Anything Goes For Trump Supporters

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let me ask you about January 6th in a different capacity, okay? I think you’re going to want to answer this question. You promised to pardon those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Are you still vowing to follow through with that promise?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

We’re looking at it right now. Most likely, yeah.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, you know —

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

Those people have suffered long and hard. And there may be some exceptions to it. I have to look. But, you know, if somebody was radical, crazy. There might be some people from Antifa there. I don’t know. You know, because those people seem to be in good shape. What ever happened to scaffold man? You know who scaffold man was? He stood on a scaffold telling everybody to go, and nothing happened to him. What ever happened to Ray Epps? Now, I don’t know anything about Ray Epps, but it was sort of strange the way he was talking. Where is he? What happened to him? Because the people that did very little– they arrested an old woman because she– I don’t think she did anything. They don’t even know what she did. These people have suffered. Their lives have been destroyed. And yet in Portland, where they burned down half the city, they burn it down all the time, it’s like a, you know, routine occurrence, they don’t do anything. They attacked the courthouse, federal courthouse. You know, they always say federal building. Okay. They destroyed the beautiful limestone exterior of the courthouse in Portland. They killed people in Portland. Seattle, people got killed in Seattle. Seattle, they took over a big chunk of the city. They took it over. They took the city away. Minneapolis, it looked like when they said, “This is a friendly protest,” and yet over the poor slob from CNN, his shoulder, the entire city was burning down. It looked like World War II. Nothing happened.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But —

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

Wait. Nothing happened. They took over the police statement — they took over the police station in Minneapolis. They burned it down. Nothing happened to anybody.

KRISTEN WELKER:

I just want to —

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

And yet, these people —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Yeah.

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

– have been in jail. And I hear the jail is a hell hole. They’ve done reports. And you would say that’s true. They’ve done reports. This is the most disgusting, filthy place. These people are living in hell.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let me just —

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

And I think it’s very unfair.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But let me —

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

So yeah, most likely, I’ll do it very quickly.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Very quickly. Okay. But some of them, 169 of them, have pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

Because they had no choice.

KRISTEN WELKER:

900 pleaded guilty to other crimes. They’re also going to be eligible for a pardon from you?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

Listen, it’s a very tough system. Do you know, almost nobody– I saw people that didn’t even go into the building and they were convicted. And you had the police saying, “Come on in. Come on in.” I mean, you know, the police are saying, “Come on in, everybody. Come on in.” They had people — you know, you have a lot of cameras. They don’t want to release the tapes. They don’t want to release the tapes.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But you’re going to consider pardoning even those who pleaded guilty to crimes, including assaulting police officers?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

Well, sometimes they say, “Here’s your choice.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

You’re not ruling it out?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP:

Look. I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system. They say to a guy, “You’re going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.” And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed. For two years, they’ve been destroyed. But the system is a very nasty system.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Okay. Let’s move on —