Seth AbramsonVarmennettu tili

1/ First, many don't realize that while the name of the *rally* was "Stop the Steal," Trump spoke flanked by banners that read "Save America March"—Save America being the PAC Trump has used since the election to scam voters out of more than $300 million for "election defense."

2/ It appears, therefore, that the link between Trump, his opposition to Biden's January 6 certification in Congress, and the insurrectionist march on the Capitol is one that comes, incredibly, with a paper trail—as it appears Trump *paid for* the seditious "Save America March."

3/ Seconds into his speech, Trump says, "These people are not going to take it any longer. They're not going to take it any longer...They came from all over our country. I just really want to see what they do." It's an astonishing admission he thinks something is going to happen.

4/ Trump then seems to catch himself, repeating the phrase "I just really want to see" but now adding "how they [media] cover it [the Save America March]." It's hard to know, therefore—perhaps deliberately—whether "what they do" means "what media does" or "what the marchers do."

5/ He then falsely says "media and Big Tech" together "rigged" the November 2020 election *and* the Georgia run-off, suggesting—in the context of past Trump remarks—that a combination of pre-vote polling and post-vote vote-manipulation explains GOP losses in those two elections.

6/ "All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical Left Democrats, which is what they're doing, and stolen by the fake news media, that's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up." The verb tenses here are *key*.

7/ Remember, Trump excitedly tweeted about this event on December 19—the day it was moved to January 6. Trump scheduled his speech for an hour before the election certification was due to start. His words were *timed* to coincide with the "Save America March" he was paying for.

8/ So when Trump speaks in the present tense of the election being "stolen" by Democrats and the media—it's "what they're doing"—he means it literally: he's telling the "Save America March" that he and they are *imminently* facing a "stolen election" due to events at the Capitol.

9/ He then switches to the future tense: "We will never give up. We will never concede." He's directing the Save America March he paid for, which he'll shortly launch at the Capitol explicitly, to future conduct that'll encapsulate a shared commitment not to "give up or concede."

10/ "You don't concede when there's theft involved." He's telling the crowd that they *can't* do anything but march on the Capitol (as he will shortly tell them to do), and that they *must* not do anything on January 6 that would "concede" to the vote taking place at the Capitol.

11/ Trump clearly sees the crowd as an army. He crows about the size of the crowd, claiming it is "hundreds of thousands" strong. That's important for his "mens rea" (mental state) as a criminal actor: he believes he's commanding the actions of a *massive* force near the Capitol.

12/ "Our country has had enough. We *will not* take it *any more*. And that's what this [the Save America March] is all about." Trump is *unambiguously* tying his speech to the March, and the March to a dramatic action—not a metaphor or merely symbolic one—that's about to happen.

13/ "And to use a favorite term that all of you really came up with, we will 'Stop the Steal.'" Trump connects the march to the rhetoric of Ali Alexander—who we now know coordinated the "Stop the Steal" march on the Capitol with Trump Congressional allies Gosar, Biggs and Brooks.

14/ In fact, "Stop the Steal" was not a grassroots slogan, but was created by Ali Alexander in conjunction with Trump's allies, one of whom (Mo Brooks) had just spoken before Trump, exhorting the crowd to start "kicking ass." But we also must consider the word "stop." It matters.

15/ The action Trump is demanding isn't a "protest"-type action. It's not a let-your-voice-be-heard action. It is *explicitly* an *intervention*—the "steal" will be "stopped" by the assembled army marching on the Capitol as Trump will shortly direct them. There's no fuzz on this.

16/ Trump says he'll "prove" he won the election in a "landslide." He cites the "real pollsters"—presumably he means internal ones he paid for—who assured him he'd win if he got a certain number of votes. It confirms the media "theft" he refers to has to do with polling/coverage.

17/ Trump says Biden didn't get 80 million votes, he got "80 million computer votes"—thus returning to his "media and Big Tech stole the election" theme by implying that the big tech companies he's been fighting with somehow helped rigged the vote tabulation via criminal hacking.

18/ He calls the hacking—which he now takes as a given—a "disgrace," says nothing like it has happened before, and notes that it wouldn't even happen in "third-world countries." He makes clear he's referring to *both* the White House loss (November) and Senate loss (January 5).

19/ "We will not let them silence your voices." Interestingly, he is focusing (with "them") as much on media and big tech as on Democrats, which certainly helps explain the attacks on *journalists*—and their equipment—that accompanied the insurrection that would begin soon after.

20/ "We're not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen." Pronouns matter here. Trump repeatedly says "we"—over and over in his speech, he puts himself in the midst of his army. It matters because he shortly will *falsely* say "we" are going to march on the Capitol now.

21/ Media reports confirm Trump was told *days* before the Save America March that he couldn't accompany the rally-goers to the Capitol. So his "we" is consistently rhetorical: he is strengthening his army's backbone to do the unthinkable by deceitfully saying he'll go with them.

22/ Trump now—for the first time—lets his speech be interrupted by an extended chant from his army, and it's because it's a chant he approves of and that matches what he wants: "FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP! FIGHT FOR TRUMP!" He grimly soaks it in, letting it carry on awhile.

23/ I just want to pause here to say that, knowing what we know now—5 dead; 50+ injuries; looting; countless assaults; a hostage plot; guns and bombs; an officer crushed in a door; shots fired; elected officials hiding—it is *really* terrifying to watch what Trump is doing here.

24/ "If those tens of thousands of people would be allowed—the military, the Secret Service, the police, law enforcement, you're doing a great job—but I'd love it if they could be allowed to come up here with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them come up please?" Uh...what?

25/ This is—beyond any doubt—the strangest line in the speech. When he says "come up here with us" he *couldn't* be referring to the stage he's standing on, as he says he's referring to "tens of thousands" of military people and cops. So where does he want them to "come up" *to*?

26/ The obvious answer—indeed, the *only* answer—is that, as he's about to reveal, he is *well aware* (and was pre-speech) that the Save America March he paid for is a march on the Capitol to "stop" the certification, and that "we"/"us" will be making that march. And therefore...

27/ ...he is asking "the military, the Secret Service, the police, [and] law enforcement" (his words) to march with "us" to the Capitol. Given the historic security failure we'll ultimately see at the Capitol, and DoD refusing to release the Guard, and Trump refusing to do so...

28/ ...this line in the speech will naturally cause federal investigators to wonder if elements of Team Trump had been in contact with Capitol Police and (far more likely) Trump's stooges at DoD about his plan to march on the Capitol. But it gets even worse than this, I'm afraid.

29/ We now know from several major media reports that Trump wanted to *increase* the military presence at his Save America March as a way to "stop antifa." Seems... odd, right? There was no intelligence about antifa showing up to his Save America March, only far-right extremists.

30/ So why would Trump want *more* military? Well: "If those tens of thousands of people would be allowed—the military, the Secret Service, the police, law enforcement—I'd love it if they could be allowed to come up here with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them come up?"