Speaker 1: From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington
Speaker 1: Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Show, Jetty Armstrong and Jetty Show.
Speaker 1: They became incredibly violent, and that's when that surge that
Speaker 1: you watched in some of the video began, and you
Speaker 1: had a large group at the mouth of that tunnel
Speaker 1: entrance trying to push their way through the officers who
Speaker 1: were fighting to defend it. I believe had they done so,
Speaker 1: or had they accomplished that, they would have trampled us
Speaker 1: to death. Most certainly you would have had police officers killed.
Speaker 1: I think you run that experiment a thousand times what
Speaker 1: happened that day, and you get uh as few dead
Speaker 1: people as we ended up with that one time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it was just a matter of luck and
Speaker 1: amazement and then that that that more people didn't die
Speaker 1: as often for known just said there. If they had
Speaker 1: broken through, they would have trampled them. They certainly would
Speaker 1: have beaten anybody to death they could have. And I
Speaker 1: think if they had gotten into the capital, they'd have
Speaker 1: killed some politicians. I really believe that that would have happened. Uh,
Speaker 1: just stunning. Deborah J. Saunders been a friend of the
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty Show for a long time. She's a
Speaker 1: fellow at the Discovery Center Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership,
Speaker 1: and she is now She's also a columnist with Creators Syndicate,
Speaker 1: but she's now on Substack. That's where all the best
Speaker 1: writers are. You can just search for Deborah J. Sanders
Speaker 1: if you want to Saunders, if you want to find
Speaker 1: her on substack. The the you out of her name there,
Speaker 1: there you go, thank you, thank you handsOn. What was
Speaker 1: that he changed your name? You have a different spelling
Speaker 1: there than you have there. I mean, that's crazy. Debor
Speaker 1: Saunders joined us down on the Armstrong and Getty Show. Hey,
Speaker 1: how's it going? Fine? Fine, I'm changing the spelling of
Speaker 1: my name to substack. Substack is where all the best
Speaker 1: people are. So I'm glad the seat that you're on there.
Speaker 1: It's a great place to go because you can you can.
Speaker 1: I love writing my column I'm but it's once a week.
Speaker 1: It's I have to sort of it's bigger thoughts that
Speaker 1: you can just jump on sub stack, which is really fun.
Speaker 1: I like that so so well, just I totally agree
Speaker 1: with everything you've been saying all morning. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: heard us earlier. Um yeah, the so the day it
Speaker 1: happened was just I was just beside myself. I just
Speaker 1: I can't believe this is happening. And but then, you know,
Speaker 1: the way the human mind works, it kind of trailed
Speaker 1: off in my memory of how awful it was kind
Speaker 1: of went away. Then, you know, then you see videos again,
Speaker 1: you think, oh, yeah, that's right. People were trying to
Speaker 1: beat police to death with US flagpoles. And then the
Speaker 1: New York Times put together I don't know if you
Speaker 1: saw that thing that they put together a week or
Speaker 1: so ago, where they compiled thousands and thousands of hours
Speaker 1: of video of from iPhones and that sort of stuff
Speaker 1: into one hell of a montage that was like being
Speaker 1: on the ground as that medieval battle happened. Uh, just stunning.
Speaker 1: And then seeing it again yesterday, you reminded it's just
Speaker 1: just how awful that whole thing was. So here's here's
Speaker 1: my my current sense for Trump and Pelosi. I think
Speaker 1: I think Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi for completely different reasons.
Speaker 1: We're okay with things getting a little out of hand,
Speaker 1: and they thought a little out of hand was going
Speaker 1: to benefit them both, and uh, and they got way
Speaker 1: out of hand. What do you think? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that that's true. And Officer Donne said that the reason
Speaker 1: they didn't prepare more is they never thought this would
Speaker 1: happen and that they thought it would be a problem.
Speaker 1: That they didn't think it would be like this. You know,
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan's who was Kevin McCarthy's pick to be on
Speaker 1: the Select committee, And Pelosi said no. He's been on
Speaker 1: TV all weeks saying and if I were on that committee,
Speaker 1: I'd be asking them why weren't you more prepared? So
Speaker 1: what he's saying is that Pelosi should have known that
Speaker 1: this was going to happen. Because if that's true, then
Speaker 1: Donald Trump should have known was going to happen, right,
Speaker 1: You should have done something to stop it, because you
Speaker 1: don't want to have your supporters running into the capital
Speaker 1: and beating up law enforcement people. They're on our side.
Speaker 1: They're good people, and you can see from the testimony
Speaker 1: these four men are traumatized by what happened to them.
Speaker 1: They can't believe that their fellow citizens did this to them. Well,
Speaker 1: as as we'll play this again just because it's uh,
Speaker 1: it makes a pretty good point. Um, So Dimber and
Speaker 1: I can discuss this play thirty one again. For me,
Speaker 1: this is the officer phone. I feel like I went
Speaker 1: to Hell and back to protect them in the people
Speaker 1: in this room. But too many are now telling me
Speaker 1: that Hell doesn't exist, or that Hell actually wasn't that bad.
Speaker 1: The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful. It's got
Speaker 1: to be a really difficult thing to take that you
Speaker 1: fought for a couple of hours, black doubt for several minutes,
Speaker 1: probably was surprised to wake up alive. You fought and
Speaker 1: fought and fought and fought to protect these politicians, and
Speaker 1: then some of those politicians are pretending that it never happened.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, they have every right to be furious
Speaker 1: about this, and and I'm watching these sort of what
Speaker 1: about is and where there are some Republicans who are
Speaker 1: trying to act like this wasn't a big deal. It
Speaker 1: was a big deal. And if I were, if I
Speaker 1: were Kevin McCarthy, my way of dealing with it would
Speaker 1: be to have reasonable Republicans there to ask questions. Um,
Speaker 1: I think this is the day for Nancy Pelosi that
Speaker 1: it worked best for Democrats. There are you know, other
Speaker 1: things that you can get into. But there's just no
Speaker 1: excuse for God for people to you don't treat police
Speaker 1: officers like that. And this is something that we on
Speaker 1: the right hated when during the anti FO demonstrations and
Speaker 1: the BLM riots and all the other stuff like that,
Speaker 1: we thought that this is wrong, and these people belong
Speaker 1: in jail, and the same as us for the January
Speaker 1: six people. It wasn't just it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And if these people had succeeded, they would have, um
Speaker 1: they probably would have killed some members of Congress, and
Speaker 1: they would have intimidated the rest of them into overturning
Speaker 1: the electoral College vote in favor of their person, and
Speaker 1: we would be, uh, you know, we would be a
Speaker 1: tinpot dictatorship. That's what would be. I don't think that
Speaker 1: was ever gonna happen. I mean, you know, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: some people have said, okay, i'll vote that way if
Speaker 1: you with a gun to their head, but that would
Speaker 1: have quickly been corrected. I mean, so they were never
Speaker 1: going to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. It's just
Speaker 1: it's just I don't I don't even get what was
Speaker 1: going on in their heads. They're well, they're crazy people.
Speaker 1: But I wish in my in my ideal democracy, you
Speaker 1: would have Democrats on that Penland and Republicans on that panel,
Speaker 1: both speaking to their own sides, saying this is unacceptable.
Speaker 1: We cannot be attacking police in Portland and Seattle, and
Speaker 1: we cannot be attacking police in Washington, d C. And
Speaker 1: you know, we're you don't fight on this, but we're
Speaker 1: not even close to there, which is disappointing to me.
Speaker 1: To me too. And you know, before January six, is
Speaker 1: the march was happening, I would call. I was talking
Speaker 1: to a number of people who I knew were going
Speaker 1: to attend the march, and I kept asking them, so,
Speaker 1: what do you think is going to happen tomorrow? And I,
Speaker 1: by the way, had no idea it was going to
Speaker 1: come to this, right, I thought it was going to
Speaker 1: be I mean, but basically, there were a number of
Speaker 1: people who turned up to the to the olymps in
Speaker 1: Washington Mall, and they somehow thought that magically, maybe that
Speaker 1: maybe some of them actually thought we can walk over
Speaker 1: to the Capitol and uh, members of Congress will look
Speaker 1: at us and realize, oh we're wrong, and we'll change things.
Speaker 1: But obviously there are people who are prepared, who showed
Speaker 1: up and they were armed, they had plans, and they
Speaker 1: were ready to hurt people because that's what they wanted
Speaker 1: to do, and those people were enabled. I mean, we
Speaker 1: saw this with all the Anti five demonstrations and you'd
Speaker 1: you'd hear the people on the website, oh, you know
Speaker 1: this is for a just cause it's a mostly peaceful protest. Well,
Speaker 1: the peaceful protesters end up becoming enablers for the violence
Speaker 1: fugs and again not right. Yeah, And it's similar in that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, on each side is covering for their own side.
Speaker 1: Seeing n and MSNBC would cover for the Antifa crowd
Speaker 1: and talk about the peaceful protesters and ignore, you know,
Speaker 1: the people that would would have a palette of bricks
Speaker 1: delivered for the crowd that was really they're wanting to
Speaker 1: do damage. It's similar to the people that showed up
Speaker 1: to the capitol organized. There are organized combatants on both sides,
Speaker 1: and let's let's can we just all just recognize that
Speaker 1: and let's try to find out who these people are
Speaker 1: and deal with them. Mm hmm. And if they break
Speaker 1: the lap prosecuting U do do you think we do
Speaker 1: you think that was the the high mark or it
Speaker 1: was a low point in a high mark at the
Speaker 1: same time January six, or or do you think they're
Speaker 1: where were It's a point on a continuum. We're going
Speaker 1: to go further down that road, either from the violence
Speaker 1: of the left of the violence of the right. You know,
Speaker 1: it is scary right now because I think both signs
Speaker 1: are the lack of trust is so heavy in this country.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden said is going to bring us together, and
Speaker 1: he hasn't done it right. Uh, Instead, it's just finger pointing.
Speaker 1: You guys are wrong. You guys are wrong. Well, and
Speaker 1: Jack our side was wrong. There were you know, there
Speaker 1: are people I voted for Trump and the people who
Speaker 1: went on the Washington all there, they they were they
Speaker 1: felt that they had a right to do something that
Speaker 1: they had no right to do, and the fact that
Speaker 1: they had a president who encouraged them to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, he certainly had been made aware in
Speaker 1: the course of the day what was going on, and
Speaker 1: he didn't try to pull them out of the building
Speaker 1: until later. And you know, famously, Kevin McCarthy calls Trump
Speaker 1: and he's petrified. He's like, do something, And Trump said, well, Kevin,
Speaker 1: I guess these people care more about what happened to
Speaker 1: the election than you do. So he was still, you know,
Speaker 1: bent on trying to delusionally keep the White House. Uh,
Speaker 1: And he was willing to let a lot of people
Speaker 1: get hurt so he could get that well. And Joe
Speaker 1: Biden has spoken forcefully against that, of course. But if
Speaker 1: he would include in the same speech and say, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: you know what you're with Black lives Matter and teeth
Speaker 1: or whatever. You don't get to go into a restaurant
Speaker 1: and make people kneel and swear an oath to you.
Speaker 1: You don't get to pull down statues in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. We have a political process for that.
Speaker 1: If he would say those things together, maybe we could
Speaker 1: get somewhere, get that big chunk of the middle of
Speaker 1: us who aren't violent to to say yeah, let's let
Speaker 1: the grown up, calm people take over. But he's not
Speaker 1: willing to do that. Yeah. It's really sad because I
Speaker 1: feel that on the left and on the right, everything's
Speaker 1: moving further away, and now anybody who talks to the
Speaker 1: other side is an enemy and we're not. We don't
Speaker 1: believe in trying to get things done. We just believe
Speaker 1: in trying to stop the other guys from getting things done.
Speaker 1: It's just very unhealthy. Yeah. Well, appreciate the conversation with
Speaker 1: you today. We'll keep an eye on the hearings. I'll
Speaker 1: be looking for you on sub stack. Good for you.
Speaker 1: Deborah J. Saunders on substack. Substack, that's a good place
Speaker 1: to be. Lots of different points of view and you
Speaker 1: can't get canceled on substack from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: which is cool. Uh. Deborah, thanks for the time to
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thanks Jack, you bet that's Deborah J. Saunders
Speaker 1: S A U N D E R S. Look Forward
Speaker 1: on substack