'The lie continues': CNN's Tapper crushes Trump's latest falsehoods about Capitol riots
CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday whacked former President Donald Trump for continuing to spread lies about the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol building.
Tapper began by noticing that Trump has stepped up his efforts to reveal the name of the Capitol Police officer who fatally shot MAGA rioter Ashli Babbitt.
"Former President Trump is not only fully embracing the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, he is further attempting to demonize the law enforcement officials who protected the Capitol and lawmakers on that day," he said. "Tump, who never had any issue with Secret Service taking extreme measures to protect him during his presidency, is now falsely suggesting a conspiracy surrounding the death of one of those insurrectionists, Ashli Babbitt."
Tapper played a clip of Trump calling into Fox News to praise the insurrectionist as "innocent" and "incredible."
The host worried that the facts don't matter to Trump.
"Ashi Babbitt was killed by a Capitol Police officer after she, among others, tried to squeeze through a smashed window of a barricaded door. The Justice Department cleared the officer of any wrongdoing, but none of that apparently matters to the former president," Tapper said, playing another clip of Trump.
CNN's Tom Foreman fact-checked Trump's claims.
"The facts: investigators say Babbitt joined the mob at the Capitol expressing fervent belief in President Trump's lies about election fraud. She was in a group trying to smash into the Speaker's Lobby outside the House chamber and was climbing through a broken window close to where members of congress were hiding when she was shot in the shoulder — not the head as Trump claims — by a Capitol Police lieutenant. The Justice Department watched videos, talked to witnesses, and found insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution against that officer," Foreman reported.
"And political analysts say the motivation for this conservative uproar over Babbitt is equally clear: to draw attention away from Donald Trump and other Republicans as investigations get underway into the cause of this riot," Forman said.
Tapper warned the GOP would likely embrace Trump's support for Babbitt.
"He just started talking about this, but meanwhile the lie about the insurrection continues and when he tries to make Republicans choose — and I don't doubt that we're going to start hearing Republican members of Congress and the Senate start taking on this cause as well. He's also asking people to embrace this alternate reality that we know is not the case."
Watch:
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