Former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) spotted shades of the “insidiousness” that led to the deadly Capitol riot on display as House Republicans traveled to New York to back former President Donald Trump at his hush money trial on Thursday.
His comments arrive after Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and other Republican lawmakers showed their support for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee outside the Manhattan courthouse.
Jolly, in an interview with “Deadline White House” host Nicolle Wallace, slammed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for his earlier visit to the active trial and others who followed him there to essentially “try to interfere with the administration of justice.”
“To tell the American people that the courts now are corrupt, to try to undermine the judiciary. To see the members of the House do that is a grave threat,” said Jolly, an MSNBC analyst and staunch critic of the former president.
He continued, “It is part of the insidiousness that leads to Jan. 6, to suggest that because law and order can not be trusted, we then have to take this into our own hands. They might be wearing blue suits and white shirts and red ties but each one of them might as well be carrying the pitchforks and the bats that we saw on Jan. 6 because they are challenging democracy in that courtroom just as much as the protesters on Jan. 6 were.”
Wallace, earlier in the program, asked “what new” there is to say of GOP lawmakers’ “debasement” of the body they serve and their former party.
“I mean, no one defended Trump’s conduct and now they’re all defending the crimes he committed to cover up the conduct,” Wallace said.
Jolly pointed to who isn’t there to support the former president.
“The thousands of protesters that Donald Trump has to come to his side, the millions of Americans that he says are outraged by this,” Jolly said.
“Speaker Johnson and the back bench members of Congress say that they are there representing? Nobody else really cares about this. They’re not out there trying to defend Donald Trump, they’re hoping the matter goes away.”