Where can I find the official transcript of Donald Trump's January 6 2021 speech?
Executive summary
The bound, government-archived transcript of President Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021, Ellipse speech is available through the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s collection on govinfo, which hosts the official GPO report containing the speech text [1]. Multiple reputable outlets and archival projects also host full transcripts and variations — including Roll Call’s Factba.se page, the Miller Center, the National Security Archive’s Washington Post transcript, and media outlets that transcribed the video statement urging supporters to go home — each useful for cross-checking wording and context [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Where “official transcript” lives: the GPO/govinfo archive
The most direct answer for an “official” government transcript is the Government Publishing Office’s record accessible via govinfo, which includes a compiled PDF report that contains the text of President Trump’s Ellipse remarks on January 6, 2021 [1]. Govinfo/GPO is the federal repository for published government documents and is the standard archival source cited for official printed records of federal events and publications [1].
2. White House and politically framed presentations
A White House-hosted January 6 page also exists and publishes a version of the day’s narrative and materials, but that page presents a politically framed account and commentary about the events and investigations rather than acting purely as a neutral archival transcript [6]. Readers seeking the speech text should be aware that the White House site in this instance is being used as a political platform about the event as much as an archive [6].
3. Independent media and archival transcriptions for cross-checking
Independent outlets and archival projects provide full, time-stamped transcripts that are valuable for comparing word choice and context; Roll Call’s Factba.se hosts a full transcript of “Donald Trump Holds a Political Rally on The Ellipse — January 6, 2021,” and is presented as a direct text resource [2]. The National Security Archive reproduces a Washington Post transcription and highlights passages critics cite as rhetoric that encouraged marching to the Capitol, which is useful for line-by-line analysis [4].
4. The short video statement and separate “go home” transcript
Separately, the one-minute videotaped remarks President Trump posted later in the day asking supporters to “go home” are transcribed and archived by outlets such as WBUR and the Miller Center, which explicitly host that brief video statement and its text for researchers and the public [5] [3]. Those brief remarks were posted and moderated by social platforms at the time and are often presented as a distinct transcript from the earlier Ellipse address in archival collections [3] [5].
5. Why consult multiple transcripts and which to cite
Scholars, lawyers, and journalists routinely consult the GPO/govinfo PDF as the baseline “official” record while cross-referencing independent transcriptions from Roll Call, the Miller Center, National Security Archive, and major outlets to check for editorial differences, timing notes, or context added by reporters [1] [2] [3] [4]. Differences in formatting, annotation, or brief video remarks being treated separately mean that relying on one single source can miss contextual elements preserved in others [2] [4].
6. How to access the transcripts now
To obtain the official government-hosted version, download the GPO PDF from govinfo’s January 6 collection [1]. For immediate web viewing or searchable text, consult Roll Call’s Factba.se page for the Ellipse speech and the Miller Center or WBUR for the later “go home” video transcript; for archival commentary and alternative transcriptions, see the National Security Archive’s reproduction of the Washington Post transcript [2] [3] [5] [4].