CNN’s Brian Stelter Alarmed By Trump’s Call for ‘Biggest Protest’ Ever: ‘Seems to Me It’s January 5th All Over Again’
CNN’s Christi Paul, Boris Sanchez and Brian Stelter offered a concerned reaction to Donald Trump demanding his supporters protest the various investigations into his conduct.
On Sunday, the three CNN hosts reviewed Trump’s rally speech in Texas during which he blasted the January 6th House Select Committee for their investigation into the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Trump told the crowd that if he becomes president again in 2024, he is open to pardoning his supporters who have been jailed for their actions at the riot, which he fueled with his 2020 election lies.
“If I run and I win, we will treat those people from January 6th fairly. We will treat them fairly,” Trump said. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.”
The New York Times has noted that some Jan. 6 defendants have been detained without bail and held in objectionable conditions as they await trial. Stelter argued the GOP has experienced a “complete narrative shift” by focusing on the rioters who are being “wronged,” rather than the broader implications of January 6th.
The conversation on CNN eventually turned to focus on another part of Trump’s speech in which he raged at the investigators looking into him and his businesses.
“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal,” Trump said, “I hope we are going to have, in this country, the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt. They’re corrupt!”
“He’s directly challenging the rule of law, a legitimate investigation and emboldening the very people who tried to undo the results of the 2020 election,” Sanchez reacted. “This is incredibly dangerous.”
Stelter agreed, saying it was reminiscent of Trump calling his supporters to Washington for a rally just before they wound up laying siege to the Capitol.
“That’s exactly where we are again now,” Stelter said. “There is a base that wants to hear this from Trump, that wants to be animated, and that may listen to him say ‘If I’m wronged, protest for me.’ In Trumpspeak, that means if they find me guilty or if they find any evidence, that’s what he means and he’s already saying it every day. Seems to me it’s January 5th all over again.”
Watch above, via CNN.
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