Did Trump Tell Supporters to Storm US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021?

I've watched the recordings a number of times. I am aware that he didn't explicitly say to storm the Capital, however he plays the crowd. There had been a lot of individuals and groups discussing actions since November. I would be shocked to know that the campaign had no knowledge of these threats/plans in the Facebook groups and Parler posts.

> But you have to acknowledge that interpreting is what you are doing

And interpreting is what the people who stormed the capitol did.

If you know you’re going to be scrutinised by your words, choosing them carefully becomes paramount—you’ll want to make sure you send the message across while being able to deny it, and the people who the message is targeted to understand and accept the compromise.

If you always consider only the words, you’ll be weaselled out. You have to consider not everyone is acting in good faith.

> You can of course argue that a plain reading of this words is not enough

The people who stormed the capitol might agree.

In this case, a well-established pattern of behaviour forces one to consider the intention behind the words and not just the words themselves. A lot of people acted in unison on a specific interpretation of those words, with consequences the speaker is aware of and (as far as I’m aware) didn’t admonish.

In sum: both sides agree on the interpretation of these words and the person who wrote them is aware of it and didn’t offer any clarification. Thus far, everything indicates the interpretation is correct.

In my mind, the question is whether this is a speech that I would have to ban someone for on a forum, as a CM.

And my answer would be yes, it is ban-worthy, because it isn't going to lead to a productive discussion of grievances. Especially within the context of a poster who has been making the same attack across hundreds of threads, willing to lie and exaggerate repeatedly along the way.

Now, I can hear the free speech brigade on this one, so that should be addressed too. It happens to be the case that members of the armed forces are in a separate category with respect to their 1st Amendment rights. Given that the President is commander in chief of the military, he sits in a place where his speech is of at least the same consequence as a general. Using that speech to interfere with the processes of the US Government, even if credible claims are made, poses a threat to the nation as a whole.

What does he expect to happen? Is it for everyone else to say "Oh, gee, I guess you're right after all, let's do the election over?" If the process is corrupt, but you believe in the system as a whole, you aim to fix it on the next cycle, not instigate a crisis after losing.

Just my opinion, but I think this may be most problematic quote from the speech:

"The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They're ruthless, and it's time that somebody did something about it"

Seems like it would depend on exactly what the president intended that to mean.

> You'll need to accept the opposing view point as valid and engage with it.

And so will they. They refuse to believe Trump has any complicity at all for the effect of his rhetoric or the ways his language can be interpreted, because he didn't give explicitly say "go murder that priest," just "will someone rid me of this turbulent priest."

Not really. They said it was sort of yes and no because he said “you have to show strength” and “demand that Congress do the right thing”. No those are not telling people to storm congress, in the context of what he was saying before, this clearly refers to showing strength and making demands in the form of a protest. The answer is just No. He did not say this. They didn't even give this a "Mostly false" and give a spiel about how "He encouraged people to protest at the capital + his supporters may have interpreted his words that way", they said it was half-true, it was mixture, that claim is no more false than it is true. Rating scale: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check-ratings/

He sure as hell riled people up and he set the seeds for what happened and has a degree of culpability for what happened. However in regards to the specific question "Did Trump Tell Supporters to Storm US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021?" the answer is No. Intermediate ratings on fact checkers are what are used to slip bias into what are not very ambiguous situations, because you can say "Yes, but..." or "No, but..."

The good thing about fact checkers, and the reason I generally support them even if I don't see them quite as neutral, is at least they write down the facts so you can come to your own judgement. I just ignore the ratings they give at this point, the articles are much better.

This was not a balanced perspective at all. It gets various verifiable facts entirely wrong. For example, it claims "senators [] would break laws governing U.S. elections", presumably referring to objecting to results. But not only are there no laws against this, moreover there have been objections for every single presidential election this century!

Snopes also claims that this vote is "ceremonial", yet it was used in the aftermath of the civil war to disenfranchise every southern state which sent electors; that doesn't sound very "ceremonial" to me.

Arguably both of these issues are immaterial to the rating, but then why include them at all? And why trust a fact checker who is demonstrably spreading misinformation themselves, however immaterial it may be?

Why stop there? When is it enough?

Severing ties with about half the lawmakers in half the country is ... quit the step.

This is quite literally the sort of stuff you find when reading about the prelude to civil wars. No really; think about the actual practical implications this would have and what the country would look like in five years' time.

There is a massive problem on our hands, yes, but this is absolutely not the way to solve it.

Trump encouraged the mob like no one else.

This was Trump's mob no one else's.

They were there specifically to support Trump's effort to overturn a valid election whatever it takes.

Some of them even explained what they were prepared for and capable of beforehand.

Now Trump gets a Nixon moment where he can resign without further disgrace for interfering with the election process, and most likely benefit from less interest pursuing his other indiscretions after that.

Or he can end up being impeached and convicted for high crimes which might not all be misdemeanors.

How would one prove that Trump knew they would do this? The vast majority of "reasonable persons" sure didn't expect this to happen despite hearing Trumps rhetoric around this. Most people were completely shocked.

I think there is plenty of room for Trump to get blamed here even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he didn't expect this to happen. He was droning on about how the election was stolen from him on twitter as people were dying. He riled people up over his horsecrap sore loser claims and people died as a result.

If it goes to the courts, Trumps part in the fundraising campaigns that mention armed rebellion, and was funding travel of known violent community members will also enter in to it.

You can’t just hide behind “technically I didn’t say kill” as a mob boss telling a hit man you flew across the country to “take care” of someone.

Not just that, but trumps actions once it became known the demonstration had turned into an attack will also enter into he record and his part in police being underprepared.

There is a lot more to this than just the litteral words of his speach.