Surprise: Donald Trump Didn't Give Two Good Sh*ts About Saint Ashli Babbitt's Jan 6 Martyrdom
Did we say 'surprise'?
A newly released transcript of testimony from Donald Trump’s valet before the House January 6 Select Committee shows the valet recalled Trump threatening Mike Pence on a phone call the day of the insurrection — although not with death — and that Trump didn’t appear to have any particular reaction to the news that one of his beloved supporters was shot dead during the riot, the New York Times reported yesterday (gift link). It was the only time police ever killed someone who didn’t have it coming, after all, other than at Waco. Mostly Trump was angry at Pence all day for not helping to overturn the 2020 election results.
In the phone call to Pence, the valet recalled, Trump told his veep that if he didn’t help undo the election, he’d never work in Republicantown again. From the transcript that was released to the Times by House Republicans:
“‘Mike, this is a political career killer if you do this. Do what's right.’ And at that time I was already walking out of the Oval Office. And did hear Vice President Pence, like, start talking, but I didn't hear, like, what he said.”
The valet, when asked about it, said he did not hear Trump call Pence “a pussy” during the phone call, a vulgarism the Times spends a whole lot of words avoiding, although the story does note that the guy (who’s never identified, thank Crom) said he’d left the room and missed parts of the call. Enjoy this circumlocution from the Newspaper of Record:
“Did you hear the president say that?” a staff investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee asked the valet, inquiring about reports that Mr. Trump had called Mr. Pence an expletive meant to refer to a wimp.
“I did not — no, sir,” the valet responded.
Mr. Trump himself has not disputed using that language, and Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff testified that Ms. Trump had told her that Mr. Trump had an “upsetting” conversation with Mr. Pence and that the president had accused him of cowardice, using “the ‘p’ word.”
The valet also said he heard reports of the Capitol rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” although he didn’t overhear Trump agreeing with the sentiment. The story points out that Trump himself has gone on record saying as much, however, “telling ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that ‘the people were very angry,’ and calling that anger ‘common sense.’”
As for the shooting of Ashli Babbitt, who has become a Holy Martyr to MAGA world because she was only trying to climb through a broken window to lead the crowd straight to escaping members of the House, and why would some cop murder her for that you monsters, Trump “appeared unconcerned” when told of the event:
“I just remember seeing it in front of him,” the valet said of a note card Mr. Trump was given bearing news of the casualty as he watched the riot unfold on television. “I don’t remember how it got there or whatever. But there was no, like, reaction.”
He added that he didn’t know whether the shooting had anything to do with Trump’s tweets that day, or his eventual decision to tell the rioters how much he loved them and he wanted to have their babies but they should probably go home and know that it’s entirely understandable how angry they were.
The transcript was not among materials already released by the January 6 Select Committee, and House Republicans have been re-investigating the investigation they refused at the time to have anything to do with, so they can claim the committee was biased and unfair to poor Donald Trump.
They have suggested that the panel did not release certain transcripts because they contradict some of the testimony from a prominent witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff at the time. While much of her testimony has been corroborated, Ms. Hutchinson acknowledged that in some cases she was relying on secondhand or thirdhand accounts of events in her testimony to the panel.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia, has your family tried ‘em?) told the Times that “It took a whole lot of work to get these,” and suggested that Republicans were being far more fair than the nasty Dems on the committee, or those two excommunicated Republicans whose names are anathema.
Mr. Loudermilk conceded there was “some testimony in it that may not be favorable to Trump,” but he added: “We’re putting it all out there, not doing what the select committee did, and putting things out there that will be favorable to our side.”
So heroic!
The report of Trump’s apparent indifference to Babbitt’s death is unlikely to dim his fans’ ardor for him, because they know that he loves them and cares for them, and shares their freakish, semi-blasphemous obsessions, at least once he hears about them, and they know that if it came down to it, he would gladly sacrifice his life for them like they would for him, because they are fucking deluded idiots unwilling to admit that he’d happily sacrifice them for power or money, or just for laughs.
PREVIOUSLY!
[NYT (gift link / Transcript]
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The only person Trump loathes more than himself are the simpering kamikaze idiots that worship him.
It's worth noting that Ashli Babbitt died from blood loss. She was shot in the shoulder, which is not an injury you die immediately from. She should have lived, and would have, if she received medical attention. However, the whole violent insurrection going on at the time ensured that she wouldn't get any.
Now, typically, when you attempt the kind of stunt the 1/6 insurrectionists pulled, you recognize that people are going to get hurt and you plan for that. You bring medical supplies, maybe have a doctor standing by. But no, all these fuckers bring are zip ties and bear spray.
The TL;DR? Babbitt died because MAGA is stupid.