Former President Donald Trump’s call to protest ahead of his anticipated indictment in New York has produced a largely muted reaction from supporters, with even some of his most ardent loyalists dismissing the idea as a waste of time or a law enforcement trap.
The ambivalence raises the question of whether Trump, despite being the main Republican competitor in the 2024 presidential race who maintains a loyal following, still has the power to mobilize right-wing supporters as he did more than two years ago before January 6, 2021. , the uprising in the US Capitol. It also suggests that the hundreds of arrests that followed the Capitol riots, not to mention the convictions and lengthy prison sentences, may have dampened the desire for repeat mass riots.
Still, law enforcement in New York continues to closely monitor online chatter warning of protests and violence if Trump is arrested, with threats varying in specificity and credibility, four officials told The Associated Press. Primarily posted online and in chat groups, the messages included calls for armed protesters to block law enforcement officers and try to stop potential arrests, the official said.
The New York Young Republican Club has announced plans to protest at an undisclosed location in Manhattan on Monday, and incendiary but isolated posts appeared on the fringe social media platforms from supporters calling for an armed confrontation with law enforcement at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a. – Songs.
But almost two days after Trump claimed on the Truth Social platform that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday and called on his followers to protest, there are some signs that the appeal has inspired his supporters to organize and gather events like the January 6 gathering. In fact, organizers of the rally that preceded the Capitol riots posted on Twitter that they wanted to stay on the sidelines.
Ali Alexander, who is an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement holding rallies to promote Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him, warned Trump supporters that they would be “in jail or worse” if they protested in New York City. .
“You have no freedom or rights there,” he tweeted.
One of Alexander’s allies in the “Stop the Steal” campaign is conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who expanded the claims of election fraud on the Infowars show. Alexander sent that he had spoken to Jones and said that no one would protest at this time.
“We’ve both had enough of fighting the government,” Alexander wrote. “There are no billionaires footing our bills.”
In contrast to the day before the Capitol riots when Trump encouraged his supporters when he was invited to Washington for a “big protest” on January 6, tweeting, “Be there, it’s going to be wild!” Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol that day, storming windows and violently clashing with officials in an ultimately failed attempt to stop congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
Since then, about 1,000 participants have been arrested, many of whom have racked up steep legal bills and expressed regret and remorse in court for their actions. Some have complained that they feel abandoned by Trump. And conspiracy theories that the riots were fueled or even created by undercover law enforcement informants in the crowd continue to proliferate online, with Trump supporters citing such fears as a basis for preventing large-scale protests.
“How many Feds/Fed assets are there to turn protests against Pres Trump’s political arrest into violence?” tweeted Rep. Marjorie-Taylor Greene. The Georgia Republican also invoked the conspiracy theory that an FBI informant had instigated the January 6 riots.
“Has Ray Epps booked a flight to NY?” he tweeted on Sunday.
Epps, an Arizona native, was recorded encouraging others to enter the Capitol. Conspiracy theorists believe Epps was an FBI informant because he was removed from the “wanted” list on January 6 without being charged. In January, a House committee investigating the Capitol attack said the claims about Epps were “unsupported.”
John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab who has tracked the “Stop the Steal” online movement, said the anxiety over being entrapped by the so-called agent provocateurs feeds a “paranoia that if they go and commit violence, they can be caught. and can there are also consequences.
“It seems to reduce a lot of people’s willingness to make big statements about being willing to go out” and engage in violence, he said.
A grand jury is investigating money payments to women who claim to have had sexual relations with Trump. Prosecutors have not said when their work might be completed or when charges might come.
Feelings of conflict over how to support Trump in his fight against impeachment extend beyond the political realm. The vice president himself, Mike Pence, who is expected to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination, castigated Trump in an ABC News interview this weekend as “reckless” for his actions on January 6 and said history will bear responsibility – although he echoed. the former president’s rhetoric that the impeachment would be a “politically charged impeachment.”
“I have no doubt that President Trump knows how to take care of himself. And he will. But it’s not right to make political demands against the former president of the United States,” Pence said.
The opening day of the House Republican conference in Orlando, Florida, was quickly overshadowed by news of potential indictments. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republicans called the possibility of exaggeration and criticized District Attorney Alvin Bragg for what they called “reckless crime” in New York City.
McCarthy said he has assembled congressional investigators to investigate whether Bragg used Justice Department funds to pursue the Trump case. But despite the heated rhetoric against Bragg, Republican leaders stopped short of Trump’s call for protesters to “take our country back.”
“I don’t think people should protest this. I think President Trump, if you talk to him, he doesn’t think so either,” McCarthy said.
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Kunzelman reported from Silver Spring, Md. Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Michael Balsamo in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.