CNN’s Tapper: Trump Enablers ‘Beginning to Get the Goddamn Point’ — Rhetoric Is Dangerous

CNN’s Jake Tapper opened his show “State of the Union” on Sunday by arguing the riot at the U.S. Capitol last week caused many of President Donald Trump’s enablers to “get the goddamn point, that his continuous lies and humoring of racists and winks and nods to violent extremists are dangerous.”

Tapper said, “The state of our union is utterly devastated after one of the darkest days in our nation’s history, a coup attempt no longer bloodless, instigated by the president of the United States. The flags at the U.S. Capitol are at half staff this morning for the police officer, Brian Sicknick, who was murdered this week. But they are not at half staff at the White House. Perhaps because Officer Sicknick was the enemy of the terrorist mob, and the mob loves Trump.”

He continued, “The mob, by trying to intimidate, threaten, or even kill the vice president and members of Congress, who were counting the electoral votes, that mob was, in turn, loved back by Trump. According to to Ben Sasse, White House aides told him the president was quote delighted watching the insurrection. In Trump’s view, they were fighting for him. Trump put out a statement. ‘We love you,’ he said, after the attack. ‘You are very special.’ It might be difficult to hear these words. It’s difficult to say them because it’s so ugly, but it’s true. The flag isn’t down at the White House because the president is not mourning Officer Sicknick. He hasn’t personally decried the terrorists in any way because the president loves the terrorists, and he reportedly has not even spoken to his own vice president, whose life was at risk since Wednesday. The images of this attack are so shocking that many of Trump’s enablers are finally, with just a few days left in his presidency, beginning to get the goddamn point that his continuous lies and humoring of racists and winks and nods to violent extremists are dangerous.”

He added, “Twitter and many other social media outlets have silenced him permanently. Members of his cabinet are bailing like rats from a sinking raft. Some of his closest allies on Capitol Hill are now trying to weasel their way out of their responsibility for the bloodshed.”

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