Pence had a nuclear football with him. How Close Did the Capitol Rioters Get to the Nuclear "Footbal

[soothsayer]

Link to tweet

?s=21


Malcolm Nance
@MalcolmNance
WOW: @fmkaplan I saw it but you caught this. Pence had a nuclear football with him. Good read!

How Close Did the Capitol Rioters Get to the Nuclear “Football”?
slate.com
https://t.co/9TUR511lVZ?amp=1

[bottomofthehill]

1. The bigger question, do you think Trump cares

If his goons got ahold of the football

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. The nuclear "football" is a collection of launch codes

that would immediately be deactivated if they fell into the wrong hands.

[Kaleva]

4. For Trump, the code is 1-2-3-4-5

[rickford66]

8. I did some work for a major airline that used that code world-wide.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

16. Maybe a series of code words: person, man, woman, camera, tv

[soothsayer]

5. Well you'd hope so

[FarPoint]

3. I imagine the Secret Service would use lethal force.

I sense there was a plain clothes military member there as well...A few shots into a mob coming for Pence could be adverted.... I must say... Malcome has a keen eye for detailed assessment...Does make one think how awful this may of been...Mob was also armed...

[soothsayer]

7. Schumer's detail had machine guns, I think Nance noted

[crickets]

10. At least one of the detail did. I saw that in one of the videos yesterday. It was startling. nt

[FarPoint]

28. In one of my past tours of the Capitol..

this was one time when Tom Delay was Speaker...say 2005...He had two such armed guards in front of his office....I was taken back by the view....then I remember my daughter's experience when she went to Honduras to render medical aid....getting off the plane, such guards were common even at the airport..that was her first impression....She had pictures...So, when I saw these guys at the Capitol then... I thought...have we come to this????

Apparently ..yes.

[FarPoint]

19. I believe that is correct...

I saw some officers/plain clothed...with such weapons...

[misanthrope]

20. Agreed

The only outcome had that mob started closing on Pence would have been a number of dead insurrectionists. Once those yahoos saw blood flying and bodies dropping, they would have descended into blind panic and run.

[rso]

6. Pence

There would have been lots of dead terrorists had they come face to face with Pence. His Secret Service detail always carry several fully automatic folded shoulder weapons which would have wreaked havoc on any attackers. Their chances of getting to Pence and/or the football were fortunately slim to none.

[sop]

9. How many nuclear footballs are there? Does the VP have one with him/her all the time?

[soothsayer]

12. I imagine so

[Wounded Bear]

17. They don't say how many there are for security reasons. I imagine several...

and it would make sense that the VP always has one with him. Scary thought, but there might be one with Madame Speaker, too. She's next in line after the VP.

Only one is active at a time, though.

[USALiberal]

18. Three! Nt

[ScratchCat]

11. Many of those rioters

Will never know how close to death they were. And I don't say that lightly. Dozens were one "breached door" or another away from being fired upon. Remember those pictures from one of the chambers with the security/police with drawn guns? Yeh, that door opens, and people would have died.

That being said, the "nuclear football" is just a bunch of daily codes and does nobody any good really. It would take one hell of an inside job plan to actually use it to send a launch command.

[soothsayer]

14. Some would have died but if the others kept coming... idk

Idk. I thought I saw that the capitol police didn’t open fire because so badly outnumbered.

Machine gun rounds are done in seconds. Depends on how bad the violent domestic extremists wanted to kill pence.

[misanthrope]

21. I highly doubt the others would have "kept coming"

I've seen reactions of the average bloke when gunfire occurs. All the false bravado tends to evaporate quickly.

[soothsayer]

23. Well the capitol police didn't open fire for a reason

[misanthrope]

24. Did you see the reaction when Ashli Babbitt was shot?

Those vermin fled in the other direction, quickly. That was one firearm that discharged a couple of shots. Imagine a few more added to it and the retreat would have been even more panicked.

[soothsayer]

25. I did see that actually. So why didn't they do more of that?

Instead of being dragged down the stairs and beaten with things?

[misanthrope]

26. I have no answer for that

You would have to ask one of the officers to know. Likely because methods change according to situation.

When those police were in the exterior doorway/arch, firing indiscriminately would have been far more dangerous to a larger number of people. Where Babbitt was shot and where the crowd was trying to enter the chamber were slimmer choke points with less people endangered by errant gunfire.

[soothsayer]

27. Fair enough

[Disaffected]

13. Seems much a-do about not much at all.

Does anyone think anyone with unauthorized access to the "codes" would actually be able to launch nuclear weapons or some-such thing? It would be an absurdity if so.

[Buns_of_Fire]

15. Even if (in the unlikely event) they'd gotten the codes, they wouldn't

have the foggiest idea what to do with them. These people aren't the juiciest persimmons on the tree, the military was watching all this, and they're not going to take a call at the local recruiter's office from somebody saying "Hello, nucular people. This is mister president trump, and I want you to blow up Iran, and the code is "t-r-u-m-p".

[Liberal In Texas]

22. "The Secret Service agents around Pence would almost certainly meet any such attempt with deadly

force. There would have been a dozen or more dead rioters scattered on the bloodied floor near the staircase where Pence, his family, and his entourage had gathered. If the mob’s survivors kept mauling and overpowering Pence and the others, they might not have thought to grab the Football, which is locked in a metal case tucked inside an ordinary-looking satchel. Even if they had grabbed the satchel, bashed the lock, and opened the case, they wouldn’t have known what to do with the stuff inside."

(From the article.)