Not even Trump toady extraordinaire, Maria Bartiromo, would go so far as to call January 6th a “lovefest” but she had plenty of other dishonest propaganda she was willing to promote about that day.
Not that Bartiromo actually challenged Trump on his ridiculous characterization of the insurrection. No, the “news” anchor who acts like she’s auditioning to become the fourth Mrs. Trump just didn’t express agreement with the “lovefest” description the way she did with the Big Lie about the election and just about every other one of his utterances.
Trump found nothing not to love about the January 6th insurrection
While lying loser, narcissist Trump claimed January 6 was all about love, Bartiromo tried to recast it as an essentially peaceful and legitimate protest where anything that went wrong was all the fault of Democrats and the Deep State.
TRUMP: There was such love at that [January 6] rally.
You had over a million people there. They were there for one reason, the rigged election. They felt the election was rigged. That's why they were there. And they were peaceful people. These were great people.
The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love. The love -- the love in the air, I have never seen anything like it.
And that's why they went to Washington.
BARTIROMO: You know, Mr...
[…]
TRUMP: And, by the way, I can tell you that I thought -- because I was hearing from a lot of people there are going to be a lot of people coming there, much bigger than anybody ever anticipated by many times.
And I had suggested to the secretary of defense, perhaps we should have 10,000 National Guardsmen standing by. And he reported that, as you know, but I -- we should have -- and he was turned down. I said, it's subject to Congress. They run it. Nancy Pelosi runs it. So, it would be subject to the Capitol Police and the other things, whatever they need.
But I said, perhaps you need 10,000, because I think the crowd is going to be very large. Who knows? Maybe two people will show up. But I think it's going to be very large.
Anyway, he had that. He went to them. They said it won't be necessary. They were the ones that were responsible. They were the ones. And this came out very loudly in the report.
BARTIROMO: Yes, that report showed FBI operatives potentially aware.
But there are unanswered questions here. What did the FBI know? Why weren't your Cabinet secretaries briefed? What did Speaker Pelosi know, Chuck Schumer, McConnell?
Do you have any answers to that? They continue to call this an armed insurrection.
TRUMP: Oh, I think they knew plenty.
BARTIROMO: And yet no guns were seized, Mr. President.
TRUMP: Right. There were no guns whatsoever.
Bartiromo helps Trump turn Ashli Babbitt into a martyr
Trump moved on to regurgitate the right-wing revisionist history that is martyrizing Ashli Babbitt – who was shot and killed trying to breach a barricaded door protecting Members of the House of Representatives on January 6. Trump called her “an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman, a military woman.”
Bartiromo was all in on promoting this lie, just like she has been on the Big Lie about the election.
TRUMP: If that were on the other side, it would be the biggest story in this country. Who shot Ashli Babbitt? People want to know, and why.
BARTIROMO: Well, that's right.
And I want to talk about that, because Ashli Babbitt, a wonderful woman, fatally shot on January 6 as she tried to climb out of a broken window.
Her family has spoken out. Her family has been on "Tucker Carlson." And they want answers as far as why this wonderful woman, young woman who went to peaceful protests was shot.
Do you have any information? There is speculation that this was a security detail in a leading member of Congress' security detail, a Democrat.
FACT CHECK: Despite Bartiromo’s suggestion that Babbit was shot when she was just trying to leave the Capitol, video shows that Babbitt was not trying to “climb out” of a window but trying to climb in one. The Washington Post explains video it obtained:
Babbitt and others were attempting to breach a barricaded door inside the Capitol building on Wednesday afternoon, angrily demanding that three U.S. Capitol Police officers who were guarding the door step aside, one of the clips shows. The officers moved away as colleagues in tactical gear arrived behind the rioters, according to the clip and other video posted online.
…
With help from someone who hoisted her up, Babbitt began to step through a portion of the door where the glass had been broken out. An officer on the other side, who was wearing a suit and a surgical mask, immediately shot Babbitt in the neck. She fell to the floor.
Trump began rambling that he “heard” that “the head of security for a certain high official, a Democrat” shot Babbitt and “why isn’t BLM, the death and that destruction that they have caused” etc.
Then he circled back to the “lovefest” on January 6th.
TRUMP: [Black Lives Matter is] not paying a price. In New York, they released 400 people who practically burned down Fifth Avenue and burned down our stores and killed people. And they're all released. They were released. Don't worry about it. We -- you just leave. It was just announced.
And yet you have people with no guns that walked down. And, frankly, the doors were open, and the police, in many cases, you know, they have -- they have hundreds of hours of tape, and they're not releasing the tape. They ought to release the tape to see what really happened. But there was also a lovefest between the police, the Capitol Police, and the people that walked down to the Capitol.
BARTIROMO: Well...
TRUMP: So, I think it's going to all come out.
But you have to find out. And you can do it perhaps better than most. And I think I know the answer.
These lies are dangerous stuff and Bartiromo and the Murdochs are happily amplifying and promoting them as truth.
You can see yet another reason why Fox and Bartiromo deserve to be sued for billions of dollars below, from the July 11, 2021 Saturday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.
The story the Right Wing is promoting here is one where somehow there were just a bunch of nice, good-hearted loving people who decided to visit the Capitol Building to show their affection, and that somehow the situation turned into a riot because of unseen “antifa” and “BLM” provocateurs, etc. And that Ashlee Babbitt was somehow an innocent victim of a trigger happy stooge of Nancy Pelosi.
It’s frankly odd to see the Right Wing trying to rewrite the history when this insurrection literally only happened 6 months ago. But then they were trying to rewrite the history even during the hours that the Right Wingers were rampaging through the building.
The reality of the attack on the Capitol Building is that it was planned more than a month in advance. Multiple angry Right Wing groups openly planned it and posted about their intentions on social media – even Pence’s childish spokesman tweeted in advance of the day and said the events would be “wild”. And on the day, multiple speakers, including Pence’s childish spokesman, exhorted the angry crowd to go to the Capitol Building and “be tough” on the Congress that was not willing enough to overturn the 2020 Election. The clear intention was for the mob to overrun the building, rush the chamber and then force the gathered Senators, Congresspeople and Mike Pence to do what they were told on pain of violence. The mob was armed with multiple implements, including metal pipes and other implements – and even the ones who didn’t have those items would be a problem for Capitol Security in terms of sheer numbers – ie 200 angry mob vs 10 security men.
As for Babbitt, she was killed in the act of trying to break into the Speaker’s Gallery. The video shows she was trying to climb inside one of the door windows so she could unlock the door from the inside. Had she succeeded, the mob would have rushed the handful of security guards and then likely gotten their hands on multiple politicians. The gunshot that killed her likely stopped a much greater level of mayhem.
One wishes that the Right Wing would stop doubling down on their fantasies about the 2020 Election and their attempts to overturn it. The reality is that they convinced themselves they would win in a landslide and were shocked to find out that they lost. Their behavior since that moment has demonstrated that it isn’t just the former childish spokesman who needs to learn to grow up.