McConnell calls Trump ‘practically and morally responsible’ for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack

After voting to acquit former President Donald Trump in the impeachment trial on Saturday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump was responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Video Transcript

MITCH MCCONNELL: There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

The issue is not only the president's intemperate language on January 6-- it is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged, quote, "trial by combat." It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe-- the increasingly wild myths-- myth about a reverse landslide election that was somehow being stolen from secret coup, our now president.

Now, I defended the president's right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The electoral college spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at that time, the election was settled. It was over.

But that just really opened a new chapter of even wilder, wilder, and more unfounded claims. The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.

Now, sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors. We saw that that unhinged listeners might take literally. But that was different. That's different from what we saw.

This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters' decision or else torch our institutions are on the way out.