Republican Congressman Doubles Down On Claim That Insurrections Were Basically ‘Tourists’

Republican Congressman Andrew Clyde from Georgia was given the opportunity this week to walk back comments he had made months ago comparing the Capitol Rioters to a group of Capitol "tourists." He failed. Not only did he fail to take back those comments, but he actually doubled down on them, even after the moving testimony and body cam footage from Capitol police officers. Republicans are doubling down on their stupidity, and the public needs to hold them accountable for it. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Republican representative Andrew Clyde from the state of Georgia infamously a couple months ago, compared the Capitol rioters to tourists on a regular Capitol visit. Well, on Tuesday evening at a regular meeting of the House Rules Committee, he was cornered on his statement by Democratic representative Jamie Raskin. Raskin also happens to be serving on the January 6th select committee. So Raskin, even though it wasn't relevant to what the Rules Committee was talking about, decided to take it upon himself to ask Clyde, do you still stand by those statements? Raskin didn't want to answer it first. So then, uh, or excuse me, Clyde, didn't want to answer it first. So Raskin then reads the whole comment. And here it is, watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through statutory hall, showed people in an orderly fashion, staying between the sanctions and ropes, taking videos and pictures. You know, if you didn't have, know the TV footage was a video from the January the 6th, you would actually think it was just a normal tourist visit. Raskin read his own words back to him. Raskin then said, those are your words. And Clyde responded, and I stand by that exact statement as I said it.

This happened, by the way, after the hearing yesterday, where those officers testified to what they witnessed that day, the racial slurs hurled at them by these MAGA rioters. We also, for the first time, got to see the body cam footage, which if you haven't watched that yet, oh my God, you probably need to watch it. And even after all that came out, after the public, got to see everything that happened there, Clyde still says, I stand by my statement. And then things got even dumber because a short while later, Clyde then tried to say, I never compared them to tourists. So even though Raskin had already read him his original comment word for word where, and I just read it to you too, you heard him say that. Clyde then goes, yeah, I didn't, I didn't actually ever say that. You already said that you had said it. And you said you stood by it, but then later on you say, no, I didn't say it, even though everybody there knew you said it. I don't, uh, I don't even understand. My brain can't wrap itself around that level of gaslighting. You read a state to the individual. The individual says yes I said that and I still believe it today, but no, I didn't say it.

What? That, that makes no sense. I would wager that maybe if Clyde wasn't lying through his teeth, uh, maybe that might, you know, warrant a mental health evaluation there if you actually think you didn't say it, even after you just admitted that you did say it. These people are dangerous. These people think you're stupid. That's why they do things like this. It's not just because, hey, I, no, they think you're stupid. They think you don't understand. And they're gaslighting an entire nation with comments like this. Clyde said those words, he knows he said those words and he doubled down on it before trying to deny it. There is no escaping that. There is no escaping his original comment. Everyone in this country now has access to the videos of what really happened that day. You cannot whitewash that. You cannot deny it. You cannot try to spin it. We can all see it. So lie all you want.