Former President Donald Trump brushed back new criticism of his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and said the Capitol protests were the fault of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.
“I’m the one that tried to stop it. I offered 10,000 soldiers, and Nancy Pelosi turned me down. So did the mayor of Washington. She turned me down in writing,” Trump said in a remarkable interview with Time magazine.
Trump also decried a “two-tier system” of justice that has targeted Jan. 6 protesters but not those tied to Black Lives Matter violence, and he promised to consider pardons for most of the nearly 1,000 tried or convicted in the Capitol riots.
“I would consider that, yes,” Trump said in comments that should be reassuring to those tied up in the protests and angering to those who believe the riots were an anti-democracy insurrection.
Trump has long been sympathetic to those who protested on Jan. 6, when President Joe Biden’s election was being certified. In discussing the day, he noted the shooting death of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt as she and others entered the House Speaker’s Lobby behind the House chamber.
“It’s a two-tier system. Because when I look at Portland, when I look at Minneapolis, where they took over police precincts and everything else and went after federal buildings, when I look at other situations that were violent and where people were killed, nothing happened to them. Nothing happened to them. I think it’s a two-tier system of justice. I think it’s a very, very sad thing. And whether you like it or not, nobody died other than Ashli,” the former president said.
Trump is set to be the Republican nominee for president again. He has a polling lead against Biden, according to CNN.
On Jan. 6, as the protests unfolded and the election certification was stalled, Trump was called on to step in. In the interview, he said that he did, repeatedly, but that his efforts were ignored by a biased media.
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“When you read my tweets, and when you see the speech that I made, and when you see the statement that I made in the Oval Office in the Rose Garden, during this very dramatic and horrible period, I’m a very innocent man. Nancy Pelosi is responsible because she refused to take the 10,000 soldiers or National Guardsmen that I offered. She refused to take them,” Trump said.
When asked if he feared violence related to the election, Trump expressed confidence that all would be calm and he would win. “I think we’re gonna have a big victory. And I think there will be no violence,” he said.
