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Almost one year ago, on the afternoon of January 6th, 2021, hundreds of protestors gathered in Washington DC and stormed the United States’ Capitol building.
While political leaders from all sides initially condemned Donald Trump for his role in instigating the assault, many Republicans have since moved from criticising the former US president to, in many cases, seeking to downplay the events of the day.
Twelve months on, the details of what actually happened are still, for some, up for debate.
“The Democrats consider what happened on January 6th to be an attempted coup,” The Irish Times’ new Washington correspondent Martin Wall told the In the News podcast. “On the right, there’s an argument that the people who participated in this riot and who were arrested are the real victims.
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“There seemed to be a suggestion at the time that maybe the spell that Donald Trump held over the Republican party was about to break; that Trump and Trumpism would be banished to the sidelines of political discourse in America on foot of that. A year later in America, that hasn’t happened.”
Today: Why the US Capitol riot was not the turning point in American politics that many hoped it would be.
In the News is presented by reporters Sorcha Pollak and Conor Pope.
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