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'Zero threat': Donald Trump defends his supporters in Capitol riots

WION Web Team
Washington, United StatesUpdated: Mar 26, 2021, 03:34 PM IST
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Photograph:(AFP)

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Trump also did not shy away from criticising the top US infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci

The former US President and reality TV star, Donald Trump, has come out in support of his followers who were a part of the Capitol riots that took place on January 06.

Trump, who has been labelled as the man behind these riots, has defended some of his supporters, claiming that some of these rioters posed "zero threat" to the lawmakers who were trapped inside the US Capitol building.

Several lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Mike Pence, had assembled in the Capitol building to certify the electoral college vote to confirm Joe Biden's election victory against Trump.

While the lawmakers were assembling to begin the proceedings, Trump, during a rally, encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol and take back the building. He has been since then accused of instilling the feeling of violence in his supporters, which led to the deadly riots that killed five people.

Trump acknowledged that his supporters "went in and they shouldn’t have done it". However, he quickly turned his statement to prove that the rioters did not mean harm to anyone present in the building.

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"Some of them went in and they’re, they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards. You know, they had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in and then they walked in and they walked out," Trump said during an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.

During the interview, Trump also did not shy away from criticising the top US infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci. "I frankly didn’t listen to him too much," Trump claimed.

Fauci was a key adviser at the start of the pandemic but was later ignored by the president as Fauci started pointing out errors in the White House's policy against the deadly coronavirus, which took millions of lives in the US. Fauci has also described it to be a "liberating feeling" in January when he started working for the Biden administration.