Around 4:30 p.m., Trump tweeted a one-minute video, urging his supporters to go home. Standing in front of the White House, he said: “I know your pain; I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There has never been a time like this, where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You are very special. You’ve seen what happens; you see the way others are treated, that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace.”
At first Twitter limited the distribution of the video (no likes, comments, or direct retweets), and then actually removed it, as did Facebook, which reported that it took the action on the astonishing basis that Trump’s call for leaving the Capitol peacefully “contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence"!
Facebook has locked Trump out of the platform for 24 hours.
