Donald Trump was scheduled to visit Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday, in an effort to repel calls for his resignation and prevent Republicans from entering a second historic impeachment.
The visit to the border city of Alamo, 240 miles south of the historic Alamo fort, was promoted as a way to highlight work on the border wall, after almost a week of fierce criticism of Trump for inciting the Capitol’s deadly riot this week. last.
But with federal investigators warning of potential additional security threats surrounding Joe Biden’s inauguration in Washington DC next week and across the country, the country was prepared for Trump’s next move after days of silence.
Behind the scenes, the president allegedly continued his retreat into paranoia and unreality, repeating in a conversation with the majority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, the bizarre lie that the so-called “antifa” left activists, and not his supporters, were responsible for death and destruction inside the US Capitol last week.
“It is not Antifa,” McCarthy replied. “It’s Maga. I know. I was there. “Maga refers to Trump’s slogan,” Make America Great Again “.
The Chamber is expected to vote on a resolution to use the 25th amendment, which provides for the removal of a president who is considered unfit for office on Tuesday. Dependent on the vice president, Mike Pence, the move seemed right for failure.
After days of silence between the two, Trump and Pence had a “good conversation” at the White House on Monday night, an unnamed official told Reuters.
Some of Trump’s supporters who responded to Trump’s call to invade the Capitol last Wednesday, leading to clashes in which a police officer was killed, a rioter was shot and three others died, were caught on video shouting “Hang Mike Pence ”.
A House vote to impeach Trump on an article, inciting insurrection, was expected on Wednesday morning. The timing for the Senate trial that followed was uncertain. If Trump is convicted in the Senate after leaving office, he will be disqualified from running for office again.
Unlike Trump’s first impeachment in December 2019, a considerable number of Republicans in the House and a handful of Republicans in the Senate signaled that they would support the effort. These legislators included conference president Liz Cheney, the Republican’s third in the House.
Republicans expect up to 20 Republican lawmakers to vote for impeachment, it said Punchbowl news.
“Actually, we don’t need a lot of evidence here, because everything is open,” Democratic representative Ted Lieu told cable TV host Rachel Maddow on Monday night. “There is no doubt that Donald Trump delivered a speech. Undoubtedly, there was an attack on the Capitol. There is no doubt that several people died. “
It was unclear whether Trump would make a public statement on Tuesday and, if so, whether he would say something that could discourage – or encourage – followers to cause more violent chaos. In almost every public statement since he lost the election in November, Trump repeated the lie that he won.
On Monday, several media outlets confirmed an ABC News report that the FBI expects armed pro-Trump protests in all 50 state capitals and Washington DC before the inauguration day.
Explanations of why Trump himself could not be reached while the Capitol was attacked continued to emerge. According to the Washington Post, citing an unnamed close adviser, the president was “difficult to reach … because it was live TV”.
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“If it’s TiVo, he just presses the pause button and answers calls,” said the consultant. “If it is live TV, he watches and is just watching everything unfold.”
The news of Trump’s visit to the city of Alamo was cause for some confusion with the strong Alamo in San Antonio, a World Heritage Site where Texas independence fighters were slaughtered in 1836.
Some observers suggested that Trump had booked a spot by mistake, as his campaign apparently and famously did at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a business outside Philadelphia, in November.
Many observers were concerned about the prospect of Trump’s visit to Texas, a writing: “Remember the Alamo [is] a battle cry. “
Former federal cyber security chief Chris Krebs, whom Trump dismissed for saying the election was safe, told CNN: “This is the equivalent of ignoring that chest pain for a few weeks and suddenly you have a heart attack. catastrophic.
“We are on the verge of what I fear is a very significant collapse of democracy and civil society here.”