Trump promises amnesty for Capitol coup plotters if elected

Former US President Donald Trump participated this Wednesday (10) in a CNN interview, where he answered questions from Republican and undecided voters. He returned to insist in the coup tone that he did not lose the election, waved to the extremists and promised a turbulent election, if he is the candidate in 2024.

Throughout the sabbath, the businessman promised amnesty for Capitol invaders who were arrested or prosecuted and spoke again of fraud in the 2020 election, when he lost to opponent Joe Biden. Although he bets on extremist speech, his party is evaluating whether it prefers a more moderate candidate, without Trump’s controversies.

The businessman started by posing as a victim of election fraud in the 2020 presidential campaign and said that Biden took the US “to hell” due to inflation. He even threatened that he would again call into question the mechanics of the election, if he is not elected.

The Republican called President Joe Biden “the face of the left’s failure and government corruption” and said his administration brought a “time of pain, anxiety and despair” to Americans. In the evaluation of the former president, it would be easier to beat his rival in 2024, because “everyone sees the bad work that was done”.

With the certainty that he will be the candidate of the Republican Party for the presidency, in 2024, Trump said that, in case he loses, he will only accept the result “if it is an honest election”. It remains to be seen whether American society is exhausted by Trump’s sterile polemics.

Capitol

He blamed Nancy Pelosi for the invasion of the Capitol, reflecting a common fake news that the mayor would be responsible for the House police. “One of the big problems was that Nancy Pelosi – crazy Nancy, as I affectionately call her. Crazy Nancy and the mayor of Washington were charged, as you know, by security. And they didn’t do their job,” she said.

He then promised amnesty for Capitol coup plotters. “I am inclined to forgive many of them. I won’t be able to forgive each one, but it will be a big part of them,” he promised. With that, he nods to the most polarized segments of the Republican Party.

According to the government, since January 6, 2021, more than 950 people have been arrested and, among them, more than 284 have been convicted of the episode.

Trump falsely claimed that he called in the National Guard to intervene during the riot, which Collins of CNN rejected and noted that, according to former Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, there would never have been a formal order to deploy the National Guard.

The terrorist action on the Capitol was led by supporters of the former president who did not accept his defeat in the presidential race and tried to prevent the diplomacy of Joe Biden, who overcame the republican.

Five people, including a police officer, died due to the open conflict that day and over 140 police officers were injured. At the time, the press reported that the cost of broken glass, doors, furniture and graffiti, in addition to restoring works of art, surpassed the US$ 30 million mark.

The then US Vice President, Mike Pence, accused Trump of putting his life at risk with the attack on the Capitol, which he reaffirms that he does not owe “apologies” and still accuses his former vice president. For him, Pence should reject the election result and restart the vote count. Collins corrected him, explaining that Pence did not have the authority to overturn the election results.

document hijacking

Trump defended that he had every right to take confidential documents after leaving the White House, “according to the Presidential Records Act” and insulted the journalist when she challenged him. The documents were seized by the FBI at his home in Florida.

Collins corrected Trump by pointing out that the Presidential Records Act does not say a former president can take documents home, but that they are the property of the federal government when a president is out of office.

She asked several times why Trump waited to return confidential documents when he knew the federal government was looking for them and subpoenaed him to return them. Donald Trump, however, did not answer the question and insulted Collins. “It’s very simple – you’re a nasty person, let me tell you,” he put it. Only desperation for positive space in the press explains Donald Trump submitting to the interview on CNN, with whom he has not spoken since 2016.

Immigration, guns, abortion and the economy

Trump has reaffirmed his draconian immigration policy. He exaggerated by saying that he built the wall he promised between the US and Mexico, even though he only covered 83 km. He also has no regrets about the controversial family separation policy. “When you say to a family that ‘if you come, we’ll separate you’, they don’t come”.

The United States has recorded more than 200 mass shootings to date in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Despite this, Trump stressed that he will guarantee the right to bear arms, but that he will invest in the treatment of mental health problems as a way to combat mass shootings, in addition to paying more police.

He even mentioned Brazil, saying that there was a very strict policy on carrying weapons and a lot of criminality. With the release of the port in Brazil, he says that “crime has dropped a lot”, although there is no data on this.

The United States is in the midst of a legal dispute over abortion after the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. This was done with the mobilization of the Republican Party and the Trump administration.

As many states moved to restrict abortion rights after the Supreme Court ruling, the former president did not specify whether he would support a federal ban or how many weeks pregnant he would support a ban. With that, he revealed that he is intimidated by the controversy that has become the topic in the country.

Trump believes that the solution to inflation in the country is to produce more oil in the US. He said that during his time as head of the United States, the country was independent in terms of power generation and that the cost of gas had fallen to record levels. He ignored that the biggest effects of fuel inflation were due to the war in Ukraine.

About the US having reached the debt ceiling established by Congress in January and the impasse to solve the problem, the businessman’s solution is to promote spending cuts and pay the debts. “We are spending money like drunken sailors,” Trump said, arguing that the government should default.

“Our country is being destroyed by stupid people, very stupid people,” he said.

judicial attrition

The conversation took place a day after the former president was convicted by a New York jury of paying $4.7 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse. Trump is the first American president who has ever been criminally charged.

The businessman faces a series of legal problems that threaten his White House aspirations. About ten women have already accused him of inappropriate sexual conduct. As for voters who understand that this disqualifies him from the race, Trump said the case was made up and that it was all politically motivated.

In early April, a grand jury formally charged him with 34 misdemeanors for allegedly secretly paying, in cash, to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels, in the final stretch of the 2016 election campaign.

He is also investigated for trying to reverse his defeat in the 2020 elections in the state of Georgia, for alleged mismanagement of official documents taken from the White House and for possible involvement in the attack on the Capitol.