Trump Shuts Down Reporter After Question On Jan 6 Pardons: ‘Stop Interrupting’
President Trump silenced a reporter for attempting to interrupt his answer to a question about pardons for January 6 prisoners during a lengthy White House press conference on Tuesday evening.
After signing a number of executive orders and making several consequential directives during the first 24 hours of his second term, President Trump kept the pace up on Tuesday with a massive infrastructure announce from the White House. The President announced that OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle will be collaborating on a project called Stargate, which will be geared towards building up artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States.
Trump was joined by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, along with Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle to announce “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history.” The president noted that the new project will provide billions in private sector investment for the American economy and allow the nation to maintain its position as the global leader in AI research and development.
“Together, these world-leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate. So put that name down in your books, because I think you’re going to hear a lot about it in the future,” Trump said. “A new American company that will invest $500 billion at least in AI infrastructure in the United States and very, very quickly moving very rapidly, creating over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately.”
President Trump announces the Stargate project
After announcing the new endeavor, President Trump took questions on a number of topics, including his decision to pardon January 6 protesters, the War in Ukraine and planned tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, among other things.
At one point during the press conference the president was asked about his decision to pardon January 6 prisoners who were accused of “assaulting officers.” Footage has long shown that Capitol Police officers fired tear gas and other crowd control munitions into what had been a peaceful crowd, which played a key role in inciting a riot.
“I can say this; murderers today are not even charged. You have murderers that aren’t charged all over,” the president said in response to the question about pardons. He then pointed to cities like Philadelphia and Portland, both of which have seen their respective homicide rates skyrocket since 2020. “These people have already served years in prison and they’ve served them viciously. It’s a disgusting prison. It’s been horrible, it’s inhumane,” Trump added.
The president also pointed to his predecessor’s decision to pardon multiple family members for alleged crimes he himself has been accused of playing a part in. “And we had 1,500, we have 16 under review, as you know. We commuted about 16 of them because it looks like they could have done things that were not acceptable for a full pardon. But these people have served years of jail, their lives have been ruined,” the president went on to say.
The reporter then attempted to interrupt, drawing a sharp rebuke from Trump, at which point he stopped talking and issued an apology.
As one of his first orders of business on Monday night, President Trump issued pardons for more than 1,500 January 6 prisoners. A couple dozen received commutations while their cases are further reviewed for a potential pardon.
The pardons came after the Biden-led Department of Justice hunted January 6 protesters for four years, with arrests continuing throughout the final days of Biden’s presidency. The vast majority of protesters were raided by heavily armed FBI SWAT teams for misdemeanor trespassing charges. No such manhunt ever took place for BLM rioters from 2020, hundreds of whom assaulted police and stormed federal buildings, including the White House, for weeks on end in June of that year.