Donald Trump has described the US Capitol riot of 6 January 2021 as a “day of love” during a campaign event just weeks before the presidential election.
The former president claimed the thousands who travelled to Washington DC that day did so because “they thought the election was a rigged election”.
On 6 January, a mob breached the US Capitol building in an effort to deny the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, forcing lawmakers to flee. Several deaths, including that of a police officer, have been attributed to the events that day.
Trump has spent years making false claims that the vote was rigged. The event continues to divide America.
During his “town hall” event in Miami, Florida, Trump was challenged to win back the vote of a man who said he had been disturbed by what happened after the Republican lost the 2020 vote.
“Nothing done wrong at all,” Trump said in a lengthy response.
“There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walked down — this was a tiny percentage of the overall which nobody sees and nobody, nobody shows. But that was a day of love.”
He recalled addressing a group of “hundreds of thousands” during a speech elsewhere in Washington DC.
“They didn’t come because of me,” he went on. “They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election, and that’s why they came.”
Trump has been accused of criminal efforts to overturn his defeat, which were recently described in detail in a filing from the federal prosecutor investigating him.
Among the claims made by Special Counsel Jack Smith were that Trump planned to declare victory in the 2020 vote no matter the outcome, and that he laid the groundwork for challenging the vote ahead of election day.
Mr Smith also detailed how Trump fell out with Mike Pence, his vice-president who refused to join his boss in attempting to deny Biden his election win as Trump supporters gathered in Washington on 6 January 2021.
During the Univision broadcast, the voter questioned why he should support Trump when even his former vice-president, Mike Pence, was not backing him this year.
Alluding to Pence’s refusal to comply with Trump’s demands on 6 January, he said: “The vice-president – I disagree with him on what he did. I totally disagreed with him on what he did.”
The special counsel’s legal filing against Trump that was released earlier this month stated that the then-president “made clear that he expected his supporters to take action”. Trump is also accused of seeking to “exploit the violence and chaos”.
Trump will not be tried ahead of the 2024 vote. He denies wrongdoing, and says he is immune from prosecution over the events of 2021.
He points to a recent US Supreme Court ruling that said he could not be prosecuted for official acts undertaken when he was president.
During Wednesday’s event with Univision, Trump also stood by false claims that immigrants from Haiti had turned to eating pets in the town of Springfield, Ohio – claiming he “was just saying what was reported”.
Both campaigns have been making intensive media appearances ahead of the 5 November vote, which pits Trump against the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Harris made a combative first appearance on Fox News – a network that hosts some of her most vocal critics.
