The vice president said “obviously” violent Jan. 6 rioters didn’t deserve pardons. Eight days later, Donald Trump made him look foolish — again.
On pardons for Jan. 6 criminals, JD Vance has some explaining to do
— Turquoise Cat ✌ï¸ðŸ’™ðŸ˜» (@turquoise-cat.bsky.social) 2025-01-21T21:04:30.281Z
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/pardons-jan-6-criminals-jd-vance-explaining-rcna188517
During the 2024 campaign, Trump would occasionally contradict the Ohio Republican, which didn’t do Vance’s reputation any favors, but on literally the first day of the Trump-Vance era, the problem became more acute when the new president pardoned Jan. 6 criminals — including those who violently clashed with police officers at the U.S. Capitol.
And that, of course, brought to mind the public comments that his vice president had made eight days earlier. The Associated Press reported on Jan. 12:
Vice President-elect JD Vance says people responsible for the violence during the Capitol riot ‘obviously’ should not be pardoned. ... Vance insisted in an interview on ‘Fox News Sunday’ that the pardon question is ‘very simple,’ saying those who ‘protested peacefully’ should be pardoned and ‘if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.’
This was not the first time the Ohioan made such comments. In May, two months before the then-senator joined his party’s 2024 ticket, Vance told CNN, “
If you beat up a cop, of course you deserve to go to prison. If you violated the law, you should suffer the consequences.”....
Whatever the explanation, just hours into the Trump-Vance era, the new president hung his vice president out to dry. (This comes on the heels of Vance investing some of his political capital into Matt Gaetz’s bid to become the next attorney general, personally escorting the former congressman from Senate office to Senate office, urging his colleagues to confirm Gaetz and putting his credibility on the line. Soon after, the Florida Republican withdrew from consideration — and Trump agreed.)
While we wait for the vice president to explain why the president made him look foolish (again), it’s also worth emphasizing that Vance isn’t alone on this. Quite a few Republican officials said they were prepared to accept Jan. 6 pardons for non-violent offenders, but they weren’t altogether comfortable with the idea of Trump putting violent criminals who attacked the police back onto the streets before their sentence was up.
Weaseling out of these comments won’t be easy, but since the alternative is criticizing their party’s new president, they’ll have to think of something.
= new reply since forum marked as read