Donald Trump was asked during Thursday’s presidential debate about concerns from voters about the January 6 riot and that he may lead his supporters to do the same again. In response, Trump promptly began spewing falsehoods surrounding the insurrection.
“What do you say to those voters who believe that you violated your constitutional oath through your actions and inaction on January 6, 2021, and worry that you’ll do it again?” moderator Jake Tapper asked. Trump initially denied that voters have that concern, then delved into a spree of falsehoods.
Trump responded somewhat quizzically, saying, “Well, I didn’t say that to anybody. I said peacefully and patriotically,” apparently in reference to his directive to his supporters to go to the Capitol.
Here’s what he actually told the crowd before the riot:
We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.
And hours later, he posted on X (formerly Twitter):
I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. But you have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order.
Trump then stated then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed responsibility for the riot. “I offered her 10,000 soldiers or National Guard and she turned them down and the mayor, I have it in writing, by the way, the mayor in writing, turned it down. The mayor of D.C. They turned it down. I offered 10 times because I could see. I had virtually nothing to do.”
Recently released video during the Capitol riot shows Pelosi asking why the National Guard wasn’t present as she was evacuated from the Capitol, and later shows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also demanding answers about why the National Guard isn’t mobilized.
“We need them fast. We’ve all had to—I’ve never seen anything like this. We’re like a third-world country here. We had to run and evacuate the Capitol,” Schumer snapped.
Trump has long falsely claimed that he signed an order for 10,000 National Guard troops to mobilize to Washington prior to the insurrection. Trump and fellow conservatives have also falsely claimed that Pelosi was responsible for preventing their deployment.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser failed to mobilize a sizable National Guard presence based on “intelligence failures” that believed the far-right extremists would be “friendly” to police, but she did in fact call for a limited National Guard mobilization ahead of the January 6 riot.
