ALAMO, Texas (AP) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday was not responsible for his part in fomenting a violent insurrection in the United States Capitol last week, despite his comments encouraging his supporters to march on the Capitol and praising him. them while still carrying out the assault.
“People thought what I said was entirely appropriate,” said Trump.
He made the comments during his first public appearance since the siege of the Capitol, which took place while lawmakers were counting the votes of the Electoral College affirming the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Trump arrived in Texas on Tuesday to flaunt his campaign against illegal immigration in an attempt to polish his legacy with the remaining eight days of his term, as Congressional lawmakers seemed determined to challenge him this week for the second time.
In Alamo, Texas, a city in the Rio Grande Valley near the border between the United States and Mexico – the 450-mile site of the border wall his administration is building, Trump rejected Democratic calls to his office to declare it unfit for the post and to remove him from power using the 25th Amendment.
“The 25th Amendment is zero risk to me, but it will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden government,” said Trump. “As the expression goes, be careful what you want.”
The turmoil in the corridors of Congress caused lawmakers from both parties and Trump’s vice president himself to hide, while the crowds called for Mike Pence to be lynched for his role in overseeing the counting of votes. The scene also undermined the republic’s trademark – the peaceful transition of power. At least five people died, including a Capitol police officer.
“It’s time for peace and calm,” Trump said on Tuesday, less than a week after inciting the crowd that invaded the Capitol. He added: “Respect for law enforcement is the basis of MAGA’s agenda”, referring to his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”.
In the days leading up to the January 6 certification vote, Trump encouraged his supporters to go to Washington, DC, promising a “wild” demonstration in support of his unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, despite the conclusions to the contrary by his own government. Speaking for more than an hour to a crowd at Ellipse, Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” and suggested that Republican lawmakers would need “more courage not to come forward” and overturn voters’ willingness to grant him another mandate. He also suggested that he join them in the march over the Capitol.
When Trump finished, thousands of his supporters were already heading for the Capitol, where lawmakers gathered to count the electoral votes. As the protesters were still in the building and the lawmakers were housed in safe places, Trump, at the request of aides who were shocked by the violence, released a video apparently excusing the events, saying of the protesters: “We love you. You are very special. Go home.”
Speaking on Tuesday, Trump said the “real problem” was not his rhetoric, but the rhetoric that Democrats used to describe the Black Lives Matter protests and violence in Seattle and Portland this summer.
“Everyone thought it was entirely appropriate,” Trump said of his own comments.
Trump furiously attacked pressure from lawmakers for his second impeachment this week, claiming: “It is causing a great deal of anger, division and pain far greater than most people will ever understand, which is very dangerous for the United States, especially at this very moment. delicate. “
Alamo owes its name to the San Antonio mission, where a small group of Texas independence fighters fought against Mexican forces during a 13-day siege. Most of them died, but the mission became a symbol of resistance for the Texans, who ended up defeating the Mexican army.
Trump’s visit there – no doubt a symbol of the president’s challenge – comes as he spends the last days of his presidency isolated, offended and facing the prospect of a second impeachment.
While Trump was traveling, Pence assured the country’s governors that the outgoing government is working “diligently” with President-elect Joe Biden’s team. He thanked the governors for their leadership in the coronavirus and promised them a “perfect transition”.
Trump’s advisers have urged the president to spend the remaining days in office highlighting what they consider the main achievements of his presidency: a massive tax cut, his efforts to reverse federal regulations and the transformation of federal courts with the appointment of judges conservative. But Trump was consumed by baseless allegations of electoral fraud and conspiracies.
In Texas, he made comments highlighting his government’s efforts to curb illegal immigration and the progress made on his 2016 campaign pledge: to build a “great, beautiful wall” across the length of the southern border – an imposing structure made of reinforced concrete and steel. But over time, Trump demanded modifications that were largely rejected: he wanted it to be painted black to burn the hands of those who touched him; he wanted it adorned with deadly spikes; he even wanted to surround it with a moat full of crocodiles. Although he promised to be funded by Mexico, US taxpayers ended up paying the bill.
In the end, his administration oversaw the construction of about 450 miles of border wall construction – probably reaching 475 miles on the day of the inauguration. The vast majority of this wall replaces smaller barriers that already existed, although the new wall is considerably more difficult to get around.
Over the past four years, Trump and his government have taken extreme – and often illegal – measures to try to curb illegal and legal immigration. His efforts were aided in his last year by the coronavirus pandemic, which paralyzed international travel. But the number of people who have stopped trying to cross the southern border illegally has increased in recent months. December’s figures show almost 74,000 meetings at the southwestern border, an increase of 3% over November and an increase of 81% over the previous year.
A few dozen Trump supporters gathered hours before his visit to the Rio Grande Valley, near Harlingen, Texas airport, where he was supposed to land. They planned to organize a caravan of vehicles with flags that support the president and far-right causes like the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Trump warned that a reversal of his policies by Biden would bring a “wave of illegal immigration”. He added: “Ending these policies is knowingly putting America in serious danger.”
Biden said he would stop building the border wall and taking executive action wherever possible to reverse some of Trump’s restrictions on legal immigration and asylum seekers. But Biden and his aides acknowledged the possibility of a new border crisis if they acted too quickly, and Biden said it could take six months for his government to secure funding and put in place the infrastructure needed to loosen Trump-era restrictions.
In addition to publicizing the wall, Trump quickly listed his major border changes in order to discourage asylum. He cited his “Stay in Mexico” policy, according to which more than 65,000 asylum seekers have been forced to wait in Mexico for hearings in the U.S. immigration court since January 2019, and agreements signed with Central American countries for them to offer asylum to people seeking protection in the United States.
He credited his wall with the drop in illegal border crossings from a record 13 years in 2019, but the Government Accountability Office found that the government lacks measures to correlate falls in illegal crossings to wall construction.
Trump said, falsely, that he inherited “open borders” from his predecessor, Barack Obama. He leaves office with roughly the same number of Border Patrol agents as when he started, despite the promise to add 5,000, and the monthly number of migrants stopped at the border exceeds the total for much of Obama’s term.
___ the Associated Press editors Nomaan Merchant in Harlingen, Texas; Ben Fox and Alexandra Jaffe in Washington; Alan Suderman in Richmond, Virginia; and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.