As White House aides trickled into work with their morning coffee, the president fired off a morning tweet from his restored Twitter account: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future.” But the rest of Washington was still grappling with the aftermath of the Capitol siege and debating whether another 12 days of Trump was just too much of a risk to the country.

The president watched the outrage spiral before him on television. Former Republican allies—ranging from Christie to Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey—called for his removal or impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was seeking assurance from the Pentagon that Trump couldn’t abruptly order a nuclear strike. Dozens of corporations announced a freeze on campaign donations to GOP lawmakers who had met Trump’s request to block certification of the election. There were reports Cabinet members were contemplating invoking the 25th Amendment to put Pence in charge. Trump complained to aides that the intensity of the blowback was unfair.

"I think the problem is that he has weathered every storm for five years ... and now I don’t think he truly appreciates the extent of the line,” said a former administration official. “I think he’s so used to people being like, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’”

It didn’t help Trump’s mood that Pence, whom Trump had been avoiding since their last conversation Wednesday morning, was being treated like the actual commander in chief by Democrats and Republicans alike. Nor was Trump happy that the vice president had so far declined to tamp down any of the calls for removal or reject pleas that he persuade Trump to resign. That just seemed to fuel the rumors that Pence might actually be considering either option.

“He’s reading these things that everyone is saying that Pence is the good guy and I think he’s like, ‘F--k,’” said a former senior administration official.

And in another departure from his vice president’s attempts to foster a peaceful transition, Trump announced via Twitter that he would definitely not attend Biden’s inauguration, leaving Pence and his wife, Karen, to represent the outgoing administration at the Jan. 20 ceremonies.

Sullen and lonely, Trump turned to an old ally who just 48 hours earlier had declared he was fed up with the president’s antics. “Trump and I, we had a hell of a journey,” Sen. Lindsey Graham had said the night of the riot before announcing: “Count me out.” Now, without any explanation from Graham, they were working side by side again. Graham is known to circle the most powerful politician. Still, White House aides were skeptical when he stopped by after renouncing Trump just days before.

Trump and Graham spent hours Friday plotting ways for the president to shift the attention back to his legacy of conservative policy accomplishments and away from Washington during the final countdown to Biden’s inauguration. They agreed to visit the southwestern border, where Trump could return to one of the issues that got him elected in the first place—the promise of a border wall.

But legacy polishing could do only so much to stem the anger. The president’s aides felt the White House should also respond to mounting calls for his impeachment by House Democrats and even some Republicans. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate member of the Senate GOP Conference, had called for Trump’s resignation hours earlier, and Pelosi was beginning to warm to the idea of a rapid no-frills impeachment.

“If the president does not leave office imminently and willingly,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to fellow Democrats, “the Congress will proceed with our action.”

Led by Kushner and Scavino, West Wing officials began debating whether Trump should comment on threats of a second impeachment, and if so, what he should say. In the end, they decided to keep Trump out of it. They devised a statement that blamed Trump’s opponents for their partisanship and they had deputy press secretary Judd Deere deliver it: “A politically motivated impeachment against a president, who has done a great job, with 12 days remaining in his term will only serve to further divide our great country.”

But there was one more crisis awaiting Trump.

Around 8:30 p.m., @realdonaldtrump went dark on Twitter and the archive of some 55,000 tweets the president had sent during his time in office — statements that had ignited intraparty wars, alerted U.S. officials to major policy changes, blown up congressional negotiations and publicly informed staffers they had been fired — disappeared from the social media site. Trump’s worst fear had become a reality: He was permanently banned from his preferred communication platform.

Unlike his response to the riots, Trump’s fury at the Twitter ban was immediate and unequivocal.

“He can’t believe that. He thinks it’s un-American,” said a person close to the president.

The president raged at Big Tech and he railed at his aides — Why hadn’t they seen this coming? — as they hunted for an alternative platform where he could quickly rebuild his following. Gab, a social network that had become a preferred method for communicating among the alt-right, was briefly considered before Kushner shut down the suggestion. Parler, another Twitter lookalike that already had a strong conservative user base, was widely discussed. But it was eventually tossed aside, too, after Apple threatened to ban it from its app store and aides realized Parler was likely headed for more trouble.

Current and former Trump aides began texting each other. Some were surprised that Twitter had finally done it. Others breathed a sigh of relief.

“We can finally sleep in peace,” remarked one former Trump aide.

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