Trump refuses to take blame for attack
In Texas, president says it’s time for US to ‘heal’
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump repeatedly refused Tuesday to take any responsibility for last week’s violence at the U.S. Capitol as House members moved to impeach him for allegedly inciting a riot by supporters that struck at the heart of democracy.
Before and during a brief immigration speech in South Texas, Trump argued that impeachment and calls for his removal from office are divisive and that his angry comments to supporters before the insurrection at the Capitol were “totally appropriate.”
In Alamo, Texas, near a section of wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, Trump spoke only briefly about the attack on the Capitol, saying “we believe in the rule of law,” and it is time for the nation “to heal.”
The impeachment drive is “causing tremendous anger and division,” Trump said.
He said calls to remove him from office via the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution would come back to haunt incoming President-elect Joe Biden and the Democrats.
“As the expression goes, be careful what you wish for,” he said during the 22-minute speech.
Trump’s lack of contrition was not surprising to many and inspired more calls for his removal before his term expires at noon Jan. 20.
Since the riots last week, Trump has faced bipartisan condemnation. Tuesday, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, called on Trump to “explicitly urge his supporters to remain peaceful and refrain from violence.”
“If our nation experiences additional violence and destruction at the hands of his supporters in Washington DC and state capitols around the country, and he does not directly and unambiguously speak out now when threats are known, he will bear responsibility,” Portman said in a statement.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Trump “despicable” and said the president blames others for violence he inspired. Schumer said Tuesday the president employs “a pathological technique used by the worst of dictators.”
“Donald Trump should not hold office one day longer,” Schumer said.
Attorney George Conway, co-founder of the anti-Trump group Project Lincoln, said Trump’s disavowal of responsibility may encourage supporters to rebel against the Biden presidency.
“Classic pathologically narcissistic response,” Conway tweeted.
After a brief tour of sections of the new wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, Trump gave a speech bragging about the construction of about 450 miles of border barriers.
Sounding valedictory at times, Trump defended his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed almost 380,000 people in the USA.
Before the speech, a PA blasted songs heard at Trump political rallies, from “Billie Jean” to “Fortunate Son.” The president signed a “Donald Trump” plaque mounted at the bottom of the wall.
Fallout from deadly riot continues
The insurrection at the Capitol has left raw nerves in Washington after the mob threatened lawmakers who voted to confirm Biden’s victory in the Electoral College.
The riot left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer. Fearing more violence, police stepped up security in the nation’s capital heading into next week’s inauguration of Biden, and the city is starting to resemble an armed camp.
If approved in the House, an impeachment case against Trump would go to the Senate for trial, perhaps after Trump leaves office next week.
The House impeached Trump in 2019 over a phone call in which he pressured the government of Ukraine to investigate Biden and members of his family.
The Republican-led Senate acquitted Trump in early 2020.
As he departed the White House for his Texas trip, Trump said the impeachment move is “causing tremendous danger to our county, and it’s causing tremendous anger.” He said, “I want no violence.”
Before boarding Air Force One, Trump defended his comments to supporters at a rally right before the invasion of the Capitol. “It’s been analyzed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate,” he said.
At the rally that preceded the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Trump repeated unsubstantiated accusations about the veracity of Biden’s election.
Trump told supporters, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
He said, “We will never give up. We will never concede.”
Trump tries to turn focus
Away from the anger in the nation’s capital, Trump devoted most of his Texas speech to immigration and the border wall, what he considers cornerstones of his single term in office.
Trump spoke in Alamo – not the mission where a well-known battle between Texans and the Mexican army was fought in 1836, which is about 250 miles away in San Antonio.
This Alamo is a small town near the Mexican border.
Trump’s visit caught the city unaware. As late as Monday afternoon, a statement on the city’s website said officials had “NOT been officially contacted regarding this visit and therefore, have NO DETAILS regarding his itinerary.”
David Lapan, a former spokesman for Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, called the Texas event “ridiculous.”
“Was this an official visit or a rally,” he asked, “with law enforcement officers and the wall as props?”
The American Civil Liberties Union greeted Trump’s trip to South Texas with an announcement it had filed a brief in a Supreme Court case seeking removal of the wall. The ACLU said Trump used federal funds illegally for wall construction.
Dror Ladin, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said Trump’s “vanity wall will go down in history as yet another example of this administration’s lawlessness and xenophobia.”
This portion of the border in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley is the busiest corridor for human smuggling among nine sectors monitored by Customs and Border Protection.
The Rio Grande Valley is a major focus of border wall construction.
CBP has not publicly disclosed how many miles of wall have been built, though there are at least 17 miles of construction in the Rio Grande Valley sector.
Opponents said Trump’s immigration policies – particularly separations of children and parents who entered the USA illegally – symbolize his politics of division.
“In a week where we’ve seen the dangers of Trumpism and Trump’s incendiary rhetoric, Donald Trump is going back to his most dangerous and hatefilled playbook,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of the Texas Democratic Party.
Members of both parties said that if Trump won’t resign, he should stay in Washington and pay attention to pressing issues, including problems with the distribution of vaccines to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist, said, “Trump has never accepted blame for anything in his life” and won’t start now.
“As insane as it is to say, an insurrection in the United States Capitol in his waning days as president was not going to change that,” Heye said.
Trump’s latest comments should make it clear to Republicans and others that he “will never turn the volume down, he only wants to turn it up,” Heye said.
“And the state of the country, or the party, just does not matter to him.”