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Former President Donald Trump downplayed the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot during an interview on Tuesday, claiming that there was a “peaceful transfer of power” after the 2020 election.
“You had a peaceful transfer of power [in 2020],” Trump told John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, who was leading the interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, when asked about “respecting and encouraging” a peaceful transition next month.
Trump did not directly commit to such a transition going forward.
Speaking about the day of the siege on the congressional complex, Trump said: “The primary scene in Washington was hundreds of thousands ... and it was love and peace and some people went to the Capitol and a lot of strange things happened there.”
“I left the morning that I was supposed to leave ... and you had a very peaceful transfer,” he claimed.
Trump went on to say that there were between 500 and 700 people at the Capitol, despite more than 1,400 people being charged in connection to the attack, according to the Department of Justice.
The department has said that about 140 police officers were assaulted during the riot.
The former president also claimed on Tuesday that Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was the only person who died at the Capitol, when she was in fact one of five people who died in connection to the siege.
Trump has been indicted for his attempts to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election and he has laid the groundwork to make similar claims of “cheating” if he loses in November.
In public statements, Truth Social posts, and more than 100 lawsuits, the former president is preparing to take action to reject the election results if Vice President Kamala Harris comes out victorious, Axios noted last month.
