Mike Pence has spent the last two years-plus mostly keeping shtum about Jan. 6. He won’t even testify about it, nor has he spoken ill of the guy who almost got him killed. That ended over the weekend. At a dinner event, Pence said Donald Trump’s reckless words “endangered my family,” and called him “wrong” in thinking vice presidents can halt election certifications. It didn’t take long for the thin-skinned Trump to return fire.
On board a flight to a campaign stop in Iowa, the former (and future?) president told reporters who was really to blame the violent assault on the Capitol: his former number two.
“Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn’t have had a problem with Jan. 6, so in many ways you can blame him for Jan. 6,” Trump said. “Had he sent them back to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, the states, I believe, number one, you have had a different outcome. But I also believe you wouldn’t have had ‘Jan. 6’ as we call it.”
Again, Pence couldn’t send back the votes, as Trump has surely been informed repeatedly, to no avail. But as his wont, Trump, in his bumbling, Clouseau-esque way, all but admitted that the Jan. 6 riot — which Tucker Carlson has been clumsily trying to whitewash — was wrong.
That’s what MSNBC anchor Joy Reid and Lincoln Project member Tara Setmayer thought after his comments went public. Reid said he was “[b]asically admitting that that was the purpose of the mob,” adding, “So Trump is basically saying, yeah, that mob was there to kill you if he didn’t give me the election, and the proof is they came to get you. And if I’m a Department of Justice lawyer, I’m writing that down.”
“Doesn’t Trump always do that? He always admits to the crime,” Setmayer replied. “And he turns it around and blames everybody else. It’s always about projection.”
(Via Raw Story)