Trump's effort to rile up his base was also evident in his vilification of the judge who approved the search warrant.
Trump declared that the entire search was based on a "phony pretext from a highly political magistrate who they hand-picked late in the evening just days before the break-in." In fact, the judge ended up with the case
entirely by chance. And
legal experts have said there is nothing to suggest that he handled the case in an untoward way.
And as the speech went on, Trump made the attacks personal,
telling his supporters: "They're trying to silence me, and more importantly, they're trying to silence you."
No, the FBI isn't trying to silence Trump's supporters -- it is investigating potential crimes that Trump or others may have committed in connection with the handling of classified and unclassified documents that belong to us -- not him.
The former President has insisted he declassified
all the documents seized in the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago.
Trump knows his base better than anyone. He understands that a subset of his MAGA supporters have shown themselves willing to commit violence in his name. Some of those
who were arrested over the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, have explained to prosecutors that their actions were an answer to Trump's call, at a speech before they stormed the building, to "
fight like hell." That was the sentiment shared by Trump supporter Stephen Ayres, who told the January 6 committee in July that Trump had called him to Washington on January 6. "We basically were just following what he said,"
Ayres testified.
Trump knows all of this. He nevertheless is following the same playbook as he did after the 2020 election that preceded the January 6 attack, but this time with repeated dangerous attacks upon our law enforcement and judiciary.
Before January 6, one could dismiss Trump's words as heated political rhetoric. But in a post-January 6 America, we ignore Trump's words at our own peril -- and that of our democracy.
Biden raised alarm bells in his speech on Thursday about the threat posed by Trump and some members of the MAGA movement. "History tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy," the President said.