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With Trump in office, Meadows reinvented himself as one of the Presidents most outspoken defenders. He was entranced by access to the Oval Office, and he even showed off the call log on his iPhone to a reporter to prove that he was speaking with VIP POTUS. Meadows called Trump so often, in fact, that he later claimed to have discovered he was No.14 on the White House switchboards list of approved callers to be put through to the President. By late 2018, he claimed to have made it up to No.7. When Meadows quit Congress and Trump hired him as his fourth chief of staff in as many years, Meadows planned to avoid what he saw as the mistakes of the previous three.

Trumps first chief of staff, the Republican Party operative Reince Priebus, had tried, with little success, to manage Trump before being dumped, via tweet, in the summer of 2017. The second, the retired Marine General John Kelly, had a reputation for trying to block Trump. Mick Mulvaney came to the office as acting chief, vowing to let Trump be Trump. Meadows, however, appeared to be more Trump than Trump, not only enabling but actively facilitating and orchestrating the former Presidents most reckless pursuitsand connecting with Trumps disruptive approach in a way his predecessors did not.

To many of his new colleagues, Meadows quickly came across as duplicitous and untrustworthy. He would lie to peoples faces, a fellow White House official told my husband and me. Stephanie Grisham, whom Meadows ousted from her position as White House press secretary, called him one of the worst people ever to enter the Trump White House. Grisham said that on a scale of awfulness, with a five being the worst, Id give Mark Meadows a twelve. Joe Grogan, the Presidents top domestic-policy adviser, described Meadows to colleagues as someone who thought he was a genius but, in fact, did not know what he was doing. Meadows was an absolute disaster, Grogan would tell others, who played to all the Presidents worst instincts.

Meadows did not think much of Grisham or Grogan, either, or of many other staffers he inherited. He was particularly disdainful of the doctors, such as Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, who advised Trump and the White Houses COVID task force during the onset of the pandemic. Theyre inept, theyre idiotic, theyre a bunch of scientists, Meadows told people in the White House at one point, referring to the scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even the most loved Dr. Fauci, he said, still has no clue on a whole lot of stuff.

In the days immediately following the 2020 election, before the race was even called for Joe Biden, Meadows began entertaining pitches from Donald Trump, Jr., and various Republicans suggesting a plan to overturn what they saw as Trumps impending defeat. They proposed having Republican-led legislatures in states Biden won set aside the actual election results and substitute in pro-Trump electors. Its very simple, Don, Jr., texted. We have multiple paths, he added later. We control them all. (A lawyer for Don, Jr., said this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.)

Trumps eldest son was already looking ahead to January 6th, the day when by law Congress was supposed to formally count and certify the Electoral College results. Don, Jr., suggested that, if they could swing enough states by then, they could prevent Biden from winning a majority of Electoral College votes, thereby sending the decision to the House. The Constitution states that, in such a circumstance, the House would vote by state delegation, and although Republicans did not hold a majority of House seats they did control twenty-six of the fifty state delegations. We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021, Don, Jr., wrote to Meadows.

Meadows apparently did not reply to that text message, but other texts from him suggest that he was encouraging those who wanted Trump to pursue the plot to overturn the election. For instance, Representative Andy Biggs, of ArizonaMeadowss former House colleaguewrote Meadows to propose what he admitted was a highly controversial strategy of getting Republican legislatures to appoint alternate electors for Trump in states that he lost. I love it, Meadows wrote back.

Over the next two months, as Trump pursued his rigged election claims, Meadows further consolidated power in the White House, eventually excluding Vice-President Pence from meetings he had once attended as a matter of course. Meadows really tried to separate Pence from Trump for the last couple months, a White House official noted. Meadows again actively played both sides. He reassured Barr that Trump would leave office while personally pressing to overturn results in key states and pressuring Cabinet officials. On December 21st, he attended a meeting with his former colleagues from the Freedom Caucus at the Oval Office, where the lawmakers strategized with Meadows and Trump over how to block Pence from carrying out his constitutional duty to preside over the counting of the electoral votes that would finalize Trumps defeat.

On January 6th, Meadows was bombarded with text messages and calls urging him to stop the storming of the Capitolan action that he helped foment. Even Don, Jr., who had also promoted the election lies, frantically urged Meadows to get his father to turn down the temperature. Hes got to condemn this shit Asap, he texted the chief of staff. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.

Im pushing it hard, Meadows responded. I agree.

How hard, though, was not clear. Alyssa Farah, the White House communications director who had quit in disgust over the post-election campaign to overturn the results, texted Meadows, who had been her boss for years on Capitol Hill and at the White House: You guys have to say something. Even if the presidents not willing to put out a statement, you should go to the sticks and say, We condemn this. Please stand down. If you dont, people are going to die. Meadows did not reply. Farah then texted Ben Williamson, Meadowss senior adviser. Is someone getting to POTUS? she asked. He has to tell protestors to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed.

Williamsons reply suggested that neither Trump nor Meadows was reacting with urgency: Ive been trying for the last 30 minutes, he wrote. Literally stormed in outer oval to get him to put out the first one. Its completely insane.

Meadows and his two different personas are at the center of many of the controversies lingering since Trumps tumultuous exit from office. The January 6th committee has discovered this duality. Meadows at first agreed to coperate with the panel but then abruptly stopped after Trump castigated him for publishing a memoir, The Chiefs Chief, which airbrushed their historythough not sufficiently for Trump. The former President was furious with Meadows for revealing his lies, which Trump dismissed as Fake News, to the public about the seriousness and timing of his October, 2020, bout with COVID.

Meadowss remarkable ability, even for a politician, to do one thing while saying another has also been the subject of running news reports. My colleague Charles Bethea disclosed, in The New Yorker, that Trumps chief of staff was publicly alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election while apparently committing voter fraud himself. Meadows registered to vote by absentee ballot in September, 2020, from a mobile home in North Carolina which he had never visited. North Carolinas authorities have removed Meadows from the states voter rolls and are investigating his actions.

In many ways, Meadowss skill for obfuscation has delayed an inevitable reckoning about his role in enabling Trumps post-election conduct. But the evidence is now much clearer that Meadowss actions in the White House at this crucial moment not only mattered but might well have been decisive. Its very possible, in fact, that the tragedy of January 6th might never have happened had it not been for Trumps final chief of staff.

One of the most persistent themes my husband and I found in our reporting was the moral struggles of the people around Trump during earlier stages of his destructive Presidencytheir justifications and rationales for working for a man whom many of them considered reckless and loathsome. They could make things better, they told themselves. They could stop bad things from happening. They would be replaced by people who would be far worse. There was always a measure of self-aggrandizing or self-justification. But there was also a measure of truth, as well.

There is little doubt that the situation in the White House after the 2020 election would have been different had John Kelly still been chief of staff, instead of Mark Meadows. Kelly might not have been able to persuade Trump to concede, or stop Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, and the MyPillow guy from getting into the Oval Office and feeding Trump wild lies about crooked voting machines and foreign intrigues while urging the imposition of martial lawbut its hard not to think that Kelly would have thrown his body on the grenade in trying.

Original post:
Without Mark Meadows, January 6th Might Never Have Happened - The New Yorker

Strangely enough, one of the sharpest takes on Thursdays prime-time January 6th hearing on Capitol Hill came from an anchor of the news network that, to its eternal shame, chose not to show the proceedings live: Bret Baier, of Fox News. Having spent two hours helming coverage of the hearing on Foxs much less popular sibling, Fox Business, Baier popped up on the main network in the eleven-oclock hour, where he pointed out that its not entirely clear yet where the Democrats and Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the January 6th House select committee, are going with this. Is it ultimately an effort to go after Donald Trump criminally?, Baier asked. Or is it a political play to prevent him from running for President again?

The redoubtable Liz Cheney, the Republican ostracized by her party, and the resolute Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who shared the spotlight with her at the hearings, would doubtless insist that their primary goal is to protect American democracy. There would be no reason to doubt them. But that doesnt negate Baiers question, and, arguably, makes it more pertinent. For, if theres one thing the hearing reminded everyone of, its that Trump will represent a mortal threat to American democracy until the day he retires from politics. So, if your goal is to protect that democracy, the first question you have to consider is this: Whats the most effective way to make sure Trump remains a former President?

The most definitive move would be to charge and convict him of seditious conspiracy, insurrection, or incitement. From one perspective, the entire series of hearingsanother five are expected this month, with a final report due in Septembercan be interpreted as a lengthy criminal referral to the Justice Department, or, at the least, as a heavy hint in the ear of Attorney General Merrick Garland. While Justice Department prosecutors have gone far and wide in their investigation into the assault on the Capitol, charging more than eight hundred people with crimes related to the riot, the Department hasnt yet indicted anyone in Trumps immediate orbit. The farthest Garland has gone was his pledge in January, on the eve of the anniversary of the insurrection, that his department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under lawwhether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.

If the Feds dont indict Trump because they dont think there is enough evidence to secure a conviction from a jury, the job of protecting democracy from the former President will fall on his quislings in the Republican Party and, eventually, on American voters at large. In this context, the hearings provide an important public service in two ways.

First, they remind elected Republicans, whose ultimate loyalty is to themselves, that if they dont somehow find a way to move past Trump they will spend years defending the indefensible. Because, as sure as the sun rises, Trump is going to make them do it. Hours before Thursdays hearing started, the former President posted this monstrous statement on his social-media app Truth Social: January 6 was not merely a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again. It was about an Election that was Rigged and Stolen, and a Country that was about to go to HELL.

Tucker Carlson and some other media figures who make millions monetizing Trumps grievances and legitimizing his fantasies may be willing to continue down this road with him. But is it politically viable in the long term for establishment Republicans like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (some of whose staff members were shown in the January 6th committees video presentation scurrying away from their Capitol offices in terror of the MAGA rioters)? What about the multiple G.O.P. lawmakers who, according to Cheneys presentation, contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th and asked for Presidential pardons for their role in promoting Trumps Big Lie? Some of them may privately prefer to move on as well.

For the sake of argument, lets assume that, two years from now, Trump and his MAGA hordes steamroll their way through the G.O.P. primaries, as they did in 2016, and its left to the American people to stop him at the voting booth. In that alarming scenario, it will be essential to have a full and accurate account of January 6th, including the attack itself, the events that led up to it, and its chaotic aftermathwhen Betsy DeVos, Trumps ultra-conservative Secretary of Education, discussed invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment with Pence and other Cabinet members; when the spineless McCarthy talked (and only talked) about asking Trump to resign; and when General Mark Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly sought to limit the ability of a raging Commander-in-Chief to launch a nuclear strike.

Of course, there is no guarantee that establishing the full truth about January 6th will defeat Trump: in a democracy, the voters remain free to make awful choices. But in using the testimony of the Attorney General at the time, Bill Barr, along with Trumps daughter Ivanka and others who were on the inside of this horrid saga, the members of the select committee have made a good start in laying out Trumps culpability with fresh details and conveying it to anybody who is willing to watch and listen.

One Trumper who seems rattled is Trump himself. On Friday morning, he again took to Truth Social, where he accused his own daughter of being checked out and said that his former Attorney General sucked. As the hearings proceed, well probably be seeing more from both of them. The next hearing is on Monday.

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of Republicans on the committee.

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What the January 6th Hearings Are Really About - The New Yorker

US Capitol siege: January 6 hearing: What was revealed about Donald Trumps involvement? | USA | EL PAS English Edition

Opening statements from the hearing

The House select committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, began its first hearing on Thursday. The chair of the nine-member panel, Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, wasted no time in sharing his conclusions about what happened that day. Jan 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, he said within the first 15 minutes of the hearing. Donald Trump was at the center of this conspiracy.

Following his address, the vice chair of the panel Liz Cheney one of only two Republicans on the committee presented previously unseen footage of the attack on the US Capitol, which was stormed by a pro-Trump mob in a bid to stop the session to certify the electoral victory of Joe Biden.

The House members at the hearing on Thursday squirmed in their seats as the new material was shown. Some shook their heads, others covered their face with their hand. The Democrat Pramila Jayapal broke into tears, and was handed a tissue by fellow Democrat Cori Bush. After the hearing, she told EL PAS: We were there, we know how close we came to losing our democracy. And we also know how close we are to that happening. Its important that the work of this commission yield results.

Footage from the siege of the US Capitol

Thursdays hearing is the first of six that will seek to explain what happened on January 6. The findings are based on a nearly 11-month investigation, which interviewed more than 1,000 people and gathered over 140,000 documents. The hearing, which was broadcast at primetime and screened by most networks, with the exception of Fox News, has brought up comparisons to the 1973 Watergate scandal, which ended with the resignation of president Richard Nixon.

We cant sweep what happened under the rug. The American people deserve answers, said Thompson in his opening statement on Thursday. So I come before you this evening not as a Democrat but as an American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution. The Constitution doesnt protect just Democrats or just Republicans.

Cheney who has been marginalized by the Republicans for openly opposing Trump and his false accusation that the 2020 election was stolen had a similarly strong message for Trump supporters in her party. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain, she said.

Using documents such as Twitter messages and emails, as well as witness testimony recorded during the investigation, Cheney showed how Trump and his supporters deliberately spread false election fraud claims, even though they knew that such claims were lies.

The very first piece of evidence shown during the hearing was a clip of former attorney general William Barr, who said: I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit. Despite this, the former president continued to pressure officials to recount the votes. He also pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to refuse to count the electoral results. What president Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasnt just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional, said Cheney.

Thompson explained that the January 6 insurrection was about more than one day, when Trump encouraged supporters at a rally to march on the Capitol, but was the culmination of months of planning. The former president was determined to hold on to power, despite the objections of those close to him. The hearing showed a recording of Trumps daughter, Ivanka Trump, who tried to distance herself from her fathers actions. In a separate video, Trumps son-in-law and former adviser, Jared Kushner, dismissed then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollones threats to resign in the lead-up to the January 6 siege as whining.

Thursdays hearing also made it clear that during the insurrection, Trump did not listen to his advisers and allies such as Fox News presenter Sean Hannity, who told him to call off the mob. Instead, he watched from the White House as the protesters stormed the US Capitol, the cradle of US democracy, in his name. Four people were killed in the siege and another five people died in the following days.

A few hours before the hearing, Trump posted a message on his Truth social platform, arguing that the January 6 insurrection was not simply a protest, it represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again.

The hearing heard testimony from Caroline Edwards, a police officer who was seriously injured, along with hundreds of other officers, while trying to stop the pro-Trump mob, which included members of far-right organizations, such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

I couldnt believe my eyes: There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up, said Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury during the attack. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in peoples blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos. I cant even describe what I saw. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle, she recalled. Im trained to detain a couple of subjects and handle a crowd, but Im not combat trained. That day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat.

British documentary filmmaker Nick Quested also testified at the hearing. He explained that he had been following the Proud Boys in the leadup to the insurrection with the idea of making a documentary about them. Quested told the panel that on January 5, he saw Enrique Tarrio, the leader of Proud Boys, meet with Steward Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, in a parking garage in Washington even though a judge had ordered Tarrio to leave the District of Columbia following a previous arrest. Quested was also present at the pro-Trump rally on January 6. I documented the crowd turn from protestors, to rioters, to insurrectionists, he told the hearing on Thursday.

The panel also showed a recorded interview with Robert Schornak, who was sentenced to 36 months of probation for his involvement in the siege. In the video, he explained: What really made me want to come was the fact that I had supported Trump all that time, I did believe that the election was being stolen and Trump asked us to come. He continued: Trump has only asked me for two things. He asked me for my vote and he asked me to come on January 6th.

Jamie Ruskin, a Democrat from Maryland and one of the most high-profile faces of the panel, appeared at the hearing with a copy of Thomas Paines famous 1776 pamphlet Common Sense. He expressed his dismay at how an absolute lie was able to trigger the violence seen on January 6, and offered words of consolation to officer Edwards, and her colleague Harry Dunn, a nearly two-meter tall officer, who wore a shirt with the definition of insurrection: a violent uprising against an authority or government, followed by a date: January 6, 2021.

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January 6 hearing: What was revealed about Donald Trumps involvement? - EL PAS USA

As Dr. Anthony Fauci was honored at his alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross where a building was named after him on Saturday, the nations top authority on the coronavirus pandemic appeared unable to resist making a few thinly veiled swipes at former President Donald Trump.

More than a year after Trump left the White House and Fauci was named chief medical adviser to current President Joe Biden, evidence of the strained relationship between Fauci and the former president shone bright. The two were often at odds as the COVID-19 pandemic unraveled in 2020 and Trump repeatedly tried to downplay the severity of the highly infectious and deadly virus.

Fauci, in his nearly eight-minute speech at the campus on Saturday, discussed the challenges of grappling with the political divisiveness that has been laid bare by this pandemic in his capacity as a public health official.

He pointed to his education at Holy Cross, where delved into the humanities, allowing him to learn about societies and civilizations wisdom he told MassLive in an interview that has been invaluable throughout his career in public service.

Everything I do from our basic research to my care of individual patients, to my responsibility to the groups of patients in a clinical trial, to my responsibility to domestic and global public health to to advising seven presidents of the United States almost all of whom actually listened to me it truly is all rooted here in my education here at the College of the Holy Cross, Fauci told a crowd of students, faculty and alumni gathered at the freshly renamed Anthony S. Fauci Integrated Science Complex.

The rededication ceremony happened as Fauci and his classmates celebrated their 60th class reunion.

The recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom the highest honor given to a civilian by the President of the United States and the National Medal of Science, Fauci graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in classics with a premedical concentration. He has often credited the liberal arts education he received at Holy Cross with propelling him to a successful career in medicine.

Concern for the condition of mankind not just those in my personal bubble, whom i love and care about, but people across all strata of society and around the world has been my major focus. I directly relate that to my humanities training here at holy cross and to the jesuit emphasis on social justice and service to others, Fauci continued.

Fauci said he has looked to the Jesuit principles to guide his career and pointed to the tenet of staying faithful to the truth, even truths that may be inconvenient to some.

Dr. Fauci has shown us that mankind can be courageous, kind and undeterred, said Holy Cross President Vincent D. Rougeau on Saturday. We can trust science and eschew the normalization of untruths. We can believe in public service and social responsibility. In the darkest hours and brightest spotlights, we can be joyful, purposeful and hopeful.

Trump repeatedly tried to muzzle Fauci as the pandemic unfolded and the Republican president attempted to cater to his base, which largely bucked public health recommendations for masking and social distancing. Fauci, with his clear and science-forward messaging, emerged as somewhat of a liberal surrogate, a label that endures and one that inspired a small protest of anti-COVID vaxxers from as far away as Rhode Island to show up on Saturday.

About two dozen people toting signs, some screaming through bullhorns congregated at the entrance of the college on Saturday morning.

Chants of lock him up and Fauci for prison, long popular among conservative protesters erupted with a new Shame on Un-Holy Cross thrown in the mix.

Signs were scrawled with messages like Vaxxes dont stop the spread!!, Death by vax, Arrest Fauci for crimes against humanity and more.

Karen Johnson, a registered nurse from Providence, Rhode Island, said she lost her job of 20 years at Women and Infants due to the hospitals workplace COVID vaccine requirement.

I lost my job due to the vaccine mandate and I lost everything just to stand up for my rights, Johnson said, noting she was unable to pay her mortgage for several months. Though she secured another nursing job at a nursing home in Rhode Island, she had to take a $10 per hour pay cut.

Johnson said shes against workplace mandates for an experimental vaccine. Though the COVID mRNA vaccines were initially approved on an emergency basis, both have since received full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

The scene playing out with protesters on McKeon Road is indicative of what Fauci referred to as the existential threat of untruths that he said are as dangerous as the coronavirus pandemic itself.

When you have things that are as cataclysmic as a pandemic which in our own country has already killed 1 million people and globally has killed more than 6 million by definition and two-or-three times that number because of uncounted deaths it brings out the best and the worst in society, Fauci told reporters after the ceremony. Weve seen devotion on the part of health care providers whove sacrificed themselves and their families and their two-and-a-half years of exhaustion and post traumatic stress and yet youve seen distortions of reality, conspiracy theories, stigma, racism you know, the best and the worst comes out when you stress society.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci makes thinly veiled digs at Donald Trump during College of the Holy Cross building dedicati - MassLive.com

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Speaking in the state where a deadly elementary school shooting left 19 children and two teachers dead this week, former President Donald Trump backed up Republican calls to resist new gun restrictions and instead called for increased mental health services and school security measures.

Trump spoke Friday at a National Rifle Association convention in Houston after the shooting in Uvalde renewed attention on the nations gun laws. He opened the speech with a moment of silence and recognition of the tragedy, calling it a heinous massacre that was horrible to see, watch and hear about. He said the nation needed to unite around the path forward but chastised Democrats for advancing an extreme political agenda.

Now is the time to find common ground, Trump said. Sadly, before the sun had even set on the horrible day of tragedy, we witnessed a now familiar parade of cynical politicians seeking to exploit the tears of sobbing families to increase their own power and take away our constitutional rights.

The Secret Service banned guns from the hall during Trump's address.

The NRA has spent more than $2 million on lobbying politicians in the Texas Legislature, which is more than in any other state, according to The Dallas Morning News. Texas Republicans have already shown significant resistance to such legislation in the wake of this weeks shooting.

The states top lawmakers, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, expressed openness to slight restrictions in the immediate wake of mass shootings in 2018 and 2019, only to drop those ideas later. In 2021, during the first legislative session after a mass shooting in El Paso left 23 dead, the Texas Legislature passed a permitless carry law that allows for individuals to carry handguns without a license or training.

We need to drastically change our approach to mental health, Trump said. All of us must unite, Republican and Democrat, in every state and at every level of government to finally harden our schools and protect our children. What we need now is a top-to-bottom security overhaul at schools all across our country.

As part of that overhaul, Trump said buildings should have a single point of entry, strong fencing and metal detectors. Every school also needs armed officers, and trained teachers should carry concealed weapons, he added.

Trumps suggestion that school buildings should have just one entrance echoes calls from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz earlier this week. School and safety experts say that such a measure is unrealistic, as many schools have thousands of individuals who could take hours to go in and out of buildings. As a result, a single entrance could also pose a fire hazard. Older schools would also need to spend significant money renovating their buildings to meet such a standard.

Trump aligned with many Republicans who have insisted that responsible gun ownership is the best defense to a dangerous individual with a firearm.

In the absence of a member of law enforcement, there is no one you would rather have nearby when a crisis strikes than an armed expertly trained member of the NRA, Trump said.

During the speech, Trump also praised Jack Wilson, a churchgoer who shot and killed a shooter at a church in White Settlement in 2019. Wilson, who Trump invited to give remarks on stage, was able to carry a concealed weapon after the Texas Legislature passed a law allowing the practice in churches.

That law responded to the 2017 shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, and Republicans attributed the killing of the shooter in White Settlement as evidence that the rule worked as intended.

Jack's story reminds us [that] defending our Second Amendment is about defending law, order and life, Trump said. We know that as law and order conservatives, we have no higher goal than to reduce violent crime by the greatest degree possible.

Trumps remarks at the annual NRA meeting followed live speeches from Cruz and NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, as well as prerecorded remarks from Abbott who was originally slated to speak in person but switched to a virtual appearance after facing extensive criticism over his attendance when news of the shooting emerged.

Patrick, the lieutenant governor, also withdrew from speaking at the convention, explaining that he would not want to bring any additional pain or grief to the families and all those suffering in Uvalde.

At the beginning of his speech, Trump took a dig at Abbott and Patrick for not canceling their in-person experiences.

Unlike some, I didn't disappoint you by not showing up, Trump said to cheers from the audience.

Toward the end, Trumps remarks turned into a stump speech to rally Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.

In 2022, we are going to vote for tough on crime, pro-Second Amendment candidates in record numbers. Get out and vote make sure the voting is honest, by the way, he said. Together we're going to take back the House, we're going to take back the Senate. And in 2024, we are going to take back that great and beautiful White House that we love and cherish so much.

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Donald Trump rejects gun control at NRA conference after Uvalde ...