Former President Donald Trump faced pushback on Sunday from some of his fellow Republicans for calling the Jan. 6 rioters being held in prison “patriots” and “hostages” over the weekend.
Trump opened his campaign rally for GOP Senate hopeful Bernie Moreno on Saturday by playing a recording of the national anthem sung by the Jan. 6 choir, a group of Capitol rioters currently serving time in a Washington D.C.-based prison. The former president went on to describe those singing as “unbelievable patriots.”
“You see the spirit from the hostages. And that’s what they are — hostages,” Trump said at his Dayton, Ohio, rally.
Republicans were pressed on the comments while appearing on Sunday shows the next morning, and a number were quick to distance themselves from Trump’s remarks.
“It’s very unfortunate in a time when there are American hostages being held in Gaza, that the President or any other leaders would refer to people that are moving through our justice system as hostages — it’s just unacceptable,” former Vice President Mike Pence said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) concurred with Pence when asked the same question on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“I do not think it’s appropriate. We’re a nation of laws, and those folks were convicted,” Cassidy said. “If you plead guilty, i.e., obviously, you’re not a patriot. You’re somebody who committed a criminal act.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) similarly said he disagreed with Trump calling the rioters “hostages.”
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“I don’t believe they’re hostages. I believe in our judicial system, and I believe, as you’ve seen because you reported them, some of these cases have been overturned,” Turner told ABC’s This Week. “Some of the — even the legal construct of the basis of a number of these cases have been overturned.”
“This is going to be, you know, a continuing legal process,” he continued. “This president obviously has very strong personal views on this.”
