GOP Voter Insists to MSNBC Jan 6 Rioters Looked Like Antifa With ‘Skinny Jeans and Beards….That’s Not Normal Republicans’

MSNBC conducted a focus group with several Georgia Republicans to get their perspective on the events of January 6th, which led to participants going on and on with conspiracy theories and attempts to minimize the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

The discussion was conducted by MSNBC’s Elise Jordan, who summarized that Republican voters “want to forget” about January 6th so they can rail against Black Lives Matter instead over the bad conduct that took place amid past protests for racial justice. Sure enough, MSNBC rolled footage of Kristi, a member of the conservative focus group who asked “How is [January 6th] any different than what happened, per se, right here on the streets of Atlanta with those riots? How is it different?”

“But y’all didn’t like those riots,” Jordan retorted.

“That’s my point,” Kristi said. “It shouldn’t be treated any differently. The people that participated should be held accountable for what they did.”

From there, Jordan brought up the Republican National Committee’s statement claiming the events of January 6th were “legitimate political discourse.” Asked if they agree with that, another panelist named Martin answered “Sure, until they trespassed. But once they trespassed, what did they do? They walked up the stairway, they went in the Rotunda, and they walked become out. So now they’re in a gulag for two years.”

Martin proceeded to claim “there were only 100 bad actors” in the Capitol mob that day, and “the rest of the people were largely respectful.”

“There was a lot of bad stuff that happened that day,” he continued. “But I believe the portion of people that were troublemakers is very small. Number two, how many of those troublemakers were actually Antifa or intentional troublemakers?”

Martin’s comments echo the repeated attempts by conservatives to blame the Capitol Riot on Leftists agitators instead of Donald Trump’s supporters fueled by the former president’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen. Numerous Trump supporters have been arrested for their actions in connection with the riot, and there is no hard evidence to back up the claim that Antifa or Black Lives Matter started the violence.

Martin defended his claim by saying he saw photographs from the riot, and “All the ones that were smashing and bashing and crashing, 25, 28 years old, skinny jeans with the beards. I said to myself, ‘that’s not the normal Republican’…Maybe he was paid to do that.” He then brought up Ray Epps, the former Marine at the center of conspiratorial claims that the Capitol riot was a false flag scheme orchestrated by the FBI.

Watch above, via MSNBC.