Trump reacted to “hang Mike Pence” chants during the Capitol riot “by saying maybe the mob was right,” the Guardian reported on Wednesday, May 25, 2022 (read story here), based on a New York Times report. (The latter is paywalled; the Guardian is not.)
The Times reported that two witnesses confirmed to the House investigation committee that Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff at the time, described Trump “saying something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hung.”
The Guardian noted that “Trump has defended the chants about hanging Pence before, telling the author Jon Karl, ‘Well, the people were very angry,’ and adding that it was just ‘common sense’ to be [angry] because Pence was not attempting to block electoral college results.”
According to Raw Story, the witnesses said Trump also complained about Pence being “whisked to safety” (see that story here), which makes it sound like he wanted him to be hurt or killed by the mob.
At the center of all this, of course, is Trump’s selfishness. And like many tyrants and would-be tyrants, he’s not averse to using violence for political ends. Two strong undercurrents in these events are Republicans’ disdain for democracy, and their lack of moral self-restraint. All of those things are encapsulated in the three-word chant, “Hang Mike Pence!” And nothing could better illustrate that this was a mob, not a group of demonstrators.
With hundreds of those rioters facing criminal charges for offenses like entering restricted grounds, disrupting an official proceeding, and assaulting police officers, the idea of Trump never being prosecuted for his role in all of this seems almost unfathomable.
