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Trump Baselessly Blames Nancy Pelosi for Not Stopping Attack on Capitol, Says He Assumed ‘They’ Were Taking Care of It

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Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president who lost re-election by over seven million votes and 74 Electoral College votes, sat down with The Washington Post for an interview given Wednesday, one day after his daughter Ivanka Trump testified – without taking the Fifth once – for eight hours before the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Trump, who that day was still the President of the United States, laid blame at the feet of other people.

He falsely claims Speaker Nancy Pelosi was responsible for ending the attack many say he incited that led to the deaths of at least five people and another four Capitol Police officers by suicide within months, and 138 police injuries.

“I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking why isn’t she doing something about it? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing something about it?” Trump told The Post. “And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge,” Trump said, which is false. “I hated seeing it. I hated seeing it. And I said, ‘It’s got to be taken care of,’ and I assumed they were taking care of it.”

Multiple reports state many of Trump’s allies, administration officials, and even First Daughter and senior White House advisor Ivanka Trump begged him to call off the attack.

The Post notes that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, “does not have total control over the Capitol Police, as Trump alleged, but shares control of the Capitol with the Senate majority leader. Most decisions on securing the Capitol are made by a police board. He also blamed the D.C. mayor, whose advisers furiously tried to reach Trump’s team that day.”

Political analyst and advisor Eric Garland characterized Trump’s false claims: “Trump blames Pelosi for not stopping the Mob he whipped up to hang her.”

Former Republican lawyer for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gregg Nunziata, summed up Trump blaming Pelosi by saying: “Always someone else’s fault.”

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Trump Victory Was ‘Slim’ and Not the ‘Historic Mandate’ Republicans Claim, Analysis Shows

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President-elect Donald Trump last week declared he had won a “historic mandate,” but as states continue to count votes, his margin continues to shrink, debunking his claim.

Most notably, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office, there are more than 2.6 million votes left to be counted in the Golden State, out of a total of more than 13 million.

The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, also wasted no time claiming a “mandate” for the GOP, just as Trump did.

“The American people have spoken and given us a mandate. We will be prepared to deliver on day one. With Republicans in control, we will secure the border, grow our economy, restore American energy dominance, and end the radical woke agenda. America’s best days are ahead of us,” he claimed.

As recently as Monday, New York Republican Party chair Ed Cox also called it a “historic mandate.”

READ MORE: ‘No Excuse’: Dems Have Just Weeks to Get Dozens of Biden’s Judicial Nominees Confirmed

The results are clear: Donald Trump won the White House and Republicans are projected to have a majority in the House and the Senate—but any claim to a “mandate,” or a “historic” election is false, say critics.

“Yes, Trump won, but it is not a mandate,” declared former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel, a former managing editor of TIME magazine. “His very slim popular vote margin seems outsized only in comparison to the fact that Rs seldom win the popular vote. He got fewer votes than last time. He won because of the millions of folks who chose not to vote—hardly a mandate.”

“As blue Western states and cities finish counting votes, it looks like the popular vote ‘landslide’ projected for Donald Trump last week turned out to be a trickle,” writes The Nation‘s Joan Walsh. “When all the votes are counted, he will end up with a margin of roughly two points over Vice President Kamala Harris. Presidents Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972 won more than 60 percent of the popular vote; Ronald Reagan in 1984 won 58 percent. Those were landslides.”

Walsh acknowledges that the results are not “good news” for Democrats.

READ MORE: ‘What Illegal Corruption Looks Like’: Trump Blasted for ‘Already Breaking the Law’

“But it’s not the top-to-bottom repudiation of Democrats as it first looked like, and the way to respond is not to launch a civil war within the Democratic Party,: she notes. “Unfortunately, that has already begun. Centrists blame the doctrine of ‘woke,’ with particular ire for trans Americans (we see you, New York Rep. Tom Suozzi); leftists say Democrats abandoned the working class (we hear you, once again, Senator Bernie Sanders). Both positions are wrong. Others point fingers at the Harris campaign. Meanwhile, much of the media hypes Trump’s win as a landslide, which would seem to validate his racist, anti-worker agenda.”

Currently, according to the Cook Political Report’s vote tracker, Donald Trump is beating Kamala Harris by about 3.2 million votes, or 2.17%. Those number will change, of course, but the margin will likely stay about the same if not narrow.

“When the votes are all counted,” The Washington Post’s Philip Bump notes, “Trump will likely end up with the narrowest margin of victory since 2000. And it’s probably in large part because a lot of 2020 Biden voters stayed home.”

“It is likely that,” he continues, “when all of the votes are counted, Trump will have received about half of the votes cast, beating Vice President Kamala Harris by about a percentage point. As a function of the two-party vote, Trump’s popular vote victory — his first — will probably be the smallest since Al Gore received more votes than George W. Bush in 2000.”

Focusing on swing states, as Vice President Harris did during her 107-day campaign, Bump adds, “while most non-swing states probably saw drops in turnout, it is likely to be the case that most of the seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — will have seen increases in vote totals. It’s another indication that the Harris campaign’s intense focus on those states provided a boost to her candidacy, albeit a fruitless one. (Last week, we noted that the shift in the presidential vote margin in the swing states was smaller than other states, which suggests the same thing.)”

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

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‘No Excuse’: Dems Have Just Weeks to Get Dozens of Biden’s Judicial Nominees Confirmed

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As Congress enters the lame duck session Tuesday with Republicans set to take the majority in both chambers and the White House next year, Senate Democrats have just a few weeks to get dozens of President Joe Biden’s remaining judicial nominees confirmed. Barring impeachment, a federal judge is appointed for life and cannot be forcibly removed.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is urging her colleagues to prioritize judicial confirmations.

“While still in charge of the Senate and the White House, we must do all we can to safeguard our democracy,” Sen. Warren wrote in a TIME op-ed last week. “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators—none of whom can be removed by the next President.”

Majority Leader Schumer, The New York Times reported late last week, “indicated a willingness to devote significant Senate floor time to seating more judges in the post-election session…About 30 nominees were already in the confirmation pipeline, and Mr. Biden announced two more on Friday night.”

READ MORE: Trump Border Czar Declares He Will ‘Absolutely’ Need to Use ‘Military and Special Ops’

“We are going to get as many done as we can,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement.

Noting that this is Senate Democrats’ last chance “until at least 2029 to put judges on the courts,” journalist and attorney Chris Geidner breaks down the field. He reports, “there are four appellate nominees awaiting a vote of the full Senate and one awaiting committee action. The four nominees awaiting a floor vote are Karla Campbell (Sixth Circuit), Embry Kidd (Eleventh Circuit), Julia Lipez (First Circuit), Adeel Mangi (Third Circuit), and the nominee in committee is Ryan Park (Fourth Circuit).”

He adds, “there are 13 district court nominees awaiting a vote of the full Senate, meanwhile, with 10 more in committee and two more announced.”

Josh Sorbe, spokesperson for U.S. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, in a statement to NCRM says the Illinois Democrat “aims to confirm every possible nominee before the end of this Congress.” He also points to the “213 highly qualified, diverse judges to date who help ensure the fair and impartial administration of the American justice system.”

Over the weekend, President-elect Trump issued a warning to Senate Republicans, and ordered that “no Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.”

READ MORE: ‘What Illegal Corruption Looks Like’: Trump Blasted for ‘Already Breaking the Law’

Biden White House spokesperson Andrew Bates blasted Trump.

“Regardless of party, the American people expect their leaders to prioritize the rule of law and ensuring the criminal justice system can function effectively in every state. Delaying the confirmation of strongly qualified, experienced judges takes a real-life toll on constituents and leads to backlogs of criminal cases – meaning there is every urgent reason for Republicans and Democrats to continue working together in good faith to staff the federal bench,” he wrote Monday. “What’s more, there is bipartisan precedent for exactly that: 55 nominees were confirmed during the equivalent period of the Trump Administration, after President Biden was elected, including 18 judges-15 of whom were confirmed with votes from one or more Senate Democrats. There is no excuse for choosing partisanship over enforcing the rule of law.”

Professor of law Steve Vladeck, an expert on the federal courts and constitutional law, writes: “During the lame-duck period after the 2020 election, Republicans confirmed a number of President Trump’s judicial nominees—including Judge Aileen Cannon.”

Wednesday will be Judge Cannon’s four-year anniversary on the federal bench.

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

 

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Trump Border Czar Declares He Will ‘Absolutely’ Need to Use ‘Military and Special Ops’

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Donald Trump’s former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Tom Homan, who has been named the “border czar” for the incoming second Trump administration, says the U.S. Armed Forces and special operations teams will need to be involved in the border efforts President-elect Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail.

Trump on Sunday announced Homan will be “in charge of our Nation’s Borders,” and “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” CBS News reported.

“You absolutely need military and special ops,” Homan told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo Tuesday morning, citing Mexican drug cartels. Homan added, “President Trump has said he’s going to declare these cartels terrorist organizations.”

“So is the U.S. Military involved here, Tom?” Bartiromo had asked. “Are you hoping that the military helps, because you’re dealing with some really serious uh serious people on the other side, as President Trump once called them, these ‘bad hombres.’ I’m talking about the drug cartels.”

READ MORE: ‘What Illegal Corruption Looks Like’: Trump Blasted for ‘Already Breaking the Law’

“What are you gonna do about these drug cartels who are obviously working with the Chinese Communist Party to push fentanyl into the country as well? Will you need the military for that and who else will you be leaning on to take on the drug cartels?”

Calling him the “soon-to-be the deporter in chief,” The Washington Examiner reports that Homan anticipates “broad support from local, state, and federal police, as well as retired police who want to help the government carry out this operation.”

“Thousands of retired agents, retired Border Patrol agents, retired military [have called] that want to come in and volunteer to help this president secure the border and do this deportation operation,” Homan said. “It’d be great to have local law enforcement assist ICE.”

In a Fox News interview Sunday, “Homan said the military wouldn’t be rounding up and arresting immigrants in the country illegally and that ICE would move to implement Trump’s plans in a ‘humane manner,'” CBS added.

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

Earlier this year Homan said that “while he thinks the government needed to prioritize national security threats, ‘no one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.'”

“You’ve got my word. Trump comes back in January, I’ll be in his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”

On CBS News’ “60 Minutes” last month, Homan was asked: “Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?”

“Of course there is,” he replied. “Families can be deported together.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Nomination of Stefanik to UN Resurfaces ‘Ultra MAGA’ Transformation

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