President Donald Trump believes his words from his speech last week were “totally appropriate.”
A reporter asked as Trump departed for Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday what his “role in what happened at the Capitol” was and what his “personal responsibility” is.
Trump defended the speech he gave at a rally last Wednesday, which happened just before protestors stormed the U.S. Capitol.
“If you read my speech, and many people have done it… it’s been analyzed… People thought that what I said was totally appropriate,” Trump said.
Watch the video below:
Q: "What is your role in what happened at the Capitol? What is your personal responsibility?"
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 12, 2021
President Trump: "If you read my speech…people thought that what I said was totally appropriate." pic.twitter.com/90Pdt8xFSz
During the president’s speech at the “Save America” rally last Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Trump told his supporters they should “walk down to the Capitol” to “cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
He also said, “We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
“We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved,” Trump said, later adding, “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The president said last Thursday in a video message that he was “outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem” at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump also touched on impeachment when speaking to reporters, calling it “a really terrible thing that they’re doing.”
“To continue on this path, I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our country, and it’s causing tremendous anger,” the president added. “I want no violence.”
Ahead of the president’s visit, the city of Alamo said that it received no official contact from the White House on Trump’s visit on Tuesday. Trump will visit the border wall.