A year after a mob inspired by his false claims of voter fraud stormed the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump made no mention of the 2020 election in an hour-long Wednesday night interview with conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck.
Beck’s broadcast—which was pre-recorded in November 2021—referred to the January 6, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol as a “distraction.” Instead of discussing the 2020 election or the riots, the interview focused on Trump’s complaints about the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.
The omission of the two topics is notable seeing as, over the last year, Trump has repeatedly doubled down on claims that now-President Biden stole the election with mass voting irregularities in key states. Scores of lawsuits were thrown out by the courts and official recounts, audits and investigations have all turned up no proof that any irregularities ever occurred.
Glenn Beck did not respond to a question from Newsweek about whether the interview, recorded in November, had been edited to remove references to voter fraud and the 2020 race.
Trump had been planning an event to mark the riot’s one-year anniversary. Trump blamed the event’s cancellation on the congressional committee investigating the attack, two Republicans and the media.
However, conservative politicians and media figures discouraged Trump from holding the event. Trump abruptly canceling the event, reportedly on the advice of Senator Lindsey Graham and Fox News host Laura Ingraham, a close ally who took the unusual step of criticizing the former president’s plan on air this week.
Rather, Trump’s allies preferred that the former president put the events of January 6 behind them and switch public attention to Biden’s many problems: from inflation and the border crisis to a runaway pandemic he had promised to end.
In his interview with Beck, Trump focused largely on those issues.
“[The vaccine mandates] scared everybody and they hurt the economy very badly,” Trump told Beck. “You know, the mandates are one of the reasons you can’t get anybody to work for you. The mandates have been a disaster. But I would like [people] to take the vaccine, but they have to do it if they want.”
Trump also did not mention the 2020 election in other statements released on Tuesday, including one where he told his base to “rise up” against vaccine mandates.
On the one-year anniversary of the riots, Democratic President Joe Biden will make a speech noting Trump‘s role in inciting the 2021 insurrection. The White House called the insurrection “the tragic culmination of what those four years under President Trump did to our country.”
While Democrats will attend planned memorial events surrounding the anniversary of the January 6 attack at the Capitol, no Republican House or Senate members are expected to attend.
On January 6, 2021, Trump’s supporters began an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn the 2020 election’s results. Many arrested riot suspects have said that they believed Trump’s baseless claim Biden “stole” the election from him through an unprecedented nationwide conspiracy of voter fraud.
Trump’s former attorney general, his former head of U.S. cybersecurity infrastructure, over 60 court cases filed by Republicans, as well as numerous statewide audits have not uncovered any evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.
Five people died in connection with the riots and roughly 140 USCP officers were injured. The police injuries include a broken spine, a lost eye, lost fingers, brain damage and multiple cases of PTSD. Four Capitol Police officers have died by suicide since the insurrection.
While ransacking the Capitol, the rioters shattered windows while trying to access congressional chambers, smeared feces in the hallway and stole computer equipment, potentially constituting a national security breach.
As of January 5, 2022 legal authorities have arrested and charged more than 725 defendants in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia for their roles in the January 6 attack, according to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
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