Trump To Armed Rioters Storming The Capitol: 'We Love You, You Are Very Special'
Trump continued to spread falsehoods about the stolen election
Donald Trump finally responded to armed rioters storming the Capitol building after hours of watching the violence unfold and his supporters actively break into a national institution on the day the Electoral College votes were to confirm Joe Biden as the next President. In it, he told the rioters, “We love you.”
Trump released a video via social media rather than addressing the nation live like Biden did earlier today. In it, as almost every one of his supporters on Capitol Hill begged him to do, he told people to go home. That wasn’t his very first message, however. He started off by telling people, “I know you’re hurting. We’ve had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it.”
He continued: “You have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order,” then said, “Go home in peace.” He continued to repeat falsehoods that November’s election was stolen, fanning the fire where one woman, who appeared to be a Trump supporter, was shot in the neck.
Earlier in the day, Trump addressed this same crowd at a “Save America” rally down the road, including members of far-right groups. In his speech, he told his supporters, “You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough and we will not take it any more.” According to Bloomberg, he then encouraged protesters to go to the Capitol and support Congress members who planned to object to Electoral College votes in key states he lost.
In the video, Trump did not condemn protesters for entering the Capitol building. In a tweet earlier today, Trump had asked them to refrain from violence but did not tell them specifically to leave the building.
A short walk from the rally, hundreds of supporters overturned barricades and fought their way past armed police, broke windows, and flooded into the Capitol building where Congress was meeting. They replaced American flags with Trump flags, took selfies in the chamber, and walked into senator’s offices, snapping pictures of paperwork and going through belongings, according to Washington Post. A 6pm curfew has been put in place in DC until 6am tomorrow.
Twitter, for its part, put what looks to be a new warning on his video shortly after it was posted, making it unsharable, unlikeable, and for anyone to comment on it.
“This was a fraudulent election,” Trump continued in his video. “But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So, go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.”
What an absolute piece of shit.
