Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace sum up the key point from the 1/6 Committee hearing.
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Rachel Maddow said, “On these first revelations from investigators, we’ve got Trump, personally, sort of, cajoling and persuading officials that he wants to get to do something that they don’t want to do. And then, he personally escalates to direct his supporters to go after them.”
Nicolle Wallace added, “What’s interesting now is that the committee, this is the fourth hearing, right? There are things that are, that don’t move. There are plot points that don’t move. And two of them are, they lost, they knew he lost. And the other is that all the means for overturning the loss were illegal. It comes up again, and again, and again. All the changes, of what you’re talking about, the escalatory tactics, so before the election, they’re doing this. He’s talking about rigged elections. North Carolina tells people to vote twice. All the changes is that the prophecy comes true. He actually loses, and then, he puts on pressure. So he gets Eastman to try to overturn it, it puts the fake electors plot in motion, and he starts his pressure campaign.”
The pattern is the same. Trump starts with personal pressure, and when that fails he mobilizes a mob to terrorize his targets. If that fails, the pressure escalates to threats and more potential violence.
The cycle culminated in the 1/6 attack on the Capitol.
Donald Trump literally terrorized election workers, elected officials, members of state legislatures. As Adam Schiff put it during the hearing, anyone who got in Trump’s way faced the pressure campaign.
Trump and his lawyers knew that they were breaking the law.
They didn’t care.
Donald Trump didn’t only try to steal an election. He tried to terrorize America into keeping him in power.
Mr. Easley is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association