Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) sounded laughably unhinged during an appearance on the Fox News program Sunday Morning Futures over the weekend. At one point, he even characterized the recent Senate impeachment trial of ex-President Donald Trump as “inciting,” which is a strange description. Is he saying that the trial could have sparked more violence from the ex-president’s defenders? At another point. he insisted more broadly that there was “no condemnation” from top Democrats for the riots that occurred in 2020, which is a ridiculous brazen lie. Democrats condemned the violence over and over again!
Discussing the rioting at the Capitol on January 6, Johnson insisted that “this was not predictable, this was not foreseeable as the House managers continued to talk about — I just don’t believe it was.” At the event where Trump spoke on January 6, members of the crowd shouted “Storm the Capitol!” and “invade the Capitol building,” but sure Ron, the violence was “not predictable.”
“‘Storm the Capitol.’ ‘Invade the Capitol.’… ‘Take the Capitol right now.’ These were the words of the crowd. Trump was telling them to fight and he would keep telling them to fight throughout the rest of his speech.” pic.twitter.com/GUWXMYZgdn
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) February 10, 2021
Going on, he also complained about descriptions of the rioting as an “armed insurrection,” although numerous weapons were recovered from individuals who were present and hoping to forcibly disrupt the formal certification of Biden’s electoral college victory, constituting an insurrection attempt. As Johnson put it:
‘The fact of the matter is, when I hear “armed insurrection,” I think of firearms. I was just asking the question — well how many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I know of one, and I’ll defend that law enforcement official. One thing about conservatives, one thing about Republicans is we are consistent in our condemnations of violence, of peaceful protests that turn into riots — we condemn it. We want to see those people that were involved in violent acts prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That’s not the same standard that the Democrats use. [They] really sat by and in many cases encouraged the riots that occurred over the summer… no condemnation. In fact, there was actually encouragement of that.’
Watch his comments below:
Johnson subsequently insisted that security measures at the Capitol are “all about a political narrative… that the Capitol needs to be protected from the people that voted for President Trump” — but these security measures aren’t over a “political narrative”! Trump voters stormed the Capitol building and attempted to murder people, and as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) recently noted, far-right extremists have floated the possibility of storming the Capitol again on March 4. Johnson just isn’t in touch with the reality of current circumstances.
