(DailyVantage.com) – Former president Donald Trump is getting criticism from all sides over his recent rebranding of the January 6, 2021 riots in the Capitol, where he described the prosecuted and convicted participants in the chaotic protest action “hostages” as he also called for their release.
More than 1,000 participants in the riots who were charged and convicted were found guilty of a number of charges, among them hundreds who were charged with assault of a law enforcement officer.
Following the three-year anniversary of the event, the incident is part of the current talking points of candidates and prominent personalities on both sides. Trump, however, has taken things a step further as he continues to reiterate his claim that President Joe Biden and the Democrats cheated in the 2020 presidential elections. Trump himself faces an indictment related to his actions during the riots. His involvement in them has also prompted some states, such as Colorado, to invoke a provision of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that disqualifies individuals who are involved in an “insurrection” from public office.
While the White House categorized Trump’s recent comments on the events of January 6 as “grotesque”, criticism was not limited to liberals, as a number of Republicans also expressed disagreement with the former president’s statements.
“Somebody who’s been duly convicted of a federal crime is not a hostage,” Texas Senator John Cornyn said, adding that he believed that the individuals who were tried and were convicted received due process.
Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell said that he stood by his past statements denouncing Trump and the “criminals” who stormed the Capitol. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said it was a disservice to the actual hostages held by Hamas to call the January 6 convicts “hostages.”
“That’s like calling drug traffickers unlicensed pharmacists,” he said.
Meanwhile, a Republican anti-Trump PAC, Republican Accountability, aired an ad warning voters that it would not be beyond the former commander-in-chief to call for another action similar to what happened on January 6.
“Trump told them to fight,” the PAC’s ad went. “He can never be president again.”
Copyright 2024, DailyVantage.com
