Former President Donald Trump met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy Thursday as McCarthy has yet to appoint Republicans to the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6th riot by Trump supporters. For months Republicans have downplayed the insurrection, which was timed to disrupt the counting of electoral votes. McCarthy’s meeting with Trump came after the select committee investigating the Capitol riot said it would hold its first hearing about the attack on July 27th. After the meeting, McCarthy returned to Washington, D.C., from the Bedminster Trump hotel to attend a dinner at the White House with President Biden and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
it was at that moment — to just set the background here, this was a speech that he was largely reading off the teleprompter, which is unusual for Trump. Certainly, when he’s in the moment, enthusiastic, he’s departing from his speech. So he wasn’t really thinking about this. His mind was wholly on Mike Pence and what — and he believed that Mike Pence had the power and the willingness to throw out the electoral votes and install him as the president. That was on his mind. So he was sort of reading through this speech.
But at one point he did depart from the speech and said, “We will walk to the Capitol.” And that was the moment at which all of his aides kind of looked up and said, “What did he say? We’re going to walk to the Capitol?” And all of them had the same response:
— source democracynow.org | Michael Wolff | Jul 16, 2021