Trump’s Post-Coup Blooper Reel Says It All

The Jan. 6 committee revealed never-seen footage of Trump trying to record a speech to the nation a full day after the Capitol insurrection. He still gave zero shits. “I don’t want to say the election’s over.” A full day after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, then-President Donald Trump still had absolutely zero remorse. He accepted zero blame. He gave zero shits. Only when facing the threat of his Cabinet trying to remove him from office did he record a still-milquetoast video condemning the violent rioters. The post-coup blooper reel told the tale. “I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election’s over, OK?” Trump said in new outtake footage shown by the House Jan. 6 Select Committee on Thursday night, interrupting his take to reject the script his aides had crafted for him. That came after he repeatedly dug in his heels during the riot itself, and rejected his aides’ pleas to stop the violence.  The broad strokes of all this were obvious on the day of the attack itself, but the real-time reactions of his staff—and the visceral, mostly awful, sometimes funny reactions of top officials on Capitol Hill that day—threw the riot into stark relief. One exchange was particularly notable. Former Trump campaign adviser Tim Murtaugh texted fellow Trump campaign staffer Matt Wolking on Jan. 9, after Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died after sustaining serious injuries during the riot, that it was “shitty not to have even acknowledged the death of the Capitol Police officer.” “That is enraging to me,” Wolking texted back. “Everything he said about supporting law enforcement was a lie.” “You know what that is, of course,” Murtaugh replied. “If he acknowledged the dead cop, he’d be implicitly faulting the mob, And he won’t do that, because they’re his people. And he would also be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally got out of control. No way he acknowledges something that could be called his fault.”

via vice: Trump’s Post-Coup Blooper Reel Says It All