The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump spent the third anniversary of the Capitol attack on the campaign trail in Iowa, where he again referred to jailed Jan. 6 defendants as “hostages” and repeated language from his Jan. 6, 2021 speech about acting “peacefully and patriotically.” AP reported that he marked the anniversary by casting the migrant surge at the southern border as the “real” insurrection. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/trump-iowa-caucuses-young-conservatives-campaign-2ca7441852577795123845811b06bc06))

The remarks came during a pair of January 6 stops in Iowa, including an appearance in Newton and another campaign event in Des Moines. In the Newton speech, Trump did not offer a substantive reckoning with the attack on the Capitol. Instead, he folded the anniversary into his broader campaign message and revived the language his allies have used to portray Jan. 6 defendants as political prisoners rather than people charged in connection with the attack. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/trump-iowa-caucuses-young-conservatives-campaign-2ca7441852577795123845811b06bc06))

Trump’s wording also drew attention because he repeated the phrase “peacefully and patriotically” from his 2021 speech, one of the lines he has leaned on since the attack to argue that he was not calling for violence. That does not change the basic record of Jan. 6: a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol after the 2020 election, forcing lawmakers to halt certification and resume it only after the building was cleared. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/trump-iowa-caucuses-young-conservatives-campaign-2ca7441852577795123845811b06bc06))

The result was a familiar Trump routine on an unusually loaded date. Rather than using the anniversary to distance himself from the assault on the Capitol, he treated it as another chance to relitigate the election, attack the border, and frame the people charged in the riot as victims. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/trump-iowa-caucuses-young-conservatives-campaign-2ca7441852577795123845811b06bc06))