187 Minutes
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
More than just a tagline for The Dark Knight, the above phrase perfectly encapsulates everything Donald Trump is and who he envisions himself to be.
Because on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump wanted to watch the world burn. Specifically, he wanted to watch the United State Capitol burn with an army of insurrectionists doing so in his name. Because like all authoritarians, nothing gets Donald Trump more excited than when people are willing to fight and die for him. It's was the sheer power and control that was for him an aphrodisiac. Donald Trump never got his bloated Fourth of July military parade that he desired. But what he did get was thousands of his minions marching in his name, willing to do anything and everything to keep him in power. Donald Trump wasn't disgusted by their actions that day, he was delighted and would revel in what he perceived to be his own personal army, loyal to him and nobody else. Donald Trump failed to protect the Capitol that day because he would rather protect himself than the men and women he swore an oath to protect at his inauguration in January of 2017.
Tonight, in primetime, we end the first series of hearings by examining Donald Trump's dereliction of duty during the day in question. Specifically, the January 6th Committee will look at the 187-minute gap from when the Capitol was first breached to when Donald Trump finally called off his supporters over 3 hours later. In the interim, 5 people would be killed including a member of the Capitol Police, hundreds of people would be injured, and our country would be forever marred by the first time in our history that the outgoing president refused to take part in the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next. While all this was going on, Donald Trump watched with glee while hundreds of valiant police fought off the insurrectionists, members of Congress were whisked away to secret and secure locations, and Vice-President Mike Pence made a split-second decision not to trust the Secret Service for fear that they would abduct him and haul him away. On this day, Donald Trump failed to uphold the most basic responsibility of a United States president: he knowingly and willingly refused to protect those he had sworn to defend.
Each January 6th Committee hearing has been building to today. The stage has been set up masterfully as today's hearing truly is a culmination of events. Today, we learn specifics about the actions that Donald Trump took, and more specifically didn't take, during the day in question. Why did Trump refuse Kevin McCarthy's urgent request to call off the attack? Why was Mike Pence the one to call in the National Guard? And what was it about the attack specifically that made Trump "gleeful" as he was described as being during the event?
With recent reports revealing that there may be additional hearings in the fall, this may not be the final January 6th Committee public hearing. But it may be the most impactful. After all, today's hearing is the culmination of a year of interviews and represents a tipping point in what the committee is aiming to prove: that Donald Trump knowingly led an insurrection against the government of the United States of America. And while the insurrection needed planning and coordination, it also needed execution that would would provide the insurrectionists with enough time to delay the certification of the votes, to whisk Mike Pence away, and to create a situation where Trump himself would be "forced" to intervene and declare martial law. This is the most serious charge of all: that Donald Trump, as a desperate despot, was willing to have his supporters kill in his name and would deny police protection if it meant giving him the opportunity to illegally stay in power for the next 4 years. That is what the January 6th Committee aims to prove tonight during this historical prime time hearing.
This is your January 6th Committee open thread.