‘You CAN Speculate!’ Tapper Protests Hutchinson’s Claim She ‘Can’t Speculate’ as To Why Trump Wanted To Go To the Capitol on Jan. 6
CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed White House Aid Cassidy Hutchinson when she claimed she couldn’t speculate about why Donald Trump was so determined to go to the Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Hutchinson has been making the television rounds to promote her new book, Enough, published by Simon & Schuster.
“So let’s talk about January 6,” Tapper said. “Because one of the things that you brought to everyone’s attention and your testimony, was how much Trump wanted to go to the Capitol on January 6, demanded to go the Capitol on January 6, and I think one of the big questions that I have is, why? What did he want to do at the Capitol?”
Hutchinson began, “You know, I can’t speculate. I heard several things —”
“You can speculate!” Tapper interjected. “You have, but you have more information — you know these —”
“But that wouldn’t be responsible,” Hutchinson replied. “Because definitively, I don’t know what he wanted to do that day.”
“But what are some ideas?” Tapper pressed.
“What I would know is that there was a reason he wanted to go to the Capitol and be with his supporters,” Hutchinson said, continuing:
And Donald Trump also knows the impact that his words have, and the impact that his presence has on his supporters. He knows that he, himself, riles people up.
He knew that the crowd was armed that day. He knew that there were people angry about this. So, knowing Donald Trump, knowing what I knew inside of the White House, that was not a mistake. He did not just want to go to the Capitol, to go there and make a little speech, and then go back to the White House. There was a reason that he wanted to go there.
And again, I would like to restate that Donald Trump knows the impact of his words. So when he on January 6, when he wanted to go to the Capitol, everything that — that was intentional. The Mark Milley tweet that you earlier mentioned from this past weekend — he knows the impact that those words will have. He knows that people will come out and be violent against these people, and that is what he wants.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
