Consider This from NPR - The battle over the truth of January 6

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

What happened on January 6, 2021? There have been news reports, documentaries and witness testimonies all trying to put that question to rest. But despite an impeachment trial and a House Select Committee investigation, the fight over how that day will be remembered isn't over.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.orgEmail us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The business at the Capitol on Monday felt, well, business-like. The state of the vote for the President of the United States, as delivered to the President of the Senate, is as follows. In a little over half an hour, a joint session of Congress counted electoral votes and certified Donald Trump's victory. Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes. Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the session. Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes. It was ordinary, which is striking given what happened the last time Congress certified a presidential election. On January 6, 2021, a violent mob stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the count.

Here's how Donald Trump, who was on his way out of office, described it in a speech the next day. I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack on the United States Capitol. Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. He did not acknowledge the role he played leading up to that mayhem. In the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump falsely claimed that he actually won, not Joe Biden. On January 6th, he urged his supporters to march toward the Capitol, where Congress was

certifying the results. These days, Trump and his allies don't describe January 6th as a heinous attack. They don't mention violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. Instead, this is how Trump talked about it in a Univision town hall during the 2024 campaign. That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions. It's like hundreds of thousands. It could have been the largest group I've ever spoken before. They asked me to speak.

I went and I spoke. And I used the term peacefully and patriotically. Trump now falsely claims the rioters were ushered in by the police. My fellow officers and I were punched, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants by a violent mob. Acalino Ganel was a sergeant in the Capitol Police. That day he held back rioters trying to breach the building through an entrance tunnel. He later testified that what happened January 6th brought back memories of his time as a

soldier in Iraq. I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, this is how I'm going to die, defending this entrance. Trump has called people convicted of felonies connected to January 6th hostages and unbelievable patriots. He promises he'll pardon many of them in the first hour of his presidency. If the president goes forward with pardoning vast numbers of people involved in that violence, he will begin his new administration the way he ended his last administration,

and that is by celebrating violence against our democracy. That's California Senator Adam Schiff on NBC's Meet the Press. Like many Democrats, he is urging Americans to remember the violence at the Capitol. President Biden wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying, quote, an unrelenting effort has been underway to rewrite, even erase the history of that day. He wrote, we cannot allow the truth to be lost. Consider this, four years after the fighting

and violence of January 6th, 2021, there is still an intense fight over the story we tell about that day. What does that mean for the future of American democracy? There is still an intense fight over the story we tell about that day. What does that mean for the future of American democracy? From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Consider This from NPR. What happened on January 6th, 2021?

There have been news reports and documentaries trying to put that question to rest. Speeches, an impeachment trial, a House select committee. But the fight over how that day will be remembered isn't over. And that could have big consequences. NPR's domestic extremism correspondent Odette Youssef reports. Ruth Ben-Ghiat says in recent years, other countries have also had their January 6th moments. She calls them self-coos, attempts by someone in power to stay in power, often by using

illegal means and force. In Brazil in 2023 Bolsonaro attempted one, in Peru in 2022, in South Korea very recently. Ben-Giott is a historian at New York University and author of the book Strongmen, Mussolini to the Present. And in all of those cases, the perpetrator of the self-coup was either imprisoned or banned from politics. Not so in the U.S. Here, the legal questions of whether January 6th was an insurrection and whether Trump bears responsibility were never fully adjudicated by a federal court.

Two state courts, both in Colorado, determined yes for both questions. But the narrative coming from Trump, Fox News, and a proportion of the GOP that has grown in the last four years is that it was actually a day of patriotic heroism. I want to look at everything. We're going to look at individual cases, yeah. On NBC's Meet the Press last month,

Trump repeated a promise to pardon some or all of those convicted of crimes related to January 6th. Within your first 100 days, first day? First day. Trump has also spoken of going after members of the House Select Committee, which investigated January 6th. And he has called that day, quote, a beautiful day. You do not want this f***ing fight.

You're on the wrong side, buddy. It's perhaps one of the most documented events in recent history. Michael Primo is a journalist and filmmaker. In August, his documentary Homegrown premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It follows two Proud Boys starting in 2018. One of them, Christopher Quaglin, ended up being sentenced to 12 years for his violent participation in January 6th. Primo filmed it all. He says many Americans

still don't understand how the country got to that point. The election made the film even more relevant because the headlines trying to diagnose the 2024 election outcomes talking about the increasing multicultural participation of the far right, the crisis of masculinity, are all ideas that our film squarely deals with. Primo says U.S. broadcasters have praised the film, but none have agreed to distribute it. He says they're nervous about the content. But he thinks an American audience will want to see it and talk about it. Something that has been an indication of how hungry people are for this film

is the fact that at all our screenings, many of them are sold out. Virtually all of the audience stays to talk afterwards because people are so hungry to sort of better understand what's happening in America. Pete Simi says the rewriting of the narrative of January 6th is itself another hallmark of America. This has happened before. It reminds me a lot of what happened after the Reconstruction era. Cime is a sociology professor at Chapman University. He says after the Civil War, there was rapid progress toward democratic ideals.

Rights of citizenship and voting were finally extended to people who'd been slaves. And then came the backlash. The level of violence during the Reconstruction era meant to dismantle those efforts. And then afterwards really kind of created alternate history in terms of the events that happened. And it ushered in a five-decade period of what many characterize as authoritarianism over Black Americans, the Jim Crow era. Simi and Ruth Ben-Giott see similar perils with January 6 revisionism.

I wouldn't be surprised if it became a day of commemoration in America, almost a holiday. NPR's Odette Youssef. The effort to downplay the insurrection at the Capitol is about more than politics for the family of Brian Sicknick. He was a Capitol police officer on duty the day of the attack. He was in the middle of it and got soaked in pepper spray. He collapsed that night and died the following day. NPR's Tom Dreisbach went to visit his family. Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Just inside the front door of the Sicknick's house, you can't miss it, is a small table filled with reminders and memories of Brian. And this one, this one got all this, oh my god. His mom, Gladys, showed me around. She had three sons who all grew up in this house. Brian was the youngest. This is all his stuff that, when he was a kid. Oh, too mommy, it says.

There's the mementos you'd find in the scrapbooks of a lot of proud parents, all next to awards from national leaders for Brian's service in the military and on January 6th. That flag is from Arlington when they buried him. Oh wow. And that's the gold medal. This is the Congressional gold medal. We have all kinds of medals and plaques and declarations but what we don't have is Brian. That's Brian's dad Charlie. The Sicknick family has been dealing with the loss of Brian for four years now. It was almost like a little mini-me, so to speak.

Craig Sicknick is Brian's oldest brother. There's a 10-year age gap. And he remembers the little brother who loved to tag along to the Jersey Shore. It's kind of funny. I know he looked up to me, and of course as time went on, I started looking up to him. It's like, wow, look at all the stuff he's done. First there was Brian's service in the National Guard. He deployed to Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan,

but he always wanted to be a cop. And in 2008, he got a job. And then how did you feel when you joined the Capitol Police? Oh, we thought it was wonderful. Very happy for him because we figured, Capitol Police, if you're going to be in law enforcement, this is a pretty safe place to be. Didn't work out.

For the Sicknick family, the memory of January 6th is still right there, not even below the surface. Craig was texting with Brian that day. After the worst of the riot, Brian texted that he'd been pepper sprayed and his clothes were soaked with the stuff, along with the smell of weed from the crowd of rioters, but he was okay Then not long after the family got another message Brian had collapsed in the Capitol. He was at the hospital non-responsive They started rushing from New Jersey down to DC. So we're driving down and on the New Jersey turnpike

We started getting calls from the press offering their condolences and asking for our initial opinions. So that's how we learned my brother was dead. It took months, but the DC medical examiner later said that Brian Sicknick died from two strokes, officially natural causes. But the medical examiner added, all that transpired on January 6th played a role in his condition. Sicknick's family blames the stress and trauma of the riot. Do you hold Trump personally responsible for Brian's death? Absolutely. Certainly. Yes, definitely.

Brian was a Trump supporter, but Trump never contacted the family to offer his condolences. A spokesperson for the Trump team did not answer our question about why. Before the riot, the Sycniks were not very public or political. And that's one way this experience changed them. They started doing interviews. They went to the sentencing for the man who assaulted Brian with pepper spray, Julian Cader. They wanted to stand up and speak to the court about how Brian's death had affected them. When we were sitting in the courtroom waiting, he came in an orange jumpsuit and I'm like, oh my God, you know. So every time I said his name, I looked at him and he put his head down.

Wow. Yeah, it was very, it was scary to, to, to, but I knew it had to be done. Why? Just, just had to tell people. Why? Just to tell people. Cader was sentenced to six years in prison. And in the courtroom, it felt like facts mattered. But in politics, and even with friends, conspiracy theories were everywhere. Charlie says he heard from people.

Didn't the police let the rioters in the building? Was it really so bad? I try not to associate with people who are Trump people. And I have lifelong friends that I don't associate with anymore because of what happened. You know, to them, it's not a big deal, because it wasn't their son, you know. Craig says the experience of people he knew denying reality

changed him, made him get into a lot more arguments, especially on social media. I'm not nice. I used to be nice, used to be decent. I don't tolerate it anymore. You've got a lot of anger now, it sounds like. Oh, big time. Yeah.

You know, I'm turning into a much angrier, crankier person. People don't like me. I don't care. But the Sicknicks did care a lot about the 2024 election. They took action. Craig and Gladys both went to the Democratic National Convention. They actively supported Vice President Kamala Harris. Gladys says it felt like keeping active helped her cope, at least for a while. Just recently is when I've gotten crazy in my head with this stuff, really. And then this election.

What do you mean, crazy? Just, just, you know, I cry just because. When Trump won the election, the Sicknicks were stunned. I went to sleep hoping for the best. I woke up Wednesday morning, turned on the phone and said, Sick to your stomach. Yeah, it took me an extra two hours to get to work because I just couldn for the best. I woke up Wednesday morning, turned on the phone and said, I'm sick to your stomach. It took me an extra two hours to get to work because I just couldn't get moving.

I was depressed enough that it's like, do I even bother anymore? What I'm very upset about that might happen is that he's going to let all these people out of jail. It's just not right. Trump has promised to pardon January 6th defendants on his first day in office, but hasn't given specifics. It's just not right. … … … … … … … …

… … … … … … … …

… … … … … … … … … … … … police, which might include the man who assaulted Brian. Craig says he expects Trump to whitewash the truth of January 6th.

But even in all the pain, they've also found good people. There are the Capitol police officers, Brian's former coworkers, who still check in on them, the random gas station attendant who gives his condolences. People we met on our honeymoon 55 years ago. We haven't been in touch since but she sent this quilt with you know Brian's picture on it. So oh my goodness So that must feel like at least some people reached out and still remembered and thought of you There's a lot of good people out there and the Cycniks are so proud to be Brian's father mother and brother

They show me their metal bracelets They all got in memory of Brian. And then Gladys rolls up her sleeve. And then I did this too. What's that? Brian's shield. Oh, it's a tattoo you got with Brian's shield on your forearm. Yeah.

Generally not tattoo people. It was amazing when she got that done. You don't often hear of people getting their first tattoo in their 70s. Gladys told me it was partly because the metal bracelet kind of irritated her wrist. But when it feels like people are no longer interested in Brian's sacrifice on January 6th, the bracelets, the tattoo, all the other mementos seem even more important in a way to feel like his memory is just a little bit closer. NPR's Tom Dreisbach. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan, Karen Zamora,

and Monika Evstatieva. It was edited by Jeanette Woods, Andrew Sussman, and Barry Hardeman. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. again.