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The Jan. 6 committee has outtakes of a video of Trump on Jan. 7, 2021.
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Aides pushed Trump to address the nation and condemn the Capitol riot, reports said.
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But he veered off script and kept denying he lost, per the new accounts.
The House January 6 committee plans to show outtakes of a video address by former President Donald Trump recorded the day after the Capitol riot.
The Washington Post on Thursday reported that aides urged Trump in the video address to condemn the Capitol riot, call for those involved to be brought to justice, and affirm the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
But, per the report, Trump struggled to do it, and wouldn’t condemn the rioters, at one point attempting to call them patriots. The report said he also refused to say the election had been decided — a position he has continued to hold since, citing baseless allegations of widespread election fraud.
In the video released to the public on January 7, Trump said that a “new administration” would be sworn in, the closest he came to conceding after spending months pushing false claims that the election had been stolen from him.
He also condemned the violence, but the message fell short of the unequivocal statement The Post said aides had pushed for.
According to The Post, Trump only agreed to make the video when told that members of his Cabinet were planning on removing him from office, arguing that he was unfit to govern under the 25th Amendment.
The Post’s report was later confirmed by CNN. In interviews on the network Wednesday night, committee members Rep. Jamie Raskin and Rep Adam Schiff, both Democrats, said the tapes would feature in Thursday evening’s committee hearings.
Schiff said that the outtakes would show “all of those who are urging him [Trump] to say something to do something to stop the violence. You’ll hear the terrible lack of a response from the President, and you’ll hear more about how he was ultimately prevailed upon to say something and what he was willing to say and what he wasn’t.”
The committee’s hearing on Thursday would focus on Trump’s behavior during and just after the riot, they said.
Ahead of the attack, Trump had delivered an incendiary speech to supporters who then marched on the Capitol.
Jan. 6 committee witness Cassidy Hutchinson said Trump had wanted to join with his supporters, but had been prevented from doing so by the Secret Service and aides.
Instead, he watched the violence unfold on television at the White House, resisting the the entreaties of aides and allies to call off the rioters until more than an hour into the attack, multiple reports say.
Late afternoon on Jan. 6, in a video address, Trump called on the rioters to go home, and concluded the video saying “I love you.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
