For days, word has been spreading that tonight’s January 6th Committee’s primetime hearing will be packed with some blockbuster moments and some never-before-seen footage. What many outlets are teasing is that viewers will be privy to a sort of “blooper reel” from the pre-taped speech that Donald Trump released on January 7, 2021, in which he only kind of condemned the violent actions of the previous day’s rioters.
The Daily Beast, picking up from a story in The Washington Post, reported that the creation of that three-minute video we all saw (and you can watch again above), in which Trump finally acknowledged that a “new administration” would soon be settling into the West Wing, was basically the political video version of Apocalypse Now, with Trump in the role of Marlon Brando. The then-president’s two biggest hangups? Publicly admitting that he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, and placing the blame for the violence on January 6th squarely on the shoulders of the violent rioters, according to WaPo sources.
“The outtakes, which could be released as early as Thursday night, reportedly show about an hour of [Trump] struggling to make the remarks that were ultimately shown to the public,” writes The Daily Beast news editor Allison Quinn. “A day earlier, he had famously told rioters still occupying the Capitol that they were ‘very special’ and declared ‘We love you.’”
We’re also scheduled to hear from two key witnesses in the investigation into the events surrounding the Capitol riots: former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews and former Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, both of whom had the dignity to resign their posts following the deadly events of January 6th.
In other words: Make sure your popcorn supply is well-stocked.
(Via The Daily Beast)