Journal of Haiti and the Americas

'Be there, it will be crazy!': revelations about the day that led to the Capitol storming

Audio 7:30 p.m.

A group of incumbent supporters storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington.

© Jose Luis Magana/AP

By: Marion Cazanove

2 mins

It was surely the day that prompted Donald Trump to call for a demonstration in front of the Capitol, before the onslaught of his activists.

The American president, defeated in the elections, contests the results.

He receives conspiracy figures at the White House, who convince him that the election has been manipulated from abroad.

Witnesses returned to this interview, during the hearings of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the assault on the Capitol.

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Six weeks after his presidential defeat, Donald Trump is still contesting the election results.

One Friday evening, he receives in the Oval Office a heterogeneous team of unofficial advisers.

The latter assure the outgoing president that the election is stolen.

Eric Herschmann, who was then an adviser to Donald Trump, told the House of Inquiry Commission on the assault on the Capitol this interview: “ 

They said that the Democrats were working with Hugo Chavez.

And when I reminded them that all their legal complaints had been rejected, they replied that the judges are corrupt! 

".

Eric Hershmann ensures that the officials, that evening, denounce a madness.

A fight nearly breaks out in the Oval Office.

Despite the quarrel, Donald Trump ends up tweeting a little later in the evening.

He claims that it is statistically impossible to have lost the election and calls for a demonstration on January 6.

He even warns: “ 

Be there, it will be crazy!

 ".

A tweet that suggests that the outgoing president planned the march to the Capitol, while suggesting that it is spontaneous.

Memphis Rebelle, a journalistic investigation at the heart of racial issues in the United States

Despite the end of segregation in the United States, the racial question remains very present in society, as evidenced by socio-economic inequalities or police violence.

Insolvent inequalities despite laws and goodwill since the 1960s and the fight for civil rights.

It was with the desire to tell this that Géraldine Ruiz, a young journalist, set off to explore the south of the country.

She is the author of the book “

Memphis Rebelle

”.

Guest of Mikaël Ponge on RFI, she explains that she was caught up in this city in Tennessee, still marked by segregation: " 

It's what they call there

post-segregation segregation

, that is to say that the laws have been abolished, but the mentalities have remained the same.

[…] When I arrived there, I was struck because this question was everywhere, in everyone's mouths. 

She herself is confronted with this phenomenon: “ 

In the street, I was held back by saying to me: 'a white woman without a gun in the street', etc. 

»

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  • United States

  • donald trump

  • Joe Biden

  • Racism

  • Journalism

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