Why Trump’s private comment about hanging Mike Pence really matters

BidenPresident

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The rioters focused on Pence because Trump told them that Pence was the reason the election was being allegedly stolen from Trump.

Indeed, in haranguing the rioters on Jan. 6 before they stormed the Capitol, Trump repeatedly cast Pence’s treachery as a form of disenfranchisement and disempowerment of them. He told them in urgent terms that Pence was assisting in an effort to take their country from them, and that they shouldn’t let Pence get away with it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/25/trump-joke-hang-mike-pence/
 
At that point, Trump was still trying to get Pence to somehow delay the congressional count of electors. Even as rioters gathered, Trump tweeted again about Pence’s treachery, which some of them even took as a signal to breach the Capitol, according to federal indictments cited by the committee.

It is obvious, then, that Trump likely came to see the rioters as a kind of weapon that could be wielded against Pence and possibly even Republican lawmakers to complete the procedural coup.
 
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