Former White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley is weighing on President Donald Trump’s final days before he left office.
Gidley, who became the press secretary for Trump’s reelection campaign, spoke with Alex Wagner for Showtime’s “The Circus” where Wagner suggested Trump is “going to be remembered for, the final act of his presidency, is a white supremacist mob storming the Capitol and trying to kill lawmakers.”
In response, Gidley said, “Look, there are a lot of things in that administration that happened in four years that people are going to try point to as one seminal thing,” before Wagner added, “He’s getting impeached for a second time for this thing.”
“I’m just trying to point out the fact that, he accomplished a lot from a policy standpoint, he was a lightning rod from a personality standpoint,” the former White House aide said.
He, however, added, “There’s no question this last little bit was a black eye.”
Gidley also said that he does not know if Trump “regrets anything or not,” in how the now-former president handled it.
Watch Gidley’s interview below:
Pro-Trump protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
This came right after Trump spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C., where he suggested they “walk down to the Capitol” to “cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”
Trump added, “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
The former president also said at the time, “We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
After the riot, Trump condemned the violence, saying in a video message, “I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem,” adding, “We have just been through an intense election and emotions are high, but now tempers must be cooled and calm restored.”
He has claimed that “people thought that what I said was totally appropriate” at the rally.
Since the riot, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for the second time, charging him with “incitement of insurrection.” The Senate is expected to begin the impeachment trial the week of Feb. 8.
