Rachel Maddow Warns Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons Are ‘Immunizing His Followers From Committing Violence in His Name’ | Video

Rachel Maddow believes that President Donald Trump’s choice to pardon nearly every Jan. 6 rioter only emboldens his followers.

The MSNBC host explained in detail that Trump’s choice to pardon almost every rioter from the Capitol Hill riots in 2021 – regardless of whether they were violent toward police officers or not – is essentially the 47th president embracing political violence on his behalf.

“Trump pardoning and releasing from prison the January 6th defendants, including the paramilitaries, means he is effectively immunizing his followers from committing violence in his name,” Maddow said. “He’s making clear, you know, if you support me, the law doesn’t apply to you.”

She continued, “Not incidentally, the people he’s pardoning and their families will feel like they owe Trump everything, and that they therefore should, and now can, do absolutely anything for him.”

In total, Trump pardon or commuted sentences of around 1500 people who rioted on and in the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. 2021. Maddow called the choice to do this for almost everyone involved was a “maximalist option.” She also drew plenty of parallels to what Trump was doing and some of the most famous autocrats in history and called the pardons “textbook authoritarian takeover 101 tactics.” The MSNBC host wrapped her Inauguration Day coverage with a plea of vigilance to the America people.

“More than ever, this is not a time to pretend this isn’t happening,” Maddow said. “You’re going to want to have a good answer when you get asked what you did for your country when your country started to take a turn this radical.”

She finished, “We are here. It’s happening in our lifetimes. Well, we are citizens responsible for the fate of our country. All hands on deck.”

The other headline-making executive order Trump passed in the first day as president was to postpone the TikTok ban for 75 days. He said the extension will give his administration “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action with respect to TikTok,” which has 170 million American users.

Watch the full Rachel Maddow video above.

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