Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) during an appearance on former Trump aide Stephen Bannon’s podcast on Thursday said of Jan. 6: “We’re ashamed of nothing.”
Gaetz has been criticized along with other allies of former President Trump of promoting baseless theories that widespread voter fraud led to President Biden’s victory in 2020. On Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, forcing the evacuation of lawmakers who were certifying the results of the vote.
“We’re ashamed of nothing. We’re proud of the work we did on January 6th to make legitimate arguments about election integrity,” Gaetz said during an appearance Thursday on Bannon’s podcast. “We’re actually going to walk the grounds that patriotic Americans walked from the White House to the Capitol, who had no intent of breaking the law and doing violence.”
Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are slated to hold a press conference on Thursday afternoon, the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, after Trump announced that he would be canceling his news conference scheduled for the same day.
During a fiery speech from the Capitol on Thursday morning, Biden blasted Trump and Republicans for inciting the mob and stoking fear and division about elections.
“The former president’s supporters are trying to rewrite history. They want you to see Election Day as the insurrection,” Biden said. “Can you think of a more twisted way to look at this country, to look at America?”
Gaetz and Greene have been two of Trump’s most vocal supporters since he left office, and have accused Democrats of using the events of Jan. 6 to score political points ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
During a speech on the House floor defending Trump during his impeachment following the attack, Gaetz condemned “political violence from all ends of the spectrum,” before saying “the left in America has incited far more political violence than the right.”