Republicans will do just about anything to deflect from the seriousness of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
First, it was the refusal by some to go through metal detectors. Then there was the claim that the riot was actually just an unruly tour—despite the entire world seeing otherwise. Now, Trump and his posse of far-right Republicans are trying to turn rioter Ashli Babbit’s death into a whodunit and framing the Democrats as the perpetrators.
Which, as Substacker and The Nation columnist Jeet Heer points out in this episode of The New Abnormal, is absolutely ridiculous.
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“Now she, by the right, is being turned into this murder,” he says, because Trump put it out there and, of course, “it then becomes sort of a GOP orthodoxy.”
But OK, we’ll bite. Who killed Ashli Babbitt?
According to Heer: obviously, Trump, “the instigator of that political violence.”
Then, Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush addresses the piece of legislation that, if passed, will help divert some police funds into mental health and other crisis programs. And she does not care if the messaging on it is polarizing: “Why do we have police officers who are doing a job that they are not skilled or trained for?”
She also weighs in on whether or not she thinks the bill will actually pass, why “discussions on discussions” with Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin aren’t working, and the only thing that scares her when it comes to Marjorie Taylor Greene. (Seriously, it’s just one thing, “I’ve been shot at. She doesn't scare me.”)
Plus! Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action reveals a gun crime stat that would freak out conservatives.
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