January 8, 2021

Podcast Extra: I Was at the Capitol When the Siege Began. I Was Threatened for Being a Reporter.

Listen as our reporter recounts what it was like to watch the barricades fall.

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier outside the Capitol on Wednesday.John Minchillo/AP

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On Wednesday, a mob of Trump supporters surged toward the US Capitol as the Senate was debating certification of Joe Biden’s election win. “No one gets out alive, not today!” a man brandishing a Trump flag shouted, according to MoJo reporter Matt Cohen, who was there when the barricades fell and the insurgency began in earnest.

“I remember hearing people shouting just before they took the first barrier, ‘This is it! We’re putting our lives on the line for this! No one gets out alive!” Matt tells Jamilah King, on a special edition of the Mother Jones Podcast. “I think it’s safe to say that a good number of the people there thought this their war, that this is the beginning of a battle for them.”

The rioters scaled the walls, smashed windows, and ran through the Capitol, ransacking and looting as they went, forcing unprepared police officers to issue tear gas and lockdown orders. Five people died. The Capitol rotunda was left littered with broken glass, as American democracy itself reeled from a spasm of extremist violence.

Having covered many protests over the years, Matt says this one was different: “This really felt like the first time that if I had been wearing my press badge, especially when things got hairy, I would have been a target.”

Listen to Matt share his firsthand account with our listeners below:

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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