Donald Trump, who summoned his supporters to Washington DC on January 6 and encouraged them to march to the US Capitol and “fight like hell” is now claiming that Democrats “wanted” violence that day and is blaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the storming of the Capitol.
During an interview on right-wing station OAN, Trump falsely claimed that Nancy Pelosi was responsible for the Capitol’s vulnerability on the day and even suggested that Democrats “wanted” the violent insurrection to happen.
“The unselect Committee, they’re looking at everything other than two things,” Trump said. “They don’t want to know about Nancy Pelosi turning down 10,000 Soldiers because she didn’t like the look. Have you had 10,000 soldiers for, you know, hundreds of people? They wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the place. It wouldn’t have been there would have been no, no. January 6.”
He then claimed that Democrats “wanted it” in reference to the violence that unfolded on the Capitol that day.
“If you had soldiers circling and I recommended strongly, but it’s your decision, she’s the one that has to make the decision. And nobody likes talking about that,” the former president said before adding: “I recommended it because I knew that a lot of people were coming down. They were coming down because they thought the election was rigged. And they were right. But that’s why they were coming down. And that’s why they don’t want to talk about it.”
Trump’s comments come as the January 6 select committee prepares to release its final report next week, as an effort to delegitimize its findings.
The former president has seen a string of court losses in recent weeks. He failed in his latest effort to thwart the Department of Justice investigation into his retention of the documents, after US District Judge Eileen Cannon, who Trump himself appointed, dismissed his lawsuit against the DOJ.
Watch the interview below:
"There are a lot of people that think they wanted it" — Trump suggests during OAN interviews that Democrats wanted January 6 to happen pic.twitter.com/GkscBgM0eu
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 12, 2022
