The invasion that took place at the capitol just one week ago has been recounted and retold by several different sources, and the overall consensus seems to be that blame should be aimed towards president Donald Trump.

While an overwhelming amount of Americans are confident in the fact that Trump both encouraged and provoked this act of rebellion, Trump believes differently. He has continuously deflected all blame for the event and has thrown his own supporters under the bus.

“I want to be very clear. I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week… no true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence. No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement or our great American flag. No true supporter of mine could ever threaten or harass their fellow Americans. If you do any of these things you are not supporting our movement, you are attacking it. And you are attacking our country,” said president Donald Trump.

On January 6th, shortly before the storming of the capitol Trump gave a very suggestive speech to his supporters. In this speech he once again made baseless claims that the election had been “rigged like they’ve never rigged it before”. He spends over an hour putting the idea into the heads of his supporters that “if [they] don’t fight like hell, [they’re] not going to have a country anymore.” 

“Not only did he incite the initial violence, he never made an actual effort to get them to stop. I think it’s almost important what he didn’t say. He didn’t try to make an actual effort to get them to stop. He didn’t admit to losing the election when it was happening. He wasn’t even the one who called the national guard,” said Katie Wiest (‘22).

While it’s clear from his first speech that Trump believes his supporters need to stand up and fight for his presidency, his tone soon changed after the storming of the capitol. He switches from a voice of encouragement to a tone of parent-like disapproval, lecturing his supporters on how he did not approve of their “mob violence”.

“What Trump did today, blaming others for what he caused, is a pathological technique used by the worst of dictators. Trump causes the anger, he causes the divisiveness, he foments the violence and blames others for it. That is despicable. Donald Trump should not hold office one day longer,” said Senator Chuck Schumer.

While the events at the capitol ensued, Trump remained quiet for a long period of time and only advised the rioters to go home once the storming had escalated to the point that his supporters had made it inside the building, guns had been drawn, and items had been stolen. His encouragement of fighting back to his supporters and his lack of urgency to put a stop to the storming put Trump in a large seat of blame for the events that occurred on January 6th.