Inside the Jan. 6 Capitol riot: Part 2 of 2

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 4 January 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

In this NPR investigation, we take a close look at the brutal violence that took place on Jan. 6, 2021, the investigation that followed, and the campaign Trump has waged to whitewash it.

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This episode was produced by Monika Evstatieva, with audio engineering by Robert Rodriguez.

It was edited by Barrie Hardymon.

Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	a warning that this podcast includes explicit language, depictions of violence, and suicide.
0:06.5	On our last episode?
0:10.0	War, war, our civil war!
0:13.1	War, war, our civil war!
0:15.6	I was afraid that I might lose consciousness, so or be killed there.
0:20.1	Hold the life! Hold the life! It was just not... I might lose conscience and I'd be killed there. Hold alive!
0:21.6	Hold them on!
0:22.6	It was just not a scene that I had ever experienced in 20 years of inner city policing.
0:29.6	I was happy about it.
0:31.6	You were happy about them seeing, like...
0:33.6	Being afraid of people.
0:35.6	And like, here's a common man. Here we are.
0:42.2	After Jason Riddle stormed the Capitol, chugged wine and ran away, he eventually made his way back home to New Hampshire.
0:49.2	But he didn't exactly go into hiding.
0:51.6	A New Hampshire man who attended the protest in D.C. Wednesday and even
0:55.0	joined the mob as it stormed the Capitol building is now speaking out, Audrey. Riddles spoke out
1:00.1	to a reporter for an NBC station in Boston. Why did you go in? I just, I had to see it.
1:09.4	You don't regret it. No. After doing that, I was like, okay, I'm probably going to get arrested. I was on a bender. I drank morning and night. This place was gross. There was a dead Christmas tree in the corner. It's smelting here, and I was just, I'd wake up on the floor, the couch, and I was just looking out the window waiting for them to show up. And, uh, they did. When the FBI came to his apartment, Riddle admitted that he went in the building that he was drinking wine as people do to the Capitol. And then the FBI agents asked if he stole anything. At first, Riddle said no, he didn't think so. And the FBI agent went, okay, because we have this, and they opened up a folder,
1:46.5	and they took out a picture, and they have a picture of me holding the book outside of the Capitol building.
1:50.5	The FBI knew that Riddle had stolen a book that belonged in the Capitol.
1:55.0	It was about Senate procedure.
1:57.0	Riddle sold it to someone in the crowd outside the Capitol for $40.
	...

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