Trump refused to call off Capitol rioters, Republican colleagues reveal

CNN:

Washington (CNN)In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.

"Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are," Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.
McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump's supporters and begged Trump to call them off.
Trump's comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the then-President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, "Who the f--k do you think you are talking to?" according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.
The newly revealed details of the call, described to CNN by multiple Republicans briefed on it, provide critical insight into the President's state of mind as rioters were overrunning the Capitol. The existence of the call and some of its details were first reported by Punchbowl News and discussed publicly by McCarthy.
The Republican members of Congress said the exchange showed Trump had no intention of calling off the rioters even as lawmakers were pleading with him to intervene. Several said it amounted to a dereliction of his presidential duty.

This should do it, but won't.

You can make the argument that he didn't incite them, but you can't argue that he left them to run amuck for several hours.

It was Trump's parting "fuck all of you". May not be a crime but it should be punished and he should be barred from ever running for office.

Ben wrote:The newly revealed details of the call, described to CNN by multiple Republicans briefed on it, provide critical insight into the President's state of mind as rioters were overrunning the Capitol. The existence of the call and some of its details were first reported by Punchbowl News and discussed publicly by McCarthy.

Attempts are being made to call McCarthy as a House witness at the Impeachment trial.

As Andrew Weissmann, of the former Office of Special Counsel, notes...the McCarthy call is not direct evidence of the charge of the impeachment.  The charge in the Article of Impeachment is incitement of insurrection.  Events after the insurrection started cannot be a cause of the insurrection, although they can be in furtherance of it.

However, it does go to show the intent of Trump, or as Ben states, the frame of mind, on the January 6th date.

Maddog wrote:This should do it, but won't.  

You can make the argument that he didn't incite them, but you can't argue that he left them to run amuck for several hours.  

It was Trump's parting "fuck all of you". May not be a crime but it should be punished and he should be barred from ever running for office.

I would conservatively call this "derilection of duty." It can further be argued that Trump refused to stop the riot because it was the outcome he desired, however.

Ben Reilly wrote:

Maddog wrote:This should do it, but won't.  

You can make the argument that he didn't incite them, but you can't argue that he left them to run amuck for several hours.  

It was Trump's parting "fuck all of you". May not be a crime but it should be punished and he should be barred from ever running for office.

I would conservatively call this "derilection of duty." It can further be argued that Trump refused to stop the riot because it was the outcome he desired, however.

It's almost a forgone conclusion at this point that he approved of the storming of the Capitol.

That should be enough to block him from ever holding public office and losing whatever benefits former presidents receive, including secret service protection.

Agreed, and it's sad that the best his defenders in the trial can come up with, at least apparently, is to brand the whole thing a partisan witch hunt.

We have a president who told the most rabid of his supporters, people already convinced he was the only person who could save America from a cabal of baby-eating Satanists that included everyone from Hillary Clinton to Tom Hanks, to "fight like hell" to keep Biden from being inaugurated.

These people show up to the Capitol mere hours later, armed with deadly weapons, carrying plastic handcuffs, and storm the Capitol, following routes that appear to have been pointed out to them by some Republican members of Congress in the days leading up to the riot. They steal laptops, they vandalize the building -- some of them shit on the floor and track shit around the building.

They terrorize members of Congress, and the Vice President, who all go into hiding. They call for the Vice President to be lynched.

While all of this is going on, Donald Trump watches passively on TV and apparently gets into a shouting match with a Congressman who demands he do something to stop his violent supporters. Trump acts only after five people have been killed.

And the pro-Trump-Republican response to the fact that Democrats impeached him for this is, "Well, they just don't like Trump."

I mean, I wonder how anybody could not like him!