President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to pardon Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. In a Fox News Sunday interview, however, incoming Vice President JD Vance said not every rioter should be pardoned. It’s just the latest example of the incoming Trump administration reversing one of its foundational campaign promises.
“I think it’s very simple,” Vance told Fox News Sunday on Jan. 12, of the potential pardons. “If you protested peacefully on Jan. 6 and you’ve had Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
According to the Department of Justice, around 1,300 defendants have been charged in connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the capitol, and almost all charges involve violence or destruction of property.
According to Trump, Jan. 6 rioters have suffered “long and hard”
While Trump has qualified his promise to pardon Jan. 6 rioters somewhat, telling NBC’s Meet the Press he might separate “radical” and “crazy” Jan. 6 defendants from those who “had no choice,” without clarifying what he meant, Trump also said Jan. 6 defendants had “suffered long and hard.” Trump added, “I’m going to be acting very quickly,” on the potential pardons. “First day. I’m looking first day,” Trump said.
Vance laying the groundwork for possibly not pardoning every Jan. 6 rioter also contrasts with Georgia GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, typically one of Trump’s biggest allies, and could signal potential dissension in MAGA’s ranks.
Greene told Trump she thinks everyone involved in the attempted insurrection should be pardoned, and weeks before Vance’s Fox News appearance, she told the AP, “Even the ones that fought Capitol Police, caused damage to the Capitol, I think they’ve served their time and I think they should all be pardoned and released from prison.”
As for Vance and Jan. 6, after his Fox News interview, he wrote on X in part, “The president saying he’ll look at each case (and me saying the same) is not some walkback. I assure you, we care about people unjustly locked up. Yes, that includes people provoked and it includes people who got a garbage trial.”
Just add Jan. 6 to the list of possibly broken campaign promises
Politicians telling voters one thing and then doing something else once in office is nothing new and certainly not exclusive to Trump. Trump, however, has already reversed course or heavily qualified a few promises he made in the 2024 campaign.
Trump said he’d lower grocery prices in his second term, but once elected, he told TIME Magazine in his Person of the Year interview, “I’d like to bring them down,” referring to the average American’s food bill. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump also said his pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants would not include individuals in the country on H-1B visas, which allow American companies to temporarily hire foreign-born workers for certain highly skilled jobs.
Trump’s comments underscored a divide between Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s picks to head a possible new Department of Government Efficiency, as well as former Republican Senator Nikki Haley, and one-time MAGA insider, right-wing influencer, Laura Loomer, who have both criticized H-1B visas.
As for Musk, he said on X he’d “go to war” for the program, which, according to the tech CEO, is the primary reason Tesla and X are even headquartered in America in the first place. At the same time, Ramaswamy wrote on X in part, “I’ve said it countless times in the last 2 years & will say it again: the H-1B system is badly broken & should be replaced with one that focuses on selecting the very best of the best.”
Published: Jan 14, 2025 02:43 pm