WaPo (“Trump escalates solidarity with Jan. 6 rioters as his own trials close in“):
Shortly after Donald Trump walked onstage at a recent rally, the voice of an announcer instructed the crowd to rise “for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” Trump saluted, and the loudspeakers blasted a rendition of the national anthem performed by people accused or convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump then kicked off the rally with a promise to help the defendants — a group that includes violent offenders he has glorified as “patriots” and “hostages” and pledged to pardon if he returns to power. “We’re going to be working on that the first day we get into office,” Trump said at the rally this month in Dayton, Ohio.
WSJ (“Trump Kicks Off General Election With Dark Rhetoric, Vows to Help Jan. 6 ‘Hostages’“):
Donald Trump spent the first breaths of his first rally as a general election candidate delivering a highly-charged promise: To help the “hostages” detained for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol “the first day we get into office.”
“They were unbelievable patriots,” he said, after raising his hand in a salute as a recording played of Jan. 6 defendants singing the national anthem from jail.
My first instinct was that this is just weird. Creepy, even. Even by Trump standards.
But it’s also just dumb for someone ostensibly running for re-election.
WSJ:
At this moment, most presidential candidates would pivot to the middle to expand their support. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away,” Nikki Haley, Trump’s last GOP primary foe, said when she quit the race, just before he clinched the nomination. Instead, Trump has used events in recent days to sling polarizing rhetoric and feed red meat to his base. He has mocked President Biden’s stutter, called some migrants “animals” and said Jewish Democrats hate their religion and Israel.
On the campaign trail—particularly at his Ohio rally last weekend—and on social media, Trump has increasingly focused on the fates of Jan. 6 defendants. The former president has dangled the possibility of pardons in recent years, but now is vowing to take immediate steps if elected.
The renewed focus has caused consternation among some of his advisers. But Trump, who is facing a raft of criminal charges related to the events culminating on that day, has sought to minimize his actions by defending those of his supporters. Trump and his allies say the government has overreached in many of the cases.
They have also rallied around the death of Ashli Babbitt, 35, a protester shot by a Capitol police officer as rioters tried to smash through doors of the Speaker’s Lobby. She has been portrayed as a martyr by the far-right and Trump has attacked the officer who shot her as a coward “who wanted to show how tough he was.”
While many Trump voters align with his view of Jan. 6, the prospect of pardons could repel more moderate Republicans and independent voters Trump will need to win. In a Wall Street Journal poll conducted in late February, 55% of respondents overall were opposed to pardoning some of the people convicted of crimes, while 40% supported it. (Nearly twice as many respondents “strongly” opposed pardons than strongly supported them.) Some 88% of Democrats oppose pardons, while just under a quarter of Republicans do. Among independents, 65% oppose pardons, the Journal poll showed.
Trump needs the votes of hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—of people who dislike him but are dissatisfied with the incumbent President. To the extent they’re paying attention—which, granted, is a huge caveat this far out—this can’t be helpful.
But it’s quite possible that staying out of prison is more top of mind for Trump than being reunited with the Resolute desk.
WaPo:
“Every time there is a big event that is ‘negative Trump lawsuit,’ he’ll do something to distract attention from that,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor at Princeton University who studies the rise and fall of constitutional government. “These outbursts with language that’s just unacceptable in U.S. politics happen when he is under pressure.”
While Trump quickly secured the GOP nomination, defeating his rivals by wide margins in early contests and driving them to withdraw from the race, some Republicans are voicing concerns that his misrepresentations of the Jan. 6 attack and the people involved could weaken him with general election voters.
“It’s not the way that I would talk about it. I was there,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who endorsed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the primary, said of Jan. 6. “We want to broaden our support, we want to broaden, at least that’s the way I would look at it.” Rounds added that Trump is “probably not going to take my advice.”
In December, Trump said he’d govern as a “dictator” on “Day One” to “close the border” and drill for oil — a remark he went on to repeat, later claiming he was making it in jest. In a March social media post, he added to those two promised first acts that he would also “Free the January 6 Hostages.”
In January, Trump warned of “bedlam” if he lost, and declined to rule out violence by his supporters. In March, he threatened a “bloodbath” after he spoke about promising to enact tariffs. (Allies and his campaign argued he was speaking figuratively about the economy.)
On Friday, Trump on social media promoted a flier for the nightly vigil outside the Washington jail supporting Jan. 6 defendants housed there, led by the mother of slain rioter Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt’s mother, Micki Witthoeft, said at Wednesday’s vigil that Trump called her that day about “setting these guys free when he gets in.” She added, in remarks that were live-streamed online: “He said to pass that on to the guys inside that they’re on his mind, and when he gets in they’ll get out.”
But the more obvious explanation is that the man is just nuts.
WaPo:
Trump opened his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas, last year, while saluting to the song with Jan. 6 defendants titled “Justice for All.” He routinely plays it on the patio at Mar-a-Lago, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about private interactions. Trump played it at Mar-a-Lago the night he was arraigned last spring in New York. He also saluted to the song at a November 2023 rally in Houston.
At a recent rally in Greensboro, N.C., Trump discussed his legal problems in similar terms to how he has described people charged with or convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6. “I stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissident and as a public enemy of a rogue regime,” he said.
“The J6 hostages, I call them because they’re hostages,” he added at the same rally. “They’re put in jail for extended periods of time, for very long periods of time. They’re hostages. You heard them singing. You heard the spirit that they have, the spirit is unbelievable. That song became the number one song.”
The last bit, by the way, is actually true! The song topped the Billboard Digital Song Sales chart last week. It is, alas, an incredibly niche list. It sold some 33,000 downloads, compared to just 10,400 for the runner-up. Presumably, because nobody pays to download individual songs anymore because they can stream any song they want.
Regardless, that boy ain’t right.
