Trump's Jan 6 Pardons Re-Energize Far-Right Groups
What A Day
What A Day
4.6 • 12.6K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
It’s been a couple of days since President Donald Trump granted clemency to all of his nearly 1,600 supporters who faced charges for storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Most of them received full, complete and unconditional pardons for their actions that day. The 14 people who didn’t get pardons were all members of far-right extremist groups, and instead had their sentences commuted. Tess Owen, a freelance reporter covering extremism and politics, explains what Trump’s clemency actions mean for right-wing extremist groups and the threat of political violence in America.
Later in the show, David Hogg, who’s running for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, talks about how Democrats can better speak to the needs of young voters.
And in headlines: House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled plans to create a new House committee to counter the ‘false narratives’ around Jan. 6th, the State Department suspended the U.S. refugee admissions program, and the Trump administration barred federal health agencies from using external communications through the end of the month.
Show Notes:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Thursday, January 23rd. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Jane Koston, and this is Water Day, the show wishing a happy snow day to everyone in the American South experiencing once in a lifetime snowfall. |
| 0:11.4 | We know you aren't used to it, and it's probably scary, but sometimes frozen water falls from the sky. |
| 0:17.2 | It's crazy. |
| 0:31.5 | Music guy. It's crazy. On today's show, President Donald Trump issues an executive order blocking the resettlement of refugees in the U.S., including thousands of Afghans. And the House passed |
| 0:36.7 | its first piece of legislation under the new |
| 0:38.5 | administration. Let's get into it. It's been a couple of days since President Donald Trump granted |
| 0:44.1 | clemency to all of his nearly 1600 supporters who faced charges for storming the Capitol on |
| 0:49.0 | January 6, 2021. Most of them received full, complete, and unconditional pardons for their actions that day. |
| 0:55.6 | The 14 people who didn't get pardons instead had their sentences commuted. |
| 0:59.5 | They were all members of far-right militia groups, either the oathkeepers or the proud boys. |
| 1:04.2 | As you'd expect, many of these people were positively giddy about the fact that they were getting |
| 1:08.1 | out of prison, and giddy in a way that's terrifying to pretty much anyone who's not steeped in the |
| 1:13.1 | alternative mega universe version of what actually happened that day. |
| 1:17.5 | Stuart Rhodes, the founder of the Oathkeepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. |
| 1:21.4 | Trump commuted his sentence. |
| 1:22.9 | After his release Tuesday, he thanked Trump and repeated lies about what happened to the Capitol |
| 1:26.7 | that day. |
| 1:27.7 | Most people that went inside, they walked in through doors already opened by somebody else. |
| 1:31.1 | They were not told they were trespassing. |
| 1:33.0 | They just, in fact, some cops waved them in. |
| 1:35.0 | And so you had it basically an entrapment. |
... |
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