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Donald Trump blames Nancy Pelosi for Jan. 6 attack during presidential debate

By Alec Regimbal

Former President Donald Trump blamed California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol during the year’s first presidential debate Thursday night.

CNN host Jake Tapper, who helped moderate the network’s debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, asked what Trump would say to voters who believe he “violated” his official oath to defend the U.S. Constitution through his “actions and inaction” as hordes of his supporters swarmed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the results of the 2020 election from being certified.

Trump initially dodged the question, but when pressed by Tapper, he referenced newly revealed footage that showed Pelosi — being filmed by her daughter, documentarian Alexandra Pelosi — saying she had not done enough to prepare the U.S. Capitol Police for a large-scale protest that Trump had called for.

"[The U.S. Capitol Police] clearly didn’t know, and I take responsibility for not having them just prepared for more," she says in the footage.

Still, Trump said Pelosi was, in fact, “responsible” for the building’s lack of defense, saying he had recognized that “a lot of people” were going to be on the grounds on Jan. 6 and offered to deploy 10,000 troops from the National Guard to form a bulwark against the protesters. But, he said, Pelosi turned down the offer.

“I said, ‘They ought to have some National Guard’ or whatever, and I offered it to her, and she now admits that she turned it down,” Trump said. “... She can’t be very happy with her daughter, because it made her into a liar. She said, ‘I take full responsibility for January 6.’”

Pelosi does not say she takes full responsibility for the attack in the video footage, and, according to the Associated Press, “As Speaker of the House, Pelosi does not direct the National Guard.” Additionally, the U.S. Capitol Police and the National Guard are completely separate agencies.

The footage, which was released publicly earlier this month by a Republican-controlled congressional committee, has been touted by GOP lawmakers and conservative commentators in recent weeks as a way to downplay Trump’s role in the attack ahead of the upcoming Nov. 5 election.

In reality, Trump encouraged his supporters to come to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

He wrote, “Be there, will be wild! in a tweet he posted on Dec. 19, 2020 — and frequently repeated baseless claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him in the weeks after Biden was declared the winner. His speech at a rally outside the White House just before the attack has also been repeatedly scrutinized. In it, he said, “We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” among other inflammatory remarks.