Many words have been used to describe the events of Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C.—but “lovefest” has not been among them, until now. In an unwelcome return to giving long and wildly contradictory phone interviews to Fox News, Donald Trump spoke to Steve Hilton on Sunday night after delivering his speech at CPAC. Asked if he regretted anything about how he handled the riots, Trump blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for poor security and then boasted about the size of the crowd that was in D.C. to support him. “The press doesn’t like to talk about it, but the real number was much, much bigger... It was tremendous numbers of people, not the Capitol, I’m talking about the rally itself, and it was a lovefest, it was a beautiful thing.” That rally, of course, is where Trump incited his supporters to march to the Capitol where the deadly riot took place. When pressed, Trump said he “hated” to see the violence at the Capitol, but immediately went on to complain about the supposed “double standard” that “nobody seems to be bothered” by unspecified violence from “the radical left.”
Trump called in to Fox News after his CPAC speech and was asked by Steve Hilton about his response to the January 6 insurrection. He tried to shift blame to Pelosi before resorting to Black Lives Matter whataboutism. pic.twitter.com/5tjXcs12hF
