We’ve grown accustomed to seeing Donald Trump sympathize with Jan. 6 rioters, as The Washington Post reported, the former president’s support for those who joined a mob and attack the U.S. Capitol has reached a new level: He’s collaborated on a song with a group of Jan. 6 inmates.
Trump and the prisoners — dubbed the “J6 Prison Choir” — released “Justice for All” on Thursday, a roughly 2 1/2-minute track that features the former president reciting the Pledge of Allegiance cut with the inmates singing the national anthem. The track ends with the prisoners chanting “USA! USA! USA!” in the same cadence that rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” on the day of the insurrection.
According to Forbes, which broke the story, Trump recorded his part of the track at Mar-a-Lago last month, while the inmates sang over a jailhouse phone. A HuffPost report added, “On YouTube, Trump is credited as the composer of the track.”
For now, I’ll put aside the temptation to play music critic and instead focus on the degree to which the Republican has come full circle when it comes to the rioters.
Revisiting our coverage from several months ago, during the Jan. 6 attack, the then-president sat on his hands and ignored calls to intervene. More than three hours after the violence began, Trump released a video urging his mob of radicalized followers to disperse.
But even then, the Republican made clear that he and the rioters were on the same side. In the video he released at the time, Trump told his supporters that there had been “an election that was stolen from us.” He added, “We love you. You’re very special.”
It was soon after when the then-president started to realize that this, at least at the time, was a politically untenable position: His own Cabinet had begun conversations about removing Trump from office by way of the 25th Amendment. He and his team decided he needed “cover” to remain in the White House.
And so, Trump shifted his message: The…
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