ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY

On this Back Story is there a case to be made that D.C. Police knew in advance the threat but allowed it to unravel at The Capitol?

Was the riot set in motion and managed from The White House?  

President Trump clearly lit the fire for dissent and insurrection.

Host Dana Lewis talks to Kellie Carter Jackson, an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Wellesely College and says the inaction by police was by design. 

And Former NYPD Police Lt. Dr. Darrin Porcher, on how Trump was responsible fo the lawlessness, and he  calls the police planning and response an "epic fail".

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:00

A general thought that these people are fringe and, you know , crazy and live up in a forest somewhere. I mean, it's obviously much more serious than that and much more serious cost .

Speaker 2 0:13

We are seeing the cost of underestimating these groups now that are being called to the street by Trump.

Speaker 1 0:19

Yeah. These, I think these groups have never really been French. That is what to me is most terrifying is that this group is made up of people who are educated, who have jobs, who have careers, who have families and thought that what they were doing was acceptable. If not necessary.

Speaker 2 0:42

Hi everyone. And welcome to backstory based in London. I'm Dana Lewis. What madness is unfolding in America? An American president has launched an all out assault on while pretty much everything. Trump came to power in 2016, calling mainstream media, fake news, and this done everything to undermine the public's confidence in journalism. That is not pro-Trump . He has called out the FBI and the courts for being part of the dark state and against every political opponent that is not on his side is later berated in tweets and rents that they are stupid or disloyal or losers. Same with anyone who was worked for him and later left and then came the election in a country admired for its democracy and rule of law. Trump started saying the election was false from the beginning. And if he didn't win the result, wouldn't be fair. He lost and then called it a massive fraud up to 70 court cases. Many by judges, he appointed said there was no evidence of cheating, but Trump won't concede and won't participate in a peaceful transition of power. And then he called a rally on the day, the us Congress was set to ratify the voting and he led his dogs off. The leash calling demonstrators to March to Capitol Hill were a riot occurred.

Speaker 3 2:08

Never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede with step . Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore. And that's what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with. We will stop the steel

Speaker 2 2:38

It's incitement to insurrection. Here's some of the violent imagery Mr. Trump used in his speech. Quote, Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It's like a boxer and we want to be so nice. We want to be respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we're going to have to fight much harder. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved, our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore. And that's what this is all about. We are going to try give our Republicans the weak ones. Cause the strong ones don't need any of our help. Trying to give them a kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back. Our country, unquote, it was an attempt to overthrow the government protestors called for actually their terrorists called for the lynching of the vice-president and finding and holding accountable. The speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi. They looked for her throughout the building and then occupied her office. Sadly,

Speaker 1 3:53

The person who's running the executive branch is a deranged unhinged, dangerous president of the United States. And up only a number of days until we can be protected from him. Uh , but he has done something so serious that there should be prosecution against him.

Speaker 2 4:15

Trump is in the white house plotting what next he has been silenced by Twitter and Facebook. He's announced that he won't attend the inauguration and his supporters convinced the election wasn't free and fair vow to carry out more marches. And God knows what else on this backstory, why when social media was full of threats to the Capitol were DC. Police caught flat-footed American democracy today is badly bruised and maybe broken. All right, joining me now is Kelly Carter Jackson , uh , an assistant professor of Africana studies at Wellesley college in Massachusetts and the author of force and freedom black abolitionists and the politics of violence. Hi Kelly. Hi. How are you very well. I mean, you wrote a great article in the Atlantic and that's what led me to ask you to do the interview with us. So the , the headline is the inaction of Capitol police was by design. Are you suggesting some conspiracy here?

Speaker 1 5:22

I , I'm not suggesting so much as a conspiracy, as I am suggesting the double standard that happens in American policing when it comes to black protesters , as when we're dealing with white protestors , we see a clearer , um, response that happens with marginalized groups of people and white people that is completely , um , different from what we saw earlier this summer.

Speaker 2 5:50

I mean , you're not the only , the only one, a lot of people that said did police very harsh in places like Portland and in Washington all over the country

Speaker 4 5:58

When it came to the BLM , uh , black lives matter protests and here you had white terrorists. Some of them, not all of them outside the Capitol and then push and then the terrorists pushing their way inside that building and policemen. I mean, the videos are perplexing. I have to tell you, I've , I've a correspondent.

Speaker 1 6:22

We see police officers opening up the Gates, you know, which makes no sense. We see police officers taking selfies. I find that a port , you know, we see police officers who were grossly unprepared, grossly outnumbered. Um, and that, to me, I think the optics of the entire insurrection was the hardest to , to grapple with how is it that the Capitol police, the DC Metro police, you know , the FBI, everyone who could have been involved in was involved, did not , um, meet the resistance with equal fervor.

Speaker 4 6:59

I mean, out of respect for some of the police officers and their families, I mean, you see some officers fight valiantly to stop people from entering that building. Uh, one of them is, is beaten and dragged down the steps , uh, beaten with an American flag. And then you also see this black policeman

Speaker 1 7:20

That was the most terrifying, heroic,

Speaker 4 7:22

Where the crowd is coming at him. Obviously he's not going to be very friendly to him and he kind of leads them, you know , he glances towards the door to the Senate floor and then in the end, leads them the other way to buy time for people inside

Speaker 1 7:39

[inaudible] . But it just, I mean, that's one of the images as well, that has just stuck with me the most the, because I had fear for him when, when you see him sort of coming down the steps in that the mob turns the corner and sees him and he's like I'm outnumbered. And all he has is like , uh , like a Baton. Um, and it was also clear that like his badge, his uniform would not protect him from the mob, that there was no , um, civility or level of deference that was owed to him as his position as a police officer. And in that moment, I think he realized I'm not just a cop, I'm a black cop and that this is going to be a problem.

Speaker 4 8:24

So there's a lot of speculation. I mean, we're still coming to terms with what happened remarkably after spending my career covering big events like this, where there are repeated news conferences afterwards by the FBI, by the white house silence national guard was delayed and installed at one point Capitol police. As you mentioned, standing back in some of the videos, well coordinated with pipe bombs, being placed at the DNC and the RNC headquarters to maybe to distract police , uh, protesters armed with handcuffs and maps of the building who was pulling the strings.

Speaker 1 9:03

I mean, we won't completely know that until we have a full investigation of what took place. But what I think is remarkable is that these fringe groups have been telling the public for months, what they intended to do, what their plans were. They, I saw, you know , a news footage of them showing like showing off their arsenal and showing, you know, when he gives the signal, we're speaking of Trump and he gives the call, we're ready. We're going to be ready. And you know, I think people didn't really believe them. I think people thought, Oh, who's got time. They're not serious. But people had orchestrated buses to come to DC. And this was not just, you know, for a protest.

Speaker 4 9:46

I think it was orchestrated by Donald Trump's white house.

Speaker 1 9:49

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think, I think that you cannot separate Donald Trump's leadership or lack thereof. Um, and these aport actions , uh , their circuit Lee certainly working in tandem

Speaker 4 10:05

New York times or putting the cops, cops policemen from Texas, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire , uh, as well as other States are now under scrutiny after scrutiny, after social media posts placed the mirror and in the riots that took place at the nation's Capitol in some policemen reporting that they were fighting off a policemen who were not in uniform, but people who were flashing badges saying, we're doing this for you as they punched him in the face.

Speaker 1 10:34

Yeah. That's, that's the irony of this is that when you look at that crowd, you know, a lot of, one of the things that I wanted to say, but you only have a limited amount of space in the op ed , is that people think that these people are , are some French crazy radical group. Um, but this is us, that group of people was made up of off duty officers, veterans, soccer, moms, college students, elected officials. So when we think of who's present, I think we really have to have also another honest conversation about , um, who is, who is a part of the police force. And, and have we allowed the police force to somehow become co-opted, but also these, these radical groups as well. I've also read reports about white supremacists and Klan members, you know , um, actively gaining , um, you know, police Academy training and joining police Academy forces so that they can have more influence. That's scary to me,

Speaker 4 11:35

Reports from the , um, you know, that have been prepared by all sorts of people, but , uh, Michael German, a former FBI special agent has written extensively in the ways us law enforcement have failed to respond to far-right domestic terror groups concludes the us law enforcement officials have been tied to racist militant activists in more than a dozen States since 2000. And that hundreds of police officers have been caught posing a racist that posting racist and bigoted social media content use his words. What's your reaction to that?

Speaker 1 12:11

I mean, this goes back to also what I said in the op-ed that the inception, the Genesis, the creation of the police force , uh, was developed out of slavery, was established during the institution of slavery to prevent runaway slaves from escaping the plantation. And that police force has evolved over time, but the white supremacists or anti-black sentiments have been, you know, sort of inculcated into the institution since its inception. So it's not surprising to me to see these things, given the history of policing in the United States of America. But what I do think is intolerable, that is how we have allowed for this to continue and that we have never really seen substantial police reform that would allow for, you know , these particular groups of people to be , um, ostracized from , uh , um, a police Academy.

Speaker 4 13:02

I mean, you said earlier, there's kind of a , a general thought that these people are fringe and crazy and live up in a forest somewhere. I mean, it's obviously a much more serious than that. And what is the cost? I mean, we are seeing the cost of underestimating these groups now that are being called to the street by Trump.

Speaker 1 13:24

Yeah. These, I think these groups have never really been friends. You know, Kenneth, Kenneth Jackson is amazing historian at Columbia university and he wrote earlier about the history of the Klan . And he talked about it as an urban phenomenon. He says it was, you know , filled with police officers and judges and elected officials and businessmen and ministers. And that there's this superficial myth that, you know, the person who's in this group is like, you know, Bubba for Mississippi, or like some, you know, we think of some ignorant person, some uneducated person, but that is not the case. And that is what to me is most terrifying is that this group is made up of people who are educated, who have jobs who have careers, who have families and thought that what they were doing was acceptable, if not necessary.

Speaker 4 14:13

Do we know have to go in, in all the lessons learned from this and by the way, it's ongoing, right? Because there are marches that are called for on the, on the 17th. There were marches that are called for on the 20th day of inauguration. Um , do you think we have to go and look at the screening again and the recruitment again, in all these police departments, minimal minimally, and try to get these, you know , P Q unknowns and Nazis , uh, and clearly, you know, people who are racist out of those departments somehow

Speaker 1 14:47

We do. And I , and I think that requires more reform. I think we have to completely redo the system. You know, I, I studied the abolitionists and the abolitionists were not trying to reform slavery. They were trying to abolish slavery. And I think that when we look at the institution like the police and we see all of its systemic, structural corruption and racism, you can't reform that away. You actually have to create something new in its place. And I think drastic change is needed if we're ever going to move forward from where we are right now,

Speaker 4 15:24

Kelly, what are Afra African-American saying right now after, you know , seeing what happened at the Capitol, what what's, what's the chatter?

Speaker 1 15:34

I mean, it is a range. I have friends who have called me in tears, people who are so disturbed, they're , they're considering pulling their children out of school during the day of the inauguration, or not sure what's going to happen. I have friends who have made this somewhat comical and that it's not funny, but pointing out the double standard and finding ways that these white people look at this craziness, look at what we have allowed, who can help black people wouldn't ever be able to do this, you know, pointing out the double standard. I think there's a range, but for what most people feel is grief and anger and , um, a profound sense of disappointment at what this country is and what it's headed toward.

Speaker 4 16:28

Can I ask you what you are feeling on ongoing after ongoing, after president Trump , um, is , you know, th the two school of thoughts seem to be emerging. One is let's not further inflame how divided the country is. Let's start towards reconciliation, let them leave on the 20th, he's off Twitter. Now, you know, let's just push through this and forget about it. Well , you know, to some extent, you know , um, and there are others that say, no, no, no, this was a crime against the nation. Uh, and we have to bring these people to justice, including the president himself.

Speaker 1 17:07

Absolutely. You know, I feel the letter, I feel you cannot simply cause harm and , and then apologize and keep it moving. You have to go about repairing the harm that you caused, and you have to be honest about your actions and then you have to face consequences. Um, I mean, these are lessons. We teach our children how we behave and how you apologize, and then how after that we should see changed behavior. Um, and I think one of the things that we've never really seen is repentance. We've never really seen a meta Copa , um, on both sides of the , and I don't think that we have yet to see real accountability. And so that's what I want more than anything. You know, I think that if we allow president Trump to just sort of fade away into the darkness and not have to answer to the damage and the harm that he has caused, then all we will be doing is preparing another person to come in and do it even worse at an even more astronomical level.

Speaker 4 18:14

And he's probably not going to, he's probably not going to fade away in the dark anyway, but Alabama Congressman Barry Moore has only been in office for a week. He's already had the delete, his own Twitter account, his official account, the Republican called Capitol riots , a disgrace. Um, but then in his personal account, he says, we have more arrest for stealing a podium, which was, you know, pictured in all of those, those very high profile photographs on January the sixth. And we do for stealing an election on November the third. So there's no repentance there, certainly. And then he says, I understand it was a black police officer that shot the white female veteran. You know, that doesn't fit the narrative. What's he saying there,

Speaker 1 18:55

Oh my gosh. I mean, there's, there's so much there in terms of the duality of what he is presenting. And so much of what he said has also been not substantiated. There is no , um, fraud . Yes, it's, it's absolutely racist. And what he's also trying to do is in using the race card to flip these arguments around as to make this idea as though reverse racism is a thing it's not, it does not exist. Um, the racism is about power and black people don't have power . So , um, he can't make those arguments. And I think we have seen sort of like the verbal and intellectual gymnastics of how people have tried to maneuver themselves and to making an argument that they feel like there's merit that has no ground to stand on. And it's really disturbing to hear him say that.

Speaker 4 19:48

I just want to come back to where we started. The inaction of Capitol police was by design. If that had been a black lives matter protest with, you know, days in advance of threats on the internet about violence. Um, and as they approached to breach the doors of the Capitol, what would have happened?

Speaker 1 20:09

Well, it wouldn't have happened. I think, I think we're clean. We should be clear on that. I don't think this would have ever happened if this were a black lives matter protest. Um, I think on par black lives matter protests have been peaceful. Um, and I think that deserves to be stated again and again, but I also think that had it gone crazy, you would have seen much more bloodshed. You would have seen more than five people killed. And I don't say that to dismiss the deaths of the five people, but I think we would have seen those numbers in the double digits, if not triple digits, we would have seen tear gas. We would have seen tanks. I mean, think about Ferguson. It wasn't that long ago with Mike Brown and we saw an army meet protestors and armies, what , um, and that was, you know, because they had burned down a , a quick trip. So a gas station, I can't imagine how much more before she would see with the nation's cat ,

Speaker 4 21:07

The chief of police in the Capitol has resigned. And he's kind of shifting the debate to what happened with the calling in of the national guard. And , um, do you think that that's just smoke and mirrors that in fact, you know, they , they had a very good idea that this was going to happen and they just maybe decided not to be ready.

Speaker 1 21:27

I think everybody a good idea of what was going to happen. I think again, I said this before, we've been warned for months since the election, not even since the election, before the election, Trump had primed people that this was going to go bad and if it goes bad, be ready. So I think there was no excuse to say that you were not expecting, you know, a crowd of this size that you would not be expecting resistance. Um, that makes no sense to me. And again, it goes back to this idea that we have to be honest with ourselves about , um, what we were up against there . I think part of the problem is that no group both the left or the right has , um, has really a monopoly on truth right now. And , and I feel like we have two narratives that are circulating and , um, and we can't seem to find common ground on the truth.

Speaker 4 22:16

Last question to you in the New York times today, I'm sorry for quoting the New York times so much, but Timothy Snyder writes that Trump's focused on alleged irregularities and contested States comes down to cities where black people live and vote at bottom. The fantasy of fraud is that of a crime committed by black people against white people.

Speaker 1 22:39

Facts , short answer. I cannot there. I mean, you CA this is not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence that this happens the day that Georgia gets the first black Senator first Jewish American Senator. That's not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence that in places like Detroit and Philadelphia and Atlanta, you know, where large populations of black people live, that these votes are contested. I mean, and it's also historically consistent with the fact that black people's voting efforts and their votes have constantly faced suppression and opposition to not count into not matter. Um, and so in that sense, I think it is, it is absolutely racist and we need to be able to call a space.

Speaker 4 23:26

And the voter suppression was , uh , hard to watch people waiting and hours and hours making it so difficult, but,

Speaker 1 23:32

Oh my gosh, it makes no sense.

Speaker 4 23:35

Kelly Carter Jackson assistant professor of studies at Wellesley college, and she's the author of force and freedom, black abolitionists and the politics of violence. Kelly wrote a great article in the, I suggest you read it. Thank you so much, Kelly . Thank you for having me. All right . Joining me now is Dr. Darren Porcher. He was formally a Lieutenant with the N Y P D in New York, obviously. And he handled a lot of crowd control situations. There is that right, Darren. That is correct. Was the response by Capitol police designed to fail?

Speaker 5 24:08

I wouldn't say it was designed to fail. I don't think that they , uh, they pre-planned appropriately. When I say pre-planned appropriately, whenever you have a large scale demonstration of the magnitude of what we saw on the , um, the capital you need the focus on certain factions. The first thing is who is the group that's intending the protest . Number two, what is this group's ideology? And number three, how many people are going to come? You want to triangulate those three components. And that's how you'll assess which a personnel couple with technological innovations that'll partner in

Speaker 4 24:45

Those three things. And I think you would be hard pressed not to say that it was an , it was an Epic fail.

Speaker 5 24:53

It was a colossal failure to say , Hey, we clearly saw it mainstream American television up . And you know, the problem with that was mayor Bowzer. Um, Washington DC mayor was offered the resources of the national guard and she rejected it. And then she in turn focused on having national guard members that were not in uniform and they would not arm and placing them on the periphery, meaning behind the demonstrations , not behind the demonstrators, not upfront . And I just think that omnipresence is necessary when you have a demonstration of that magnitude, because it was clear that the intelligence reflected that this was going to be a hostile crowd and they were coming to invoke a level of violence, which we clearly saw manifest as a result.

Speaker 4 25:43

Would you agree with me now, as we know, more and more about this, that, I mean, given the digital traffic, I mean, who these people are and the calls to violence and the calls to arms and the calls to overthrow the government, the calls to take lawmakers and lynched them , um, that all the Intel was there. I mean, the, the Capitol police, absolutely. Should've known what was coming at them like a freight train,

Speaker 5 26:12

You know ? Absolutely. I think what happened was there was a sense of, I don't think I know what happened was there was a sense of complacency on the part of the Capitol police. Oftentimes you have these demonstrations and a lot of law enforcement practitioners will take that road of look, probably nothing is not going to happen. Therefore we want to reserve the budget and we don't want to overreach and can take in connection with the expenditures that we apply to this particular demonstration. And it turned around in a bit them in the rear end. And when you speak to the traffic , um, on social media, it was clearly apparent that you had people that were coming with a specific agenda and that was the reap havoc. And that's what we saw. However, the Capitol police did not a plant did not plan accordingly. And as a result, this is what occurred.

Speaker 4 27:00

Can I ask you how you feel personally, when you look at some of these videos, you know, and especially that one where they, they grab a policeman by the helmet and they drag him down the steps and beat him with an American flag pole . Um, just tell me how you feel as an American and how you feel as an ex policeman .

Speaker 5 27:22

Well, as an Alexa , as an ex police officer, I felt that Harvard , I thought this was, I was horrified in the , um, the visions that were , um, revealed to me in connection with cops being beat up and just this overall overarching act of anarchy that plague that Capitol complex. It really begged the question of why didn't we have the necessary fortifications in play. I mean, this is troubling, especially when we look to what the agenda of this group was and Wu they were, and I blame the president for a lot of this because he was the person that ginned up the base on false claims of election fraud and had these people assemble at the Capitol. And this was specifically from a selfish perspective. When I say selfish perspective, meaning it was all about him. There was no election fraud, but he still felt as if his, his, his time in the white house was permanent, not temporary. And this is what happened as a result. So I think he bears a tremendous brunt of responsibility.

Speaker 4 28:25

No, you are very careful what you say and you appear on places like Fox news. If you've been saying what you just told me now, in places like that now,

Speaker 5 28:33

Yes, I will. Um, the day after. So I'm going to say on Thursday, when I came on Fox, I spoke to the specifically and how the president showed that a lot of the blame for this. And th the term that I used on Fox news was this was Charlottesville book too , for president Trump. Because when we look at the statements that he made , um , the inflammatory statements, that connection with what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, coupled with there being good people on both sides, it was clearly his inability to make a proper assessment of what the situation was and put forth the NES necessary protocols . So I, you know, I spoke to this the same way I was speaking to you about this

Speaker 4 29:12

Police departments across the country have open investigations into policemen , uh, among their ranks to find out how they were involved, not whether they were there. We know that they were there involved in the siege on the U S Capitol on Washington. On January, the sixties are off duty officers who have gone to the demonstration. Let me read you a quote from , uh, one of the policemen that was interviewed by media there. And he says, they're extraordinary scenes with protesters holding blue lives matter flags launched at police officers, quote, we're telling them to get back up and get away and stop. And they're telling us, they're on our side, they're doing this for us. These are policemen who are showing a police ID showing badges. Uh , off-duty in the protests. They're , they're saying this as I'm getting punched in the face by one of them that happened to a lot of us were getting pepper sprayed in the face by these protesters . I'm not going to call them protesters, even their domestic caters . I mean , what's your reaction to that? There was so many, and I can't put a number on it, but there were a number of policemen that went to that protest and were involved in entering the Capitol building.

Speaker 5 30:27

Give me an example here with the NYP has one officer under investigation for actually going into that Capitol complex. When they , uh, when , when they breached the doors, we had members of the FDN, Y you know, the fire department of New York that also traveled to DC and , and were a part of this demonstration. We had a West Virginia legislator that did the same thing. He also , um, committed to when those doors were fracturing, entering their Capitol .

Speaker 4 31:00

Yeah , I mean, the FBI , uh , former FBI agent Michael German says , um, that the far right domestic terror threats have infiltrated many police departments across the country. There are, we know that there are police officers who have carried these Q Anon , uh , badges. And , uh, and then now they're participating in, you know, what an act of terrorism against the nation .

Speaker 5 31:26

This is actually an act of domestic terrorism. The Southern poverty law center has spoken to these far right groups for a period of time. And we haven't taken them serious. Now is the time that we need to read the tea leaves and address with this is a group that we need to have an active presence in law enforcement. Um , looking towards this is a problem, and it has to get done and needs to be proactive, not reactive on the part of law enforcement. This was an atrocity. This was an act of Arne Archy , and it shouldn't happen in the country like the United States,

Speaker 4 32:03

Weed, those people out of a police department,

Speaker 5 32:07

You have an applicant process in , um, division that investigates , uh, police candidates prior to coming into the department. Now, one of the things that they'll often do is they'll look to , uh , an individual social media and they'll knock on doors in that area. And that's where you can gain somewhat of a background assessment as to who this person is from a social perspective. But that being said , um, we need to, we need to look at this for what it is, and this is an act of domestic terrorism, and it needs to be, and it needs to happen now, not yesterday, not the day it happened. It needs to happen now, not a week from today, not a month from now. We need to ramp up resources and focus on this threat that is putting our country in jeopardy. As a result,

Speaker 4 32:55

It's interviewed a professor who wrote for the Atlantic magazine, Kelly , Carter, Jackson , um, and she really makes the case in the Atlantic that , um, and she, she teaches on , uh , force and freedom, black abolitionists and politics of violence at Wesley college in Massachusetts. She really makes the case that this is a racist response that had this been a black lives matter protest with all the Intel about what was coming, how many were coming, what they might be ready to do that police would have the police numbers and the police actions would have been very, very different. You're African-American , you're also an ex police policemen . What , what do you say about the racist element?

Speaker 5 33:40

Well, I challenged that narrative on several fronts because when we look at , uh , what happened with these black lives matter protest, what the course of the summer, they denigrated a lot of the large cities in the country. So it was clear that you didn't have a sufficient police presence. I give you an example. I live in New York city and a lot of the protests that subsequently placed the city under siege fell, what they bifurcated into, whether it was black lives matter, whether it was Antifa, or you even had common citizens that were protesting. We clearly didn't put forth the necessary resources in a place like New York city, as it related to these protests. And we subsequently paid the price for it because we saw the denigration of infrastructure we saw officer's assaulted, et cetera. So I've heard that narrative in that it would have been different if it was a black lives matter protest, but that didn't appear to be the case. When we look at the demonstrations that plague places like New York, Chicago, Portland, and Seattle, we clearly saw that the police didn't put in enough fortifications to ensure that population was safe. When we look at what happened in Seattle, for example, they even erected a no police zone, which they referred to as the Chaz zone. Whereas they literally took over a police precinct and it became an autonomous zone where citizens were basically there. So that being said, when you do the contrast and comparison, the quantitative statistics don't add up,

Speaker 4 35:09

Can I ask you just your personal view on taking Trump off his Twitter account and more importantly, and more broadly that they have suspended some of these new internet sites that , um, where there's a really, a lot of hate messaging back and forth. And, you know, on one hand you have the debate about freedom of speech and is that the right thing to do? But on the other hand, you have growing calls for people to go to the streets and carry out violence. What do you do? Where do you line up on it?

Speaker 5 35:41

It's a slippery slope. This is one of the things that the ACO was actually addressing in connection with president Trump being removed from Twitter. And it begs the question of free speech. I bill I'm affirmed , not, not just in my affirm proponent, but one thing that I do know is freedom of speech is not guaranteed. When you have an inflammatory content such as let's see if you go into a movie theater in New York fire, because you want a better, see , this is something which requires cause you to be held accountable. That being said, Twitter, ejected, president Trump, because he used Twitter as a platform to gin up the base and direct them towards the Capitol . And he specifically stated that I'm going to be there with you. That being said, Twitter was the vehicle of access that promoted this right now. I don't want to completely blame Donald Trump for all it is , but he does level a shoulder level of responsibility. So when you mentioned , um , social media platforms, such as parlor, which is a conservative, a social media platform that has since come under fire, one can argue that the regulatory process within the framework of parlor is not sound because they're allowing threats or inappropriate material. The B w

Speaker 4 37:01

I'm going to expect, we criticize those social media companies, the tech giants, if they can't police things like child porn, or if they can't police , uh , hatred and racism. And so we're demanding, they do that suddenly. Now they have taken down the one that you just mentioned, and , uh , there's a lot of criticisms . So I'm not, it's, it's a, it's a foggy situation. But I think, I think on the, you know, giving my own opinion, which I'm not, I generally don't do as a journalist, but I think when you're right there between the assault on the capital and inauguration, and there are more calls for violence on the 17th and on the 20th. And there is the , the, the media companies are not policing that they simply can't in some ways, in other ways, they just turned a blind eye to it. But in order for , to have law and order and not to really have the street on fire, I guess you , you have to trade some of that off in the short term .

Speaker 5 38:04

Yeah. I agree with you. And it goes back to what my , what I mentioned earlier, freedom of speech is not absolute. And therefore, I think that it's necessary that you have an entity, the marshal in to ensure that the content is sound such as child pornography threats, to one's life things , to that effect , those things need to be marshaled in. And it was questionable in connection with what was occurring on the platform of parlor. It may be, it may be a situation where Parla may be now forced to put forth in integrity cause , or, or, you know, some level of oversight

Speaker 4 38:41

Chip . But

Speaker 5 38:43

Yeah, but I , well, you know, that, that may be true, but I'm just saying that we're using that as an example, because that's what's happening right now. Future sites will develop and come to fruition. This is not the end of this. And so that being said, I think there needs to be a clear lane of oversight within that social media platform to ensure that hate speech or things that are illegal and not transferred on that , um, that platform as a result,

Speaker 4 39:11

Do you think this was pretty well organized? My last question to you , uh , the assault on the capital , when you take a look at the fact that pipe bombs were placed outside the democratic headquarters and the Republican headquarters, probably to distract police , um , people in there with the zip lock rings that I've seen a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan, military uses them to handcuff people. They knew where the offices were. I've seen maps that were put on the internet prior to the March where they said where Pelosi's office was, where vice-president Pence could be. Um, I mean, th this goes beyond a little demonstration that got out of control.

Speaker 5 39:49

I , I think quite the opposite. I don't think that this was organized. I think that what you had was you had, you know, thousands of people that converge on that capital , um , compound, and within that group, you had people that had their D their own internal agendas that they went in . They , they drift towards such, such as people that had zip ties. And, you know, why would you bring a zip tie to a protest other than looking to take people into custody

Speaker 4 40:18

Lynch Lynch? The vice-president

Speaker 5 40:20

Clearly believed that there was nefarious behavior , uh , you know , um , at the foundation of a lot of this. But I also think that whenever you have these protests, I think the, the organizers of the protest, I think it should be incumbent upon those individuals, the pre , the people that are bestowed upon the permit for a particular , um, demonstration, they should be held accountable for marshaling in the people that are coming in to , um, to protest , uh , demonstrate. And I don't, I don't believe they had a member . I don't think I know they did not have a permit for this. They just converged on the , uh , on the property and they committed to

Speaker 4 41:02

It is the words of the president they're in , right? I mean, he's telling them to go down there and he's telling them, Rudy Giuliani, all this stuff,

Speaker 5 41:15

Right. One can argue that the president gave people a fast pass to go out there and do that. But it goes back to where you asked the initial question that I think this was organized. No, I think this was more like , um, abstract. And you had different components of people , uh , Rose on that capital complex. And they looked for, or a set forth to advance their agendas. I don't think it was uniformly everyone that was there, but one person is too much.

Speaker 4 41:45

I lie to you sometimes. I tell you, it's the last question, and then I give you another one. Right? All right . So I'm pleading guilty and I'm just going to have one more question. You worried about the 17th and the 20th, and are we going to be prepared this time or they're going to get it right?

Speaker 5 41:59

They'll get it right. There's going to be overkill, to be honest with you, you know , you probably got to have F 16 fighter jets, Harrier jump jets. I've got to fly over the Capitol to make sure that there's going to be an air presence. There's going to be a ground presence to ensure that there is no repeat to what happened on Wednesday.

Speaker 4 42:20

Some of the calls are for legislatures across the country as well. Right? So people who don't necessarily go to Washington may show up, you know, in Virginia or in anywhere. And so the threat is still huge.

Speaker 5 42:33

Well, I think a lot of the , uh, the legislators such as be it, Josh Holly, or Ted Cruz that align themselves with the selection fraud. In many instances, people would say, Hey, look, you championed that cause. And so I don't want to say that there'll be held accountable from , uh , from a law enforcement perspective, but I think that the voter ship will hold them accountable. Moving forward. You know, one thing I give you an example, Lindy Lindsay Graham, who was a diehard supporter of Donald Trump, he put the brakes on this and said, look enough is enough. We need to cut the crap. We need to have a civil change of power. This was just too much.

Speaker 4 43:13

He said, he said enough. And , uh , he looks scared to me. He looked like he looked like he suddenly understood what the rest of us could see coming for a long time, that if you de-legitimized election and tell people that they'd been cheated and that the system doesn't work for them anymore, they are going to go to the screen . They're going to be angry.

Speaker 5 43:34

Yeah, absolutely. Right. You know , uh, words matter, especially when they're echo from the president of the United States or the leader of any country for that matter. Um, we had 75 million people that voted for Donald Trump. So the followship was wide and deep. Therefore you need to stay abreast of the fact of what you say matters, and you can put forth an agenda that can possibly create a toxic environment that can cause someone to either lose their life or become injured. And that's what we saw here. I, you know, right now, you know what the million dollar question is. I wonder what's going through Donald Trump's mind right now, looking at what happened, you know , and saying to himself, you know, cause this is what his legacy is going to be based on that for years, because I'll be the first to tell you, I fought . There was some phenomenal things that happen under the Trump umbrella, more so specific to the, the us dollar and the stock market, but do a lot of things that didn't go good. But more importantly, when you look at how he went out of the presidency, that's how he's going to be judged for eternity. And there's nothing that he can do to change that,

Speaker 2 44:47

To , to use your words, you know, toxic, it's a hell of a legacy Dr. Darren portrait there . And I really appreciate talking to you. Thanks so much

Speaker 5 44:54

As always Dana . I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 44:56

And that's our backstory on this a week when Democrats seek a second impeachment of Trump, the first president in history to be impeached twice, Joe Biden received 80 million votes, but Trump got 74 million. That's an awful lot of people were told the election was stolen. It's a lie, but they were told that by a president, many beliefs . And where does that leave the country now? And how does Biden govern in this climate of division Trump won't slink away easily. We'll be there to disrupt and divide and light a match to whatever bonfire he can set dangerous days ahead in the U S please subscribe to this podcast and share our link. That's this backstory, I'm Dana Lewis. And I'll talk to you again soon.