Harris Calls Out Trump for ‘Gaslighting’ Americans about Jan. 6 Attack

By Maeve Reston / The Washington Post

14:01 JST, October 18, 2024

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Vice President Kamala Harris chided Donald Trump on Thursday for his revisionist history on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol – accusing him of “gaslighting” the American people with his recent assertion that it was a “day of love.”

As she attempts to broaden her appeal to Republicans and conservatives in the final weeks of the campaign, Harris has been calling on Americans to choose “country over party” by voting for her. Driving that argument, she has charged that the former president would endanger democratic institutions, seek to jail his opponents and endanger the Constitution.

She played a clip at her first rally this week showing Trump telling Fox News that he was more concerned about the “enemy within” – referring to Americans he described as “radical left lunatics” – than outside agitators. She has expressed disbelief that he went on in that interview to suggest that the military could rein in his political opponents. And at all her rallies this week – including here in Wisconsin – Harris has said Trump is “unstable” and “seeking unchecked power.”

Campaigning in two Wisconsin cities, Harris touted her own combative performance on Fox News on Wednesday night as a show of her willingness to speak to people “no matter their political party” or “where they get their news.” She noted that on the same night, Trump had appeared at a Univision town hall where a 56-year-old self-described Republican said he was alarmed by what took place on Jan. 6, 2021, and wanted to give the former president the “opportunity to try to win back my vote.”

Trump responded by calling it “a day of love” and seemed to include himself when referring to those who entered the Capitol that day as “we.”

“There were no guns down there; we didn’t have guns,” Trump said. “The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns.”

In La Crosse and Green Bay, Harris said the Capitol riot – in which Trump supporters, trying to stop the affirmation of Joe Biden’s 2020 win, assaulted 140 police officers, damaged the building and destroyed government property – was a “tragic day” and one of “terrible violence.”

“The American people are exhausted with his gaslighting – exhausted … Enough,” Harris said. “We are ready to turn the page.”

Trump has repeatedly made false claims about the Capitol riot. During a recent appearance at the Economic Club of Chicago, he claimed that no one died as a result of the attack except Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt was one of five people who authorities said died as a consequence of the siege.

Trump’s assertion that no one who went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 had a gun is also false. It is still unclear how many in the crowd were armed before the riot occurred. But six men were arrested that day for having guns in the vicinity of the U.S. Capitol, and a seventh who arrived after the riot ended was arrested the following day.

While Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 continues to be a major motivator for some voters, fewer Republicans have blamed him for the violence that day as time has passed. A majority of Americans said Trump bears responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, according to a December 2023 Washington Post-University of Maryland national poll. But the number of Republicans who said he was to blame immediately after the attack dropped by about half in 2023. Republicans were also less likely to believe that those who stormed the Capitol were “mostly violent.”

Harris’s criticism of Trump followed a week in which her campaign has tried to paint him as confused, incoherent and unstable. After Trump’s decision to end a town hall event earlier this week, instead directing that music be played for 39 minutes as he swayed and bopped along onstage while staring out at his audience, Harris’s campaign described him on X as appearing “lost, confused and frozen.”

In Green Bay, Harris also showed rally attendees recent comments Trump has made to appeal to women as part of her argument that he is seeking “unchecked power” over their lives. After recounting how Trump reshaped the composition of the Supreme Court by appointing conservative justices who helped overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that had guaranteed the right to abortion in America, Harris played a clip of Trump calling himself “the father of IVF” during an all-women town hall event. The crowd alternated between booing and laughing.

“What does that even mean?” Harris said while laughing about Trump’s claim, adding: “He has no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to the health care of women in America.”

Some in the crowd soon began chanting: “Lock him up!” Harris gave what is now her standard response to the line, which is to hold up her hand to halt the chants.

“The courts will take care of that,” she said. “Let’s take care of November.”