'Hugely offensive': Dems blast 'crazy' Trump's new J6 debate claims

WASHINGTON — Democrats have grown accustomed to Donald Trump's lies, distortions and conspiracies, but they say the former president crossed a line in Tuesday night’s debate when he blamed then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

“He’s crazy,” Pelosi told Raw Story while entering the Capitol Wednesday.

The former speaker didn’t elaborate. Many of her powerful—and studied—Democratic colleagues did, though, in exclusive interviews with Raw Story, as they dissected and dismantled Trump’s false claims, like that the speaker of the House controls the National Guard.

“He lied,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) — who chaired the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol — told Raw Story at the Capitol Wednesday. “That's not the law, and he [was] president of the United States — he's commander-in-chief.”

It’s not just Trump’s lies that worry Democrats who have watched Republican congressional leaders ditch conservatism and contort before conforming to Trump’s rhetoric despite all evidence to the contrary.

“Apparently she's not denied that she's the one who turned down the extra security posture, which is a major issue,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) — flanked by his security detail — told Raw Story as he entered the Capitol Wednesday. “The Capitol would have been secured in a completely different way if that didn’t happen.”

While Scalise has been majority leader since the 118th Congress kicked off two years ago, he doesn’t seem to have reviewed the historical record, according to Thompson.

“I'm not aware she rejected the National Guard. When did that happen?” Thompson said. “At that point, you know, the [National] Guard has to get permission to come on the Capitol grounds. Revisionist history.”

Twisting facts is one thing; playing fast and loose with reality in the wake of a national tragedy is beyond the pale though.

“They know that's bulls—,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Raw Story after voting on the House floor Wednesday. “They know that's bulls—. It is a continuation and extension of the ‘Big Lie.’”

Trump and his GOP allies in Congress are “talking out of both sides of their mouths,” according to Escobar, who calls Trump out for promising to pardon the J6 prisoners.

“Because if Donald Trump thought it was wrong and thought that either the speaker or the mayor should have taken action, then why is he saying he wants to pardon them? It doesn't even make sense,” Escobar said. “He's trying to have it both ways, and we can't let him get away with it.”

Escobar was one of a couple dozen House lawmakers left trapped in the House gallery during the 2021 attack on the Capitol. She says GOP rhetoric misses reality — a nightmare forever seared in her mind and thousands of others — but she says that discord is what Trump wants, especially now that he was found guilty on 34 counts by his New York neighbors in May.

“Hugely offensive but not at all surprising,” Escobar told Raw Story at the Capitol. “We know what happened, those of us who were here. Law enforcement knows what happened. The surviving family members of the Capitol Police know what happened. Nothing that he does will rewrite that history as much as he tries. What can you expect from a criminal? Of course, he's going to embrace other criminals.”

In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) was tapped to be an Impeachment Manager in Trump’s second Senate trial. He says the former president’s argument sounds familiar — and, once again, deflated.

“So Trump is a liar,” Lieu told Raw Story just outside the House floor Wednesday. “The overwhelming majority of the U.S. Senate rejected Trump's arguments. There were 57 bipartisan votes to convict Donald Trump. His team brought up that issue, and people didn't believe it.”

According to Lieu, it's important that voters remember Trump “calling people to come” to Washington on January 6th before sending them to the Capitol.

“He didn't send them to the Lincoln Memorial. He didn't send them to the Library of Congress. He sent them to the Capitol because he wanted to disrupt the certification of his loss,” Lieu told Raw Story. “And the notion that somehow this is Nancy Pelosi’s fault when Nancy Pelosi wanted the certification to happen is just an absurd claim.”