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- Ivanka Trump tried to get convince Trump to speak strongly against the Capitol riot, a book says.
- "I'm going down to my dad. This has to stop," she told her aides.
- The scene was reported in an excerpt of a forthcoming book by two Washington Post journalists.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Ivanka Trump repeatedly tried to sway her father and then-boss, President Donald Trump, to tell his supporters storming the Capitol on January 6 to leave the complex, according to an excerpt of a forthcoming book by Washington Post journalists Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker published in the outlet on Thursday.
The authors wrote that Ivanka, then Trump's senior advisor, left her second-floor office in the White House after she saw on TV that a mob breached the Capitol. She wanted to find Trump and convince him to speak forcefully against the violence, the book says.
"I'm going down to my dad. This has to stop," she reportedly told her aides.
What ensued was Ivanka spending "several hours walking back and forth" to the Oval Office, trying to convince Trump to order his supporters to stand down, per the book.
At times, Trump's then-chief of staff Mark Meadows would call Ivanka to come downstairs to get through to Trump, the book says.
"I need you to come back down here," Meadows reportedly told her. "We've got to get this under control."
Meadows would direct other Trump aides to step out of the room, saying: "I only want Ivanka, myself and the president in here," the authors wrote.
One White House advisor said that "Ivanka was described to me like a stable pony," the book says. "When the racehorse gets too agitated, you bring the stable pony in to calm him down," the person reportedly said.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Trump's ally, had also called Ivanka on her cellphone "numerous times" before she answered, the book says.
"You need to tell [Trump] to tell these people to leave," Graham reportedly said.
"We're working on it," Ivanka responded, according to the book.
Hours before the violence broke out, Trump had pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to do something out of his power - block the 2020 electoral certification process in Congress. Ivanka sought to calm down Trump at the time, taking issue with the situation.
"This is not right. It's not right," Ivanka reportedly said that morning.
"Mike Pence is a good man," she later told Keith Kellogg, a White House aide, per the book.
Yet Trump was unmoved. As the riot unfolded, Trump attacked Pence in a tweet. Later, Trump sent two other tweets, saying the mob should "stay peaceful" and "respect the Law." Finally, Trump tweeted a video telling his supporters to "go home" while calling them "special."
Leonnig and Rucker spoke to more than 140 sources for their book, "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year," which comes out next Tuesday.
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