Former President Donald Trump made a “sharply self-incriminating” statement during his Univision town hall on Wednesday, legal analyst and former U.S. assistant attorney Glenn Kirschner said Thursday.
Trump, the GOP nominee, fielded questions from undecided Latino and Hispanic voters during a town hall in Florida hosted by Spanish-language network Univision.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, participated in a similar town hall hosted by the network last week. Both candidates have been courting key voting groups in swing states—with significant Latino and Hispanic populations in Nevada and Arizona.
Audience questions ranged from abortion to immigration to the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
In a YouTube video posted Thursday, Kirschner, a MSNBC legal analyst and frequent Trump critic, said the former president’s comments about the riot during the town hall were “sharply self-incriminating” because Trump used the “royal we” when describing the insurrection.
On January 6, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden‘s 2020 election victory amid unfounded claims from Trump that the election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud. One rioter, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and later died, and dozens of police were injured.
Kirschner turned to a transcript of Trump’s response to Ramiro González, a 56-year-old construction worker with Cuban heritage, who told Trump at the Univision town hall that he is a former Republican who is no longer registered.
“I want to give you the opportunity to try and win back my vote,” González said to Trump. “Your action and maybe inaction, during your presidency and maybe the last few years, sort of, was a little disturbing to me.”
He added: “What happened during January 6, and the fact that you waited so long to take action while your supporters were attacking the Capitol.”
Kirschner then read out Trump’s answer, saying, “Ashli Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns.”
Former President Donald Trump gestures during a Univision Noticias town hall event on October 16 in Doral, Florida. Legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said Trump’s comments about January 6, 2021 were “sharply self-incriminating.”
Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The “other side,” Kirschner said, “would be the police, who were protecting the people in the U.S. Capitol who were trying to certify Joe Biden’s election win.”
The legal analyst said that the moment highlighted Trump’s relation to the rioters that day. “By using that royal ‘we,’—’we didn’t have guns at the Capitol,’—Donald Trump aligns himself with the angry mob, with the insurrectionists.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment via email on Friday.
Newsweek, which fact-checked several of Trump’s false claims during the evening, rebuked his comment that there were no guns at the Capitol. Several rioters, including Guy Reffitt, Lonnie Coffman, Mark Andrew Mazza, Christopher Alberts, and Jerod Thomas Bargar, among others, have been sentenced for various firearm possession charges related to that day.
In a 2022 article for Newsweek, Nick Suplina and Justin Wagner of Everytown for Gun Safety said they had identified “12 individuals allegedly tied to the events of Jan. 6 who were arrested in Washington, D.C., and charged with firearms offenses.”
Meanwhile, Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith is leading the prosecution against Trump on four counts related to his alleged efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election results that led up to the riot.
Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempted obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights in connection with an alleged pressure campaign on state officials to reverse the 2020 election results.
The former president has denied all charges and repeatedly said he is the victim of a political witch hunt. Trump has accused Smith of attempting to interfere in the 2024 presidential election by prosecuting him.
