DC riots: Local Trump supporters say president not to blame for violence at US Capitol

ByCraig Wall WLS logo

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Local Trump supporters say president not to blame for violence at US Capitol

Local Trump supporters who were in Washington DC Wednesday said they don't blame the preisdnet for the violent riot that overran the US Capitol.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Some Chicago area-supporters of President Donald Trump who attended the rally in Washington D.C. that quickly turned into a violent mob storming the Capitol building, said the president is not to blame for the violence.

What the president's supporters expected to see and what transpired in the nation's capital were two different things, but they have no regrets about being there, just a lot of disappointment about how it ended.

"So I went to Washington DC. I do support Trump, and we wanted to go out there and enjoy the enjoy the patriotic rally that it was gonna be, and it quickly digressed, and it was an absolute travesty what followed the actual rally," said Thomas McCullagh of Shorewood.

Dan Butler and David Wiersma road tripped together to Washington, first attending the rally and then marching to the Capitol. They were impressed by how peaceful everything seemed, even though the crowd got boisterous.

"But there didn't seem to be any animosity I mean, people were shouting slogans about stop the steal and whatnot and, and people were voicing anger about that sort of thing but it wasn't anything to where we feared because we wouldn't have been there or the left," Wiersma said.

They didn't witness the violent assault on the Capitol or the people breaking in, but did see police use tear gas, leaving them confused by what was unfolding.

"I was just kind of shocked that it was happening because I didn't know how they were going to plan on dispersing a peaceful demonstration, you know, I mean, we had a right to be there," Butler said.

Trump's supporters believe it's unfair to lay the blame for the mob violence at the president's feet, just because he called for people to march on the Capitol to protest the election.

"The president never called for violence, so I don't think that Trump was to blame for that. I think that just people were fed up and they did what they did or they're agitators," said McCullagh.

McCullagh is a former candidate for state senate, and said those who committed acts of violence and broke into the Capitol do not represent the vast majority of Trump supporters, and those lawbreakers should go to jail.

Report a correction or typo