Long-time White House correspondent and current Substack columnist Debra J. Saunders shares her unvarnished opinions about the events of January 6.
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From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Show, Jetty Armstrong and Jetty Show. They became incredibly violent, and that's when that surge that you watched in some of the video began, and you had a large group at the mouth of that tunnel entrance trying to push their way through the officers who were fighting to defend it. I believe had they done so, or had they accomplished that, they would have trampled us to death. Most certainly you would have had police officers killed. I think you run that experiment a thousand times what happened that day, and you get uh as few dead people as we ended up with that one time. I mean, I think it was just a matter of luck and amazement and then that that that more people didn't die as often for known just said there. If they had broken through, they would have trampled them. They certainly would have beaten anybody to death they could have. And I think if they had gotten into the capital, they'd have killed some politicians. I really believe that that would have happened. Uh, just stunning. Deborah J. Saunders been a friend of the Armstrong and Getty Show for a long time. She's a fellow at the Discovery Center Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership, and she is now She's also a columnist with Creators Syndicate, but she's now on Substack. That's where all the best writers are. You can just search for Deborah J. Sanders if you want to Saunders, if you want to find her on substack. The the you out of her name there, there you go, thank you, thank you handsOn. What was that he changed your name? You have a different spelling there than you have there. I mean, that's crazy. Debor Saunders joined us down on the Armstrong and Getty Show. Hey, how's it going? Fine? Fine, I'm changing the spelling of my name to substack. Substack is where all the best people are. So I'm glad the seat that you're on there. It's a great place to go because you can you can. I love writing my column I'm but it's once a week. It's I have to sort of it's bigger thoughts that you can just jump on sub stack, which is really fun. I like that so so well, just I totally agree with everything you've been saying all morning. Okay, so you heard us earlier. Um yeah, the so the day it happened was just I was just beside myself. I just I can't believe this is happening. And but then, you know, the way the human mind works, it kind of trailed off in my memory of how awful it was kind of went away. Then, you know, then you see videos again, you think, oh, yeah, that's right. People were trying to beat police to death with US flagpoles. And then the New York Times put together I don't know if you saw that thing that they put together a week or so ago, where they compiled thousands and thousands of hours of video of from iPhones and that sort of stuff into one hell of a montage that was like being on the ground as that medieval battle happened. Uh, just stunning. And then seeing it again yesterday, you reminded it's just just how awful that whole thing was. So here's here's my my current sense for Trump and Pelosi. I think I think Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi for completely different reasons. We're okay with things getting a little out of hand, and they thought a little out of hand was going to benefit them both, and uh, and they got way out of hand. What do you think? Yeah, I think that that's true. And Officer Donne said that the reason they didn't prepare more is they never thought this would happen and that they thought it would be a problem. That they didn't think it would be like this. You know, Jim Jordan's who was Kevin McCarthy's pick to be on the Select committee, And Pelosi said no. He's been on TV all weeks saying and if I were on that committee, I'd be asking them why weren't you more prepared? So what he's saying is that Pelosi should have known that this was going to happen. Because if that's true, then Donald Trump should have known was going to happen, right, You should have done something to stop it, because you don't want to have your supporters running into the capital and beating up law enforcement people. They're on our side. They're good people, and you can see from the testimony these four men are traumatized by what happened to them. They can't believe that their fellow citizens did this to them. Well, as as we'll play this again just because it's uh, it makes a pretty good point. Um, So Dimber and I can discuss this play thirty one again. For me, this is the officer phone. I feel like I went to Hell and back to protect them in the people in this room. But too many are now telling me that Hell doesn't exist, or that Hell actually wasn't that bad. The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful. It's got to be a really difficult thing to take that you fought for a couple of hours, black doubt for several minutes, probably was surprised to wake up alive. You fought and fought and fought and fought to protect these politicians, and then some of those politicians are pretending that it never happened. It's I mean, they have every right to be furious about this, and and I'm watching these sort of what about is and where there are some Republicans who are trying to act like this wasn't a big deal. It was a big deal. And if I were, if I were Kevin McCarthy, my way of dealing with it would be to have reasonable Republicans there to ask questions. Um, I think this is the day for Nancy Pelosi that it worked best for Democrats. There are you know, other things that you can get into. But there's just no excuse for God for people to you don't treat police officers like that. And this is something that we on the right hated when during the anti FO demonstrations and the BLM riots and all the other stuff like that, we thought that this is wrong, and these people belong in jail, and the same as us for the January six people. It wasn't just it was a big deal. And if these people had succeeded, they would have, um they probably would have killed some members of Congress, and they would have intimidated the rest of them into overturning the electoral College vote in favor of their person, and we would be, uh, you know, we would be a tinpot dictatorship. That's what would be. I don't think that was ever gonna happen. I mean, you know, maybe maybe some people have said, okay, i'll vote that way if you with a gun to their head, but that would have quickly been corrected. I mean, so they were never going to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. It's just it's just I don't I don't even get what was going on in their heads. They're well, they're crazy people. But I wish in my in my ideal democracy, you would have Democrats on that Penland and Republicans on that panel, both speaking to their own sides, saying this is unacceptable. We cannot be attacking police in Portland and Seattle, and we cannot be attacking police in Washington, d C. And you know, we're you don't fight on this, but we're not even close to there, which is disappointing to me. To me too. And you know, before January six, is the march was happening, I would call. I was talking to a number of people who I knew were going to attend the march, and I kept asking them, so, what do you think is going to happen tomorrow? And I, by the way, had no idea it was going to come to this, right, I thought it was going to be I mean, but basically, there were a number of people who turned up to the to the olymps in Washington Mall, and they somehow thought that magically, maybe that maybe some of them actually thought we can walk over to the Capitol and uh, members of Congress will look at us and realize, oh we're wrong, and we'll change things. But obviously there are people who are prepared, who showed up and they were armed, they had plans, and they were ready to hurt people because that's what they wanted to do, and those people were enabled. I mean, we saw this with all the Anti five demonstrations and you'd you'd hear the people on the website, oh, you know this is for a just cause it's a mostly peaceful protest. Well, the peaceful protesters end up becoming enablers for the violence fugs and again not right. Yeah, And it's similar in that, uh, you know, on each side is covering for their own side. Seeing n and MSNBC would cover for the Antifa crowd and talk about the peaceful protesters and ignore, you know, the people that would would have a palette of bricks delivered for the crowd that was really they're wanting to do damage. It's similar to the people that showed up to the capitol organized. There are organized combatants on both sides, and let's let's can we just all just recognize that and let's try to find out who these people are and deal with them. Mm hmm. And if they break the lap prosecuting U do do you think we do you think that was the the high mark or it was a low point in a high mark at the same time January six, or or do you think they're where were It's a point on a continuum. We're going to go further down that road, either from the violence of the left of the violence of the right. You know, it is scary right now because I think both signs are the lack of trust is so heavy in this country. Joe Biden said is going to bring us together, and he hasn't done it right. Uh, Instead, it's just finger pointing. You guys are wrong. You guys are wrong. Well, and Jack our side was wrong. There were you know, there are people I voted for Trump and the people who went on the Washington all there, they they were they felt that they had a right to do something that they had no right to do, and the fact that they had a president who encouraged them to do it. And you know, he certainly had been made aware in the course of the day what was going on, and he didn't try to pull them out of the building until later. And you know, famously, Kevin McCarthy calls Trump and he's petrified. He's like, do something, And Trump said, well, Kevin, I guess these people care more about what happened to the election than you do. So he was still, you know, bent on trying to delusionally keep the White House. Uh, And he was willing to let a lot of people get hurt so he could get that well. And Joe Biden has spoken forcefully against that, of course. But if he would include in the same speech and say, hey, uh, you know what you're with Black lives Matter and teeth or whatever. You don't get to go into a restaurant and make people kneel and swear an oath to you. You don't get to pull down statues in the middle of the night. We have a political process for that. If he would say those things together, maybe we could get somewhere, get that big chunk of the middle of us who aren't violent to to say yeah, let's let the grown up, calm people take over. But he's not willing to do that. Yeah. It's really sad because I feel that on the left and on the right, everything's moving further away, and now anybody who talks to the other side is an enemy and we're not. We don't believe in trying to get things done. We just believe in trying to stop the other guys from getting things done. It's just very unhealthy. Yeah. Well, appreciate the conversation with you today. We'll keep an eye on the hearings. I'll be looking for you on sub stack. Good for you. Deborah J. Saunders on substack. Substack, that's a good place to be. Lots of different points of view and you can't get canceled on substack from what I can tell, which is cool. Uh. Deborah, thanks for the time to appreciate it. Thanks Jack, you bet that's Deborah J. Saunders S A U N D E R S. Look Forward on substack