Derived from https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/09/politics/donald-trump-dangerous-capitol-r... go there for full video 

 

The day America realized how dangerous Donald Trump is

Analysis by Maeve Reston and Kevin Liptak, CNN

Updated 1:43 PM ET, Sat January 9, 2021

(CNN)When the history of the 45th presidency is written, Wednesday, January 6, will go down as the day America realized how dangerous President Donald Trump really is.

In the span of hours, the country finally witnessed the price of its five-year experiment turning its election process into a reality show that produced an unhinged megalomanic as commander-in-chief who amassed so much power through his lies and fear-mongering that he was able to engineer an insurrection as a final act that left democracy dangling by a thread.

Wednesday's siege at the Capitol marked the culmination of Trump's years-long quest to cultivate a fiercely loyal base that would do anything for him by playing on their fears and resentments as he lured them into believing his incessant lies about the sinister motives of government, election fraud and his own conduct.

The consequences were deadly: five people have died as a result of Wednesday's riot, including a Capitol Police officer. Some of Trump's supporters were armed and ready for war: an Alabama man allegedly parked a pickup truck with 11 homemade bombs, an assault rifle and a handgun two blocks from the Capitol hours before authorities discovered it, according to federal prosecutors. Another man allegedly showed up with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, telling acquaintances he wanted to shoot or run over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pipe bombs were found near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee as authorities tried to dispel the mob and secure the Capitol.

But three days later, Trump appears no more aware of the consequences of his actions than on the day of the riot when he delighted in the mayhem. Bunkered at the White House with an ever-shrinking circle of aides, he has offered no remorse for inciting the crowd and offered only a forced denunciation of their actions. Aides, weary and disgusted, refuse to come near him. His central line to the outside world, Twitter, was severed Friday night. People who admired him, worked for him and followed him down dark paths before now say he has crossed into a delusional place, entirely detached from reality.

Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.

Wednesday's shocking events can be traced to the inception of Trump's candidacy. From the earliest days of the 2016 presidential race, his rallies crackled with tension and anger -- a testament to his skill in finding the fault lines on issues of class and race and exploiting them to draw in followers who felt marginalized and wronged by their leaders. His supporters had hungered for a charismatic leader like him who would empower the "silent majority" and serve as a voice for their grievances. He thrilled them as he blasted through societal norms and the guardrails of democracy, while offering safe harbor to White supremacists, conspiracy theorists, anti-government renegades, racists and anti-Semitic activists who fell in line behind a political figure who would channel their rage in exchange for their fealty.

As he lurched from one shocking maneuver to the next, Trump commanded the constant attention of the press, broadening his universe of followers as he used Twitter as his megaphone. By threatening to punish his critics and by firing civil servants who tried to check his thirst for power, he cowed members of the Republican Party and his own aides, who became complicit in his unraveling of democracy. Meanwhile, much of America grew numb to his circus act, shrugging off the magnetic power of Trumpism as though it was a passing fad.

Trump faces fallout

That all changed Wednesday as the country watched the mob encouraged by Trump scale the walls of Capitol, beating back police officers as they smashed through the historic building's doors and windows, shattering glass to force their way in bearing metal pipes, sticks and other weapons. Lawmakers from both parties were forced to cower below the seats in their respective chambers before being evacuated to secure locations, as the insurrectionists ransacked congressional offices and attempted to occupy the nation's seat of government on the day Congress was affirming President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election. The barbarism of the day was underscored by chilling reports that some of the Trump faithful were on the hunt for Vice President Mike Pence — who had refused to accede to the President's demand that he overthrow the election results and was presiding over the counting of the Electoral College votes.

As the horrifying riot unfolded in the "people's house," it became clear that Trump had finally gone too far. His political capital was already weakened by the Republicans' defeats in two runoff races in Georgia that were poisoned by the President's lies about voter fraud — with some in the GOP openly blaming Trump for their resulting loss of the Senate majority.

And the breach of the barricades that put the lives of the nation's lawmakers in danger began to break -- at least for now -- the spell that Trump has cast over his party. When order was restored some outraged Republicans condemned the President for his role in inciting the violence; others signaled it was time to move on and rebuild the Republican Party after four years in which the President has tried to bully them into submission.

With Democrats now poised for full control of Congress, Trump was now facing real consequences for his actions. During the overnight certification of results, which had been delayed by the rioters, the rumblings began among Democratic members of Congress about whether he could be ousted through the 25th Amendment or impeached for a second time to prevent him from holding office again.

Momentum has only grown among Democrats for fast-track impeachment beginning next week, and the latest draft of the resolution obtained by CNN included one article of impeachment for "incitement of insurrection." Many Republicans, however, say that step is futile for a President who has less than two weeks left in his term.

Still as the glass was being swept up from the Capitol grounds, some GOP lawmakers considered supporting his impeachment. More than a dozen administration officials, including two Cabinet secretaries, have resigned citing their concerns with Trump's response to the riot.

"I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage," Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News in a report published Friday, making her the first Republican senator to call on Trump to resign because of Wednesday's riot.

Protesters supporting U.S. President Donald Trump break into the U.S. Capitol on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building during demonstrations in the nation's capital.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a frequent Trump critic who favored acquitting Trump in the first impeachment trial last year, said Friday during an interview on Hugh Hewitt's radio show that he was seriously considering whether he would vote to remove the President from office once articles of impeachment are introduced. "There are a lot of questions that we need to get to the bottom of," he said.

Sasse also voiced concerns about Trump's response to the riot, noting that senior White House officials had told him that Trump "wanted chaos on television" and was "confused about why other people on his team weren't as excited as he was" as rioters pummeled Capitol Police trying to get into the building.

"The question of 'Was the President derelict in his duty?' That's not an open question. He was," the Nebraska Republican said.

Earlier, Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney -- the lone GOP senator to vote to convict Trump in 2020 -- called Wednesday's invasion of the Capitol "an insurrection incited by the President," and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the GOP leadership team, said the combination of the losses in the Georgia Senate races and the storming of the Capitol underscored the GOP's need to move beyond Trump.

"Our identity for the past several years now has been built around an individual," Thune told CNN this week. "You got to get back to where its built around a set of ideals and principles and policies."

Facing staff resignations and a looming impeachment, Trump made a meager attempt to mitigate the damage by finally acknowledging he won't be serving a second term in a prerecorded video Thursday evening. But the next day, he was tweeting about his supporters having a "giant voice" and said he would not attend President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, a hint that he would continue his efforts to delegitimize the election results.

That was the final straw for Twitter, which announced that it was permanently suspending Trump's account "due to the risk of further incitement of violence." With his political fate hanging in the balance, he had been silenced, at least for the moment.

A day that encapsulated the danger of Trump

For weeks, while advancing the false claims that the presidential election was rigged and mired in fraud, Trump had whipped up excitement about the January 6 certification of results, inviting his supporters to descend on Washington and promising it would be "wild."

He arrived at the Ellipse to address the "Save America March" shortly after his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani warmed up the crowd by falsely suggesting voting machines were "crooked" and insisting that Pence could change the election outcome, which the vice president did not have the power to do. "Let's have trial by combat!" the former New York Mayor told the crowd as they awaited the President.

Backstage, Trump's son and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, recorded themselves dancing to the soundtrack and encouraging Trump supporters to "fight."

President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.

Inciting the crowd with an address threaded with lies -- including that "the states got defrauded" in the election and "want to revote" -- Trump stirred anger toward his vice president, telling the crowd once again that he hoped Pence would "do the right thing" -- pressuring him to toss out the election results, which would have been illegal and beyond the bounds of his constitutional authority.

He already knew that his vice president would not take that step. Pence had informed him in a tense conversation that he could not overturn the election results, leading Trump to curse at him, according to a source familiar with the conversation. But Trump did not let up at the Wednesday rally as he railed against "weak Republicans" and "pathetic Republicans" who refused to bend to his whims, while calling lawmakers who planned to contest the election results "warriors."

"We're gonna walk down to the Capitol. And we're gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women," the President said as he marshaled the crowd for action. "You'll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong."

But as his supporters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and began their assault on the Capitol, Trump had returned to the White House consumed with his schemes for overriding an election that he lost with 232 electoral votes to Biden's 306. To the dismay of his aides, he delighted in watching the riot that injured dozens of officers and sent fears of a coup racing across the Capitol. Aides struggled to get him to understand how serious the situation had become. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, one of the President's staunchest allies, had a "heated exchange" with the President as rioters overran the Capitol building, urging him to denounce the attack and try to quell the violence, according to a source briefed on the exchange. But Trump declined to do so. Asked on Fox whether he expected Trump to address the situation, McCarthy said only: "I don't know."

Trump did not even attempt to secure the safety of the vice president, even though several of his supporters who were part of the violent mob were heard shouting "Where's Mike Pence?" in the midst of their Capitol rampage. Those threats alarmed Pence and his family, a source close to the vice president told CNN's Jim Acosta, widening the breach between the President and Vice President.

In fact as the siege unfolded, Trump demonstrated the callous depths of his narcissism by trying to pressure senators to derail the affirmation of the election results, as they feared for their safety in the midst of a riot he had incited.

CNN reported Friday that Trump mistakenly called Republican Sen. Mike Lee on his personal cell phone as the rampage was unfolding while trying to reach Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a newly elected Republican from Alabama. Lee fielded the President's call shortly after 2 p.m. ET, at a time when senators had been evacuated from the Senate floor to protect them from the approaching mob. Lee handed Tuberville his phone, a spokesman for the senator confirmed to CNN, and the President proceeded to try to convince Tuberville to slow down the certification of the Electoral College vote. The call ended when the senators were moved to a secure location.

At the White House, Trump's daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump and chief of staff Mark Meadows tried to convince Trump to record a message that would direct the rioters to stand down.

But the resulting message satisfied no one as he ad-libbed, telling the insurgents who had stormed the Capitol: "We love you. You're very special."

On Thursday, the wave of administration resignations and condemnations of the President by former Trump staffers continued as shaken staff members cited real concerns about the stability and continuity of government. On Capitol Hill, GOP lawmakers expressed anger about Trump's role in that dark moment in the country's history.

Trump went about his business, including awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a pair of professional golfers in the East Room. His attempts to proceed as normal angered some aides even further.

With the President increasingly isolated, Trump's aides, including his daughter, Meadows and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, warned him that he was in real danger of being removed or impeached. Though reluctant to denounce his supporters, he agreed to record a second video released Thursday where he acknowledged a new administration is coming -- without congratulating Biden. (Cipollone is now among those who are considering resigning, two sources familiar with his thinking told CNN's Pamela Brown.)

But Trump's thinking hadn't changed.

"I think that video was done only because almost all his senior staff was about to resign, and impeachment is imminent," a White House adviser, who spoke with senior officials as the debacle was unfolding, told CNN's Jim Acosta. "That message and tone should have been relayed election night ... not after people died."

Later, Trump appeared to some aides like he regretted taping the spot, asking those around him whether it was being well received.

The arrests of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol began to pile up Friday including Derrick Evans, a West Virginia state legislator who is being charged with entering a restricted area and entering the US Capitol, and Richard Barnett of Arkansas who was photographed sitting at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk during the Capitol siege. Barnett was charged with knowingly entering and remaining in restricted building grounds without authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds as well as the theft of public property, federal officials said Friday.

Lonnie Leroy Coffman of Alabama, who allegedly parked the pickup truck with the weapons cache near the Capitol Hill Club near the Capitol, told police he also had mason jars filled with "melted Styrofoam and gasoline" -- a combination that could have the same effect as napalm if it exploded, court documents said, because "it causes the flammable liquid to stick to objects that it hits upon detonation."

While the possibility of removal of the President through the 25th Amendment looks increasingly remote, in part because Pence has no interest in participating in that process, more Republicans are turning their attention to helping Biden transition into the job.

McCarthy rejected calls for Trump's impeachment Friday, but referred to Biden as the President-elect for the first time: "I have reached out to President-elect Biden today and plan to speak to him about how we must work together to lower the temperature and unite the country to solve America's challenges," the California Republican said.

Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

After Trump indicated in one of his final tweets that he won't attend Biden's inauguration, the President-elect expressed relief at the prospect of his absence Friday, stating it was the one of the few things they had ever agreed on. Pence, however, would be welcome to attend, Biden said.

Wednesday's events, Biden argued, proved that Trump is "not fit to serve." If the nation were six months from inauguration, Biden said, he would be all for "moving everything" to get Trump out of office, including invoking the 25th Amendment. But with less than two weeks to go, the President-elect said he was focused "on us taking control" and would leave decisions about impeachment up to the Congress.

The President's encouragement of a mob Wednesday, Biden said, reminded him of what happens in nations with tin horn dictators. But he said the country's realization of the danger Trump poses could make his job easier as he attempts to unite a divided country -- though that remains an open question.

"I've had a number of Republicans who are former colleagues call me. They are as embarrassed and mortified by the President's conduct as the Democrats are," Biden said Friday. "What this President has done is ripped the band-aid all the way off to let the country know who he is, and what he's about, and how thoroughly unfit for office he is."

CNN's Jim Acosta, Zachary Cohen, Devan Cole, Jeremy Diamond, Kaitlin Collins, Betsy Klein, Sarah Mucha, Paul LeBlanc, Katelyn Polantz, Phil Mattingly, Alex Rogers, Manu Raju, Kara Scannell, Sunlen Serfaty contributed to this report.

 

Derived from (below) 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/opinions/capitol-attack-beer-hall-putsch-...  Go there for video montqague of White House official saying they all knew it is a ruse the election was stolen.

Saving our democracy requires more than removing Trump from office

Opinion by Jeff Weaver

Updated 4:46 PM ET, Fri January 8, 2021

Former WH official on Trump: We can't stand by the man 02:47

Jeff Weaver, a long-time aide to Senator Bernie Sanders and campaign manager for Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, led "America's Progressive Promise PAC," a pro-Democratic Super PAC working to engage progressive voters during the 2020 general election. The opinions expressed in this commentary are the writer's own. Read more opinion at CNN.

(CNN)The sacking of the US Capitol by right-wing goons marks a turning point in American democracy. This country has a long and hallowed tradition of peaceful protest and civil disobedience, which has played a central role in many of America's important struggles for social and economic change, including the civil rights movement, the fight for women's suffrage, the labor movement and many others.

Jeff Weaver

But make no mistake -- what took place at the US Capitol Wednesday is not a part of that tradition. If a group of Trump supporters entered the Capitol and held a sit-in in the rotunda, they might be able to make the claim that they were engaging in the type of peaceful protest that is key to American democracy. That is not what happened.

The invasion of the Capitol has been called an insurrection. Others have called it an attempted coup. These characterizations get at the truth. But regardless of what one calls it, it was an overt attempt to stop our constitutionally mandated process of peacefully transferring power from one administration to the next. Violent, far-right rioters -- egged on by the President himself -- tried to thwart the very operation of our democracy by force. These thugs, to put it bluntly, acted as enemies of our republic -- the very domestic enemies lawmakers are sworn to oppose when they take their oath of office.

Some will say that January 6 will turn Americans away from Trumpism and potentially spark a more civil discourse in politics. We can all pray they are right. But this naive view ignores the deep social and economic ills that drove tens of millions of hard-working Americans into Trump's arms throughout the last four years, including a growing percentage of minority voters. Those preconditions still exist, ready to be exploited by Trump and those who seek to emulate him.

Hold Trump accountable for incitement

The darker and more likely truth is that American democracy is in grave danger despite Trump's election defeat in November. In 1923, a fringe, right-wing party in the democratic German Weimar Republic attempted a coup that history remembers as the Beer Hall Putsch. It was amateurish in its execution and quickly crushed by authorities. Democracy was saved...or so it seemed at the time.

The Weimar government's response toward the perpetrators of the coup, however, was timid to say the least. Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party leader who plotted the putsch, was convicted of treason and served less than a year of his five-year sentence. With Germany reeling from hyperinflation and a shattered economy, Hitler was on his way to becoming the dictator of Germany, the initiator of World War II and the mass murderer of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

Our republic cannot afford to ignore the possibility that January 6 represents the same warning sign of creeping right-wing authoritarianism in our own democracy. Our government must act swiftly by seeking the maximum punishment under the law for all those who smashed their way into the Capitol. This is the moment for resolve, not handwringing. The republic must make clear that it will defend itself from this existential threat.

The response must also hold law enforcement leaders accountable for failing to protect the halls of Congress from invasion. It is inexcusable that the mostly White Trump supporters were allowed to desecrate one of America's most important monuments to democracy. This failure is even more offensive when taking into account the aggressive police response to the Black Lives Matter protests this summer. Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger has already resigned, while Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving will be stepping down from their posts. Congressional leaders were right to demand their resignations, but we still need a full accounting.

A Confederate flag at the Capitol summons America's demons

Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet secretaries need to immediately invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Donald Trump from office. Trump may not have directly ordered the assault on the Capitol, but he certainly stoked lies about election fraud, instructed his followers to head to the Capitol on Wednesday and initially resisted calling the National Guard once his supporters breached the building. While Trump finally acknowledged on Thursday a new administration would enter the White House on January 20, his concession comes after baselessly denigrating America's democratic processes, encouraging violence and threatening to remain in office even in the face of electoral defeat.

If Pence is unwilling to take action, Congress must rally immediately to defend our republic. The House should vote to impeach Trump and the Senate should return to Washington to hold a trial. Even if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel refuses to act before inauguration, the world will take note and history will distinguish between the patriots prepared to defend our American democracy and the cowards willing to give the President a pass.

But even if Trump is removed from office, the work to rebuild the fabric of our democracy would not be finished. Every lawmaker must be intentional about restoring the people's faith in our government. Too many people who have been left behind feel unrepresented in our political process and believe with increasing justification that no matter how hard they work, no matter how closely they follow the rules, the doorway to economic prosperity and social dignity is closed to them. That environment creates fertile ground for authoritarians like Trump to sow misinformation, undermine our democracy and foment racial and social division. That has to change if the republic is to survive.

The overarching focus of the Biden administration and the 117th Congress must be to address the very real inequities in this society in a bold and unwavering way. Those committed to our constitutional system of government -- as President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are -- must demonstrate they are equally and authentically committed to the well-being of working Americans of all races.

At the end of the day, that is the only cure for the cancer of right-wing authoritarianism that is metastasizing in the nation's body politic. Without that cure, the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, may well turn out to be America's Beer Hall Putsch.