Wednesday, during his first interview since becoming commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump discussed his decision to pardon those who had been charged in the January 6, 2021 protest/riot over alleged improprieties in the 2020 presidential election.
Host Sean Hannity acknowledged Trump campaigned on the pardon but asked why some who were “violent with police” were pardoned.
According to Trump, many have already served for a long time.
Partial transcript as follows:
HANNITY: So, you did run on a platform. You were very straightforward. You said you would pardon these people that were sentenced for January 6.
TRUMP: Yes, totally.
HANNITY: You did. The only criticism or pushback I’ve seen is about people that were convicted or involved in incidents where they were violent with police. Why did they get a pardon?
TRUMP: A number of reasons. Number one, they were in there for three and a half years, a long time. And in many solitary confinement, treated like nobody’s ever been treated. Treated so badly. They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.
And that, you know, should be allowed to protest a vote. You should be allowed to. You know, the day — when the day comes —
HANNITY: But you shouldn’t be able to invade the Capitol.
TRUMP: Yes. Ready? Most of the people were absolutely innocent. OK. But forgetting all about that, these people have served horribly a long time. It would be very, very cumbersome to go and — look, you know, how many people are talking about? 1,500 people. Almost all of them are — should not have been — this should not have happened.
And the other thing is this, some of those people with the police, true, but they were very minor incidents. OK. You know, they get built up by that a couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time.
HANNITY: Nobody watching it.
TRUMP: They were very minor incidents. And it was time. You have murderers in Philadelphia. You have murderers in Los Angeles that don’t even get any time. They don’t even collect them and they know they’re there to be collected. And then they go on television and act holier than thou about this one or that one.
You had 1,500 people that suffered. That’s a lot of people. You know, they were looking for new people two weeks ago. They were looking — wait a minute, they were looking to charge new people. They have a woman who’s 76 years old that they said was — made a statement that was a little bit out of line years after the fact.
This was a political hoax. And you know what, those people — and I’m not saying in every single case, but there was a lot of patriotism with those people, a lot of patriotism. You know, they did a recording and you know, I — they asked me if I do the voiceover and I did, do you know it was the number one selling whatever you call it nowadays, album, song —
HANNITY: CD?
TRUMP: — whatever you call it, you don’t know it changes every year, right? But it was the number one selling song, number one on billboard, number one on everything, on everything for so long, people get it. They wanted to see those people.
HANNITY: American people were — you told them what you would do.
TRUMP: Well, they voted for me.
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