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It's just common sense Mike!
Trump says it was ‘common sense’ for Jan. 6 rioters to chant ‘Hang Mike Pence!’
After Karl pointed out that protesters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump seemed to defend the chant as he repeated his baseless claims that he election result was fraudulent.
“Because it’s common sense, Jon,” Trump said. “It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect. How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right? — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that?”
In the interview, Trump made clear that he wanted Pence to invalidate the electoral college votes of five states in which Joe Biden had prevailed.
The attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob determined to stop the affirmation of Biden’s win resulted in the death of five people and injuries to some 140 members of law enforcement who were struck with flagpoles, batons, baseball bats and pipes. The Justice Department says 675 people have been arrested and 210 have been charged with assaulting, impeding or resisting officers.
“Because it’s common sense, Jon,” Trump said. “It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect. How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right? — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that?”
In the interview, Trump made clear that he wanted Pence to invalidate the electoral college votes of five states in which Joe Biden had prevailed.
The attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob determined to stop the affirmation of Biden’s win resulted in the death of five people and injuries to some 140 members of law enforcement who were struck with flagpoles, batons, baseball bats and pipes. The Justice Department says 675 people have been arrested and 210 have been charged with assaulting, impeding or resisting officers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-hang-mike-pence/2021/11/12/64a17142-43b0-11ec-a88e-2aa4632af69b_story.html
Trump’s defense of ‘Hang Mike Pence!’ is only the most notable rationalization of violence
Donald Trump’s attempt to rationalize the “Hang Mike Pence!” chant that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6 would be almost amusing if it weren’t so grotesque.
“The people were very angry,” Trump told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl, the verbal equivalent of a shrug. Karl had raised the question of Pence’s safety that day and mentioned the chant, prompting Trump to offer an extended riff about how it was “common sense” that Pence should have taken action in a half-baked effort to preserve Trump’s presidency. It’s nakedly self-serving in a by-now familiar way, an effort to cast the calls for execution as a natural offshoot of the crowd’s belief both that the election was stolen (a false belief that Trump bears primary responsibility for stoking) and that Pence could do something about it (same).
In this case, it’s also the functional equivalent of trying to coax a rock to run a marathon. Karl, like all objective observers, understands very well that the election was neither stolen nor tainted by significant fraud. He knows, too, that Pence’s ability on Jan. 6 to reject electoral votes submitted by states depended on highly dubious legal reasoning and would hardly have been accepted without question by Congress or the courts. Trump was sitting there offering the same nonsensical, self-serving chaff to a prominent journalist that he might offer to attendees at a Mar-a-Lago fashion show or a crowd at a rally — mostly because he has never had the ability to moderate his rhetoric or to evaluate its political utility beyond the question, “How excited do my fans get about this?”
Consider that there is an ongoing investigation into the events of that day and Trump’s role in them. It’s reasonable to assume that Pence allies will be asked to offer testimony about what occurred; we know that some have been already. Most people in Trump’s position then might therefore simply demur in response to Karl’s question, saying something like, well, that was obviously unacceptable — even if that comment sat alongside the other claims about fraud. But Trump can’t or won’t offer even that small concession.
“The people were very angry,” Trump told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl, the verbal equivalent of a shrug. Karl had raised the question of Pence’s safety that day and mentioned the chant, prompting Trump to offer an extended riff about how it was “common sense” that Pence should have taken action in a half-baked effort to preserve Trump’s presidency. It’s nakedly self-serving in a by-now familiar way, an effort to cast the calls for execution as a natural offshoot of the crowd’s belief both that the election was stolen (a false belief that Trump bears primary responsibility for stoking) and that Pence could do something about it (same).
In this case, it’s also the functional equivalent of trying to coax a rock to run a marathon. Karl, like all objective observers, understands very well that the election was neither stolen nor tainted by significant fraud. He knows, too, that Pence’s ability on Jan. 6 to reject electoral votes submitted by states depended on highly dubious legal reasoning and would hardly have been accepted without question by Congress or the courts. Trump was sitting there offering the same nonsensical, self-serving chaff to a prominent journalist that he might offer to attendees at a Mar-a-Lago fashion show or a crowd at a rally — mostly because he has never had the ability to moderate his rhetoric or to evaluate its political utility beyond the question, “How excited do my fans get about this?”
Consider that there is an ongoing investigation into the events of that day and Trump’s role in them. It’s reasonable to assume that Pence allies will be asked to offer testimony about what occurred; we know that some have been already. Most people in Trump’s position then might therefore simply demur in response to Karl’s question, saying something like, well, that was obviously unacceptable — even if that comment sat alongside the other claims about fraud. But Trump can’t or won’t offer even that small concession.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/12/trump-defense-hang-pence/
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