If the idea of Donald Trump supporting reparations surprises you, the group he finds deserving of financial amends probably will not.
Interviewed Tuesday on Newsmax, a right-wing network favorable to the president, Trump was asked about a lawsuit filed against the government by the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a police officer as she broke through a Capitol building door to the Speaker’s Lobby, where lawmakers were sheltering from the mob.
“Shouldn’t that be something that can just be settled at this point?” Newsmax host Greg Kelly asked him, noting that Trump’s Department of Justice is fighting the lawsuit.
Trump said he was unaware of that and promised to look into the situation, adding that Babbitt was a “really good person who was a big MAGA fan, Trump fan, and she was innocently standing there.”
Kelly continued, “Is there any talk of – because they lost opportunity, they lost income – any kind of compensation fund?”
Trump responded as he often does about a controversial issue or position, saying, “Well, there’s talk about that.”
“A lot of the people that are in government now talk about it because a lot of the people in government really like that group of people,” the president said. “They were patriots as far as I was concerned. I talk about them a lot. They were treated very unfairly.”
Hours after his inauguration, Trump issued sweeping pardons to about 1,500 people — mostly white men — charged or convicted in connection with the 2021 Capitol riot he helped incite by falsely claiming the 2020 election was rigged. Speaking at a rally to supporters on the morning of Jan. 6, Trump refused to concede the election, saying, “You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore.”
He continued, ‘If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol, where they overwhelmed Capitol police and attempted to prevent Congress from counting the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president.
Trump was criminally charged for attempting to overturn the election, but once he was re-elected in 2024, the case was dropped.
According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a seven-part plan by Trump to overturn the election. Within a day-and-a-half of the insurrection five people were dead and 174 police officers were injured. A February 2023 review by the Government Accountability Office estimated the rioters were responsible for nearly $3 billion in costs that day.
Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the J6 committee, asked the president if the injured cops would be eligible for compensation.
“Or is it just the criminals you’re proposing to pay reparations?” Raskin posted on X. “Why should the taxpayers pay for the upkeep of your mercenary gang?
A user added in response, “That’s insane.”
Trump has been cool to the idea of reparations in the past. In 2019, he opposed a bill that would compensate descendants of enslaved persons, saying “it’s a very unusual thing.”
“It’s been a very interesting debate,” he said at the time. “I don’t see it happening, no.”
The president has since engaged in an all-out assault against diversity, equity and inclusion measures intended to level the playing field for underserved communities.
“Reparations for white domestic terrorists, NONE for Black Americans,” summarized one Trump critic on X.
“Turns out that Trump voters do enjoy the idea of reparations, but only if they are the ones primarily benefitting from it,” wrote another, highlighting the clear double standard.
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