Go,’ then we would’ve gone and we would’ve been there much faster,” Dean told congressional investigators on March 26.

Brooks and Dean are among four witnesses slated to testify Wednesday before a House subcommittee probing security failures that exacerbated the breach of the Capitol. All four were top advisers to William Walker, the commander of the D.C. guard on Jan. 6. Other witnesses include Timothy Nick, who was the aide-de-camp to Walker, and Earl Matthews, a top lawyer for the National Guard at the time. POLITICO reviewed transcripts of closed-door interviews that all four men gave to the Administration Committee over the past five weeks.

The bulk of their testimony focused on deep disagreement between the D.C. guard leadership and the Pentagon about when and whether an order was given to deploy to the Capitol. The witnesses told the Administration Committee that military leaders seemed reluctant to send guard troops to the Capitol until hours after violence had broken out.

Further, they described mixed messages on phone calls with the Pentagon that left them in a holding pattern, lacking clarity about whether they had permission to deploy. All four also indicated they had testified to the Jan. 6 committee in an “informal” capacity, meaning there were no transcripts of their interviews.

And they said they had virtually no contact from Ryan McCarthy, the then-Army secretary, even though he was a key player who was in frequent contact with the D.C. guard in the run-up to Jan. 6.

McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment. He has told the Jan. 6 committee that a call from Trump would not have hastened the National Guard response because he was already moving as quickly as possible.

The testimony is the latest addition to a complicated picture of the military’s response to the violence, which raged for hours on Jan. 6 until the D.C. police and National Guard helped the Capitol Police contain it that evening. The riot select committee found that Trump made no calls to senior leaders of the Justice Department, Pentagon or Department of Homeland Security while the violence raged — nor did he reach out to his vice president, Mike Pence, who was sheltering from the mob at the Capitol.

Rather, Trump watched the riot unfold on TV and made phone calls to lawmakers who he hoped would support his bid to block President Joe Biden’s victory.

The men, whom the panel described as “whistleblowers,” sharply dispute claims by former Pentagon leaders — from McCarthy to then-Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller to former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley — that the National Guard was deployed to the Capitol as quickly as possible on Jan. 6.

Rather, they say, they had no contact from Miller or McCarthy until much later in the day, and they sharply dispute claims that McCarthy authorized the guard’s deployment to the Capitol by 3:04 p.m. on Jan. 6.

That’s the context in which Brooks and Dean suggested that perhaps a phone call from Trump — as conditions at the Capitol were clearly deteriorating — could have cut through the clutter and resulted in a quicker deployment.

Matthews differed from Brooks and Dean on the question of whether Trump’s involvement could have made a difference. Because Trump had already delegated authority to Miller and McCarthy, there was little for him to do, according to Matthews, who told the Administration Committee that it’s not clear whether McCarthy would have heeded his call.

“The president wasn’t going to call us because he’s trusting the chain of command,” Matthews told the Administration panel. He noted that some testimony to the Jan. 6 committee underscored concerns among military leaders that Trump might try using a troop presence at the Capitol for nefarious purposes.

In his testimony to the Jan. 6 committee, McCarthy denied harboring concerns that Trump might misuse the National Guard.

“I mean, in the lead-up to it, [I] did not see anything that would give you the sense he was going to order us to send troops to the Capitol in support of anything untoward,” McCarthy said.

In a statement Matthews issued ahead of his public testimony, he elaborated on his belief.

“The committee knew that even if President Trump had called down personally to the Secretary of the Army, who had effective operational control of the D.C. National Guard, to direct the immediate movement of the Guard, it would have had no impact.”

The promise of an onslaught of spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has loomed over Democratic primaries for months — but it hasn’t yet materialized.

Progressives critical of Israel, however, think they can exploit even the threat of AIPAC’s involvement in their races, in yet another sign of the schism among Democrats over the escalating Israel-Hamas war.

Their digital ads warn of the group’s influence and seek to energize small-dollar donors. Advocacy groups supporting them have formed an anti-AIPAC coalition to coordinate a defense against the expected influx of cash. Progressive incumbents have sought assistance from their leadership, demanding unified party support to block challenges.

It’s an effort to neutralize AIPAC, which has vowed to drop $100 million this cycle to support pro-Israel candidates, including ousting progressives, in part, for their support for Palestinians amid the war. And there are some signs it may be working. Days after Iran’s attack on Israel, the deep-pocketed lobby group still has yet to turn on the spigots in primaries against some prominent progressives, like Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), the first member of the liberal “Squad” to face a primary this year.

And in the few races AIPAC has jumped into, it has had a limited track record so far. That’s made the group a more effective foil, at least so far, than the heavyweight player many on the left had feared it would be in Democratic primaries.

AIPAC’s affiliated super PAC, United Democracy Project, has spent around $6 million on advertising this year, according to ad tracker AdImpact. Most of that — around $4 million — was against David Min, a progressive running for outgoing California Democratic Rep. Katie Porter‘s seat. Min ended up winning a spot in the top-two primary system anyway, and the candidate UDP backed didn’t. Though it hasn’t directly spent in their races yet, AIPAC has still bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions for the primary challengers to Squad members Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).

Much of progressives’ attacks have centered on the groups’ donors: Republican donors — including former Home Depot CEO Bernie Marcus and billionaire financier Paul Singer — are among its contributors. (Major Democratic donors also give to AIPAC.) Progressives also note that the group has endorsed candidates who voted against certifying the 2020 election.

“Hopefully where we’ve been successful is in letting people know that their money should be considered toxic in a primary. Because this is not genuinely Democratic money coming into a Democratic primary to elect a Democrat,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), a leader of the Progressive Caucus’ political arm who’s been vocal in opposition to the group’s influence.

AIPAC pushes back on that characterization. AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann said in a statement that its PACs support “scores of pro-Israel progressives who understand it is entirely consistent with progressive values to support the Jewish state. We oppose extremist anti-Israel detractors who seek to undermine America’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Iranian terrorist proxies.”

The full scope of AIPAC’s and UDP’s spending is yet to be seen, given that most primary campaigns are not in full swing yet. But there’s one particularly notable gap right now: Lee’s race in Pennsylvania’s 12th District. Lee had been a top AIPAC target in 2022, when it spent millions of dollars against her — but now, less than a week out from the Pennsylvania primary, she hasn’t faced any outside spending from the group.

That hasn’t stopped Lee from railing against the group. The campaign has warned of AIPAC’s ability to flood the race with money, and she criticizes her primary opponent, Edgewood Borough Council Member Bhavini Patel, for her links to deep-pocketed GOP donors.

Lee said she spoke out against AIPAC throughout her campaign because “our voters have a right to know that when they see ads funded by the ‘United Democracy Project,’ it’s actually a right-wing lobby.”

Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, said the group is still monitoring 15 to 20 races on both sides of the aisle, “looking carefully at opportunities to prevent anti-Israel candidates from being elected to Congress.”

Lee has, however, attracted negative spending from Moderate PAC, a group funded primarily by GOP megadonor Jeff Yass that has poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting Patel. (At a debate earlier this month, Patel said she “denounces” Yass, who is linked to former President Donald Trump.)

Lee is leaning on that outside spending — both the actual money coming in from Moderate PAC and the anticipated cash from AIPAC — in advertising and fundraising appeals to broadly attack “Republican-funded super PACs.” Other progressives have similarly used the threat of AIPAC’s involvement on the campaign trail and in fundraising pleas. It’s been a particularly popular topic for fellow members of the Squad, which AIPAC spent millions unsuccessfully trying to block from Congress in the midterms.

“Dark money super PACs like AIPAC donated huge sums of money to amplify Ilhan’s opponent last cycle and are preparing to do so again to defeat our movement,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) wrote in a recent digital ad. “We need all of the support we can get to fight back and WIN.”

Omar, in a statement, told POLITICO: “No Democrat should be accepting money from a group that openly supports and funds over one hundred Republican insurrectionists.”

But Omar’s primary — which is months away — hasn’t seen any outside intervention from AIPAC, according to AdImpact. And she has raised hefty sums, raking in over $1.7 million last quarter.

UDP spent six figures against Omar in 2022, when she faced former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, who’s also seeking a rematch this time. So far, the super PAC hasn’t placed any ad reservations in the race, nor has AIPAC endorsed her competitors.

Some of the other most outspoken critics of the Israeli government, like Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), aren’t even facing competitive primaries this cycle (despite some unsuccessful attempts to recruit challengers). But they too have leaned into the anti-AIPAC messaging. Tlaib has run multiple digital ads explicitly calling out the group for “spending millions against progressive women of color,” and Pressley had done so too.

“Every Democratic candidate running for any elected office should be condemning AIPAC spending,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the progressive Justice Democrats.

In anticipation of the spending barrage, Reject AIPAC — a coalition of progressive groups including Justice Democrats, along with Jewish and Muslim advocacy groups — launched this cycle to counteract AIPAC’s opposition campaign. The coalition, which aims to defend the AIPAC-targeted candidates, last week put out a video echoing these criticisms of the group.

But while AIPAC and UDP have stayed out of some high-profile progressives’ races so far, the groups in recent weeks have waded into House primaries where the Israel-Hamas war hasn’t been anywhere near the center of attention.

United Democracy Project played in Illinois’ 7th District against gun violence prevention advocate Kina Collins, who unsuccessfully challenged longtime Democratic Rep. Danny Davis. The group spent around $500,000 on advertisements and mailers opposing her, according to campaign finance filings.

UDP entered Indiana’s 8th District earlier this month, a deep-red open seat, where the group is targeting former Republican Rep. John Hostettler. The group launched an ad slamming him for his previous votes against Israel.

The group has also reserved over $1 million in airtime in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District to boost state Sen. Sarah Elfreth. She is running against a crowded field of candidates that includes former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who rose to prominence after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Dunn objected to the group entering the race, and started airing a TV ad saying: “You’d think after Jan. 6, we’d see change. But greedy corporations and corrupt politicians went back to rigging the system.”

Dunn had vowed to be a supporter of Israel and Jewish people in a position paper he previously provided to AIPAC. In the document, obtained by POLITICO, Dunn name-checked lawmakers who’d been strong Israel allies, like former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), as influencing his views.

Elfreth campaign manager Pat Murray said in a statement she was fighting to change the campaign finance system but would be “playing by the rules as they exist today, and we are not going to turn down help.”

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired the Intelligence Committee following the 2001 terrorist attacks and opposed the Iraq invasion, has died. He was 87.

His family announced the death Tuesday in a statement posted on X by his daughter Gwen Graham.

Graham, who served three terms in the Senate, made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, emphasizing his opposition to the Iraq invasion.

But his bid was delayed by heart surgery in January 2003. Never able to gain enough traction with voters to catch up, he bowed out that October. He didn’t seek reelection in 2004 and was replaced by Republican Mel Martinez.

A man of many quirks, Graham perfected the “workdays” political gimmick of spending a day doing various jobs from horse stall mucker to FBI agent. He kept a meticulous diary, noting almost everyone he spoke with, everything he ate, the TV shows he watched and even his golf scores.

But he closed the notebooks to the media during his short-lived presidential bid.

Graham was among the earliest opponents of the Iraq war, saying it diverted America’s focus on the battle against terrorism centered in Afghanistan. He also criticized President George W. Bush for failing to have an occupation plan in Iraq after the U.S. military threw out Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Graham said Bush took the United States into the war by exaggerating claims of the danger presented by the Iraqi weapons of destruction that were never found. Saying Bush distorted intelligence data, Graham argued that was more serious than the sexual misconduct issues that led to President Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s.

It spurred Graham to launch his brief presidential bid.

“The quagmire in Iraq is a distraction that the Bush administration, and the Bush administration alone, has created,” Graham said in 2003.

As a politician, few were better. Florida voters hardly considered him the wealthy Harvard-educated attorney that he was.

Graham’s political career spanned five decades, beginning with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 1966.

He won a state Senate seat in 1970, was elected governor in 1978 and was reelected in 1982. Four years later, he won the first of three terms in the U.S. Senate when he ousted incumbent Republican Paula Hawkins.

Graham remained widely popular with Florida voters, winning reelection by wide margins in 1992 and 1998 when he carried 63 of 67 counties.

Even when in Washington, Graham never took his eye off the state and the leadership in Tallahassee.

When Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican-controlled Legislature eliminated the Board of Regents in 2001, Graham saw it as a move to politicize the state university system. He led a successful petition drive the next year for a state constitutional amendment that created the Board of Governors to assume the regents’ role.

Daniel Robert Graham was born Nov. 9, 1936, in Coral Gables where his father, Ernest “Cap” Graham, had moved from South Dakota and established a large dairy operation. Young Bob milked cows, built fences and scooped manure as a teenager. One of his half-brothers, Phillip Graham, was publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek until he committed suicide in 1963, just a year after Bob Graham’s graduation from Harvard Law.

In 1966 he was elected to the Florida Legislature, where he focused largely on education and health care issues.

But Graham got off to a shaky start as Florida’s chief executive, and was dubbed “Gov. Jello” for some early indecisiveness. He shook that label through his handling of several serious crises.

As governor, he also signed numerous death warrants, founded the Save the Manatee Club with entertainer Jimmy Buffett and led efforts to establish several environmental programs.

Graham pushed through a bond program to buy beaches and barrier islands threatened by development and also started the Save Our Everglades program to protect the state’s water supply, wetlands and endangered species.

Graham also was known for his 408 “workdays,” including stints as a housewife, boxing ring announcer, flight attendant and arson investigator.

“This has been a very important part of my development as a public official, my learning at a very human level what the people of Florida expect, what they want, what their aspirations are and then trying to interpret that and make it policy that will improve their lives” said Graham in 2004 as he completed his final job as a Christmas gift wrapper.

After leaving public life in 2005, Graham spent much of his time at a public policy center named after him at the University of Florida and pushing the Legislature to require more civics classes in the state’s public schools.

Graham was one of five members selected for an independent commission by President Barack Obama in June 2010 to investigate a massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatened sea life and beaches along several southeastern Gulf states.