Politics

Trump’s position on the Jan. 6 attack reaches an ugly new low

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Trump’s position on the Jan. 6 attack reaches an ugly new low

As Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign has progressed, the Republican has emphasized his support and affection for Jan. 6 rioters. The former president has defended them as “victims” and “hostages.” He has promised to reward them with pardons — including those who violently clashed with law enforcement. He has helped rioters raise moneyand at one point he even released a song with Jan. 6 inmates.

But as it turns out, there was still room for him to fall further.

During a Univision town hall event, a man named Ramiro Gonzalez told Trump that he had lost his support, in part because of his handling of Jan. 6. “I want to give you the opportunity to try to win back my vote,” the Floridian — who described himself as a Republican — told the former president.

After pretending he wasn’t responsible for summoning the Jan. 6 crowd to the nation’s capital, Trump said: “Nothing done wrong. At all, nothing done wrong.”

He went on say, in reference to the insurrectionist violence, “There were no guns down there; we didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns.”

Just so we’re all clear, when Trump referenced “we,” he was aligning himself with the violent criminals — some of whom carried gunshis latest lies notwithstanding. Similarly, “the others” was in reference to law enforcement personnel.

The Washington Post published an analysis that noted, “It’s actually not the first time Trump has seemed to do this. But the last time, Trump’s comments weren’t so clear, and he apparently caught himself. At last month’s presidential debate, Trump cited ‘we’ before shifting to ‘this group of people.’”

Circling back to our earlier coveragethe day after the assault on the Capitol, the then-president said: “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem.” He went on to describe the riot as a “heinous attack.”

Reading from a prepared text, Trump added: “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. … To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: You do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law: You will pay.”

Five days later, the Republican condemned the “mob [that] stormed the Capitol and trashed the halls of government.” On the final full day of his term, again reading from a script, Trump added: “All Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated.”

Nearly four years later, Trump not only “tolerates” the rioters’ crimes, he’s associating himself with the rioters.

The Republican is not just rewriting history and relitigating insurrectionist violence in the race’s final weeks, he’s also engaged in a bizarre fight pitting the January 2017 version of himself against the October 2024 version.

It’s a fight he’s losing because it’s one he can’t win.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

10 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”