CNN's Sara Sidner challenged a former Trump administration official Thursday morning for claiming voters handed Donald Trump a victory in November because of all the injustices he faced while out of office.
Sidner asked former Trump official Matt Mowers about Trump's apparent thirst for revenge as evidenced by his pardoning of 1,500 J6 rioters, many of whom were violent offenders.
Mowers said, "Donald Trump and Republicans were pretty transparent throughout the course of the campaign that they were going to look to what they believe were injustices in the process of whether it was the January 6th committee, whether it's what the Department of Justice did and the charges brought against President Trump, and that he was going to upend the bureaucracy and disrupt the process in the Justice Department. And that's why millions of Americans...decided they want to vote for him and were passionate about doing so. They believed he did face injustice over the last four years, and that was among the reasons they were so vocally supportive of him, both in the Republican primary and then showed up really in record numbers for him in November."
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Sidner interjected, "Polling-wise, though, it wasn't anywhere near a main reason — it was the economy and immigration, as well. And I'm curious as to why you think we haven't heard a whole lot about the economy and prices and trying to get those down, but we have heard a whole lot about pardons and retribution. Do you think that is good for Republicans going forward?"
"Let's remember, he signed almost 200 executive actions on Monday," Mowers said. "Only a small number were in reference to, you know, the ...pieces we just discussed. Many were really about the economy and immigration."
The impact of Trump releasing the J6 prisoners has received the lion's share of attention over the past few days, however, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle condemning the release of offenders who beat and pepper-sprayed police officers, including members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers extremist groups.
