Shortly after Donald Trump walked onstage at a recent rally, the voice of an announcer instructed the crowd to rise “for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” Trump saluted, and the loudspeakers blasted a rendition of the national anthem performed by people accused or convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump then kicked off the rally with a promise to help the defendants – a group that includes violent offenders he has glorified as “patriots” and “hostages” and pledged to pardon if he returns to power. “We’re going to be working on that the first day we get into office,” Trump said at the rally this month in Dayton, Ohio.

That vow is part of a broader renewed emphasis by Trump to align himself with Jan. 6 rioters, as he intensifies his use of dark, graphic and at times violent language as he has closed in on and secured the Republican nomination. Until November, he called the Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been detained by court order or are serving sentences, “political prisoners” before introducing the term “hostages,” according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches this campaign cycle.

The analysis also showed an uptick in his references to Jan. 6 defendants, as well as the word “criminals,” which Trump has used to describe prosecutors, political opponents, the press and undocumented immigrants.

The escalation overlaps with his own mounting legal jeopardy – a more than $450 million bond his lawyers say he has been unable to finance, while he appeals a civil fraud verdict against his businesses, and four separate criminal cases charging him with paying hush money to an adult film actress, mishandling classified documents, and interfering with the 2020 election results.

“Every time there is a big event that is ‘negative Trump lawsuit,’ he’ll do something to distract attention from that,” said Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor at Princeton University who studies the rise and fall of constitutional government. “These outbursts with language that’s just unacceptable in U.S. politics happen when he is under pressure.”

While Trump quickly secured the GOP nomination, defeating his rivals by wide margins in early contests and driving them to withdraw from the race, some Republicans are voicing concerns that his misrepresentations of the Jan. 6 attack and the people involved could weaken him with general election voters.

“It’s not the way that I would talk about it. I was there,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who endorsed Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., in the primary, said of Jan. 6. “We want to broaden our support, we want to broaden, at least that’s the way I would look at it.” Rounds added that Trump is “probably not going to take my advice.”

In December, Trump said he’d govern as a “dictator” on “Day One” to “close the border” and drill for oil – a remark he went on to repeat, later claiming he was making it in jest. In a March social media post, he added to those two promised first acts that he would also “Free the January 6 Hostages.”

In January, Trump warned of “bedlam” if he lost, and declined to rule out violence by his supporters. In March, he threatened a “bloodbath” after he spoke about promising to enact tariffs. (Allies and his campaign argued he was speaking figuratively about the economy.)

On Friday, Trump on social media promoted a flier for the nightly vigil outside the Washington jail supporting Jan. 6 defendants housed there, led by the mother of slain rioter Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt’s mother, Micki Witthoeft, said at Wednesday’s vigil that Trump called her that day about “setting these guys free when he gets in.” She added, in remarks that were live-streamed online: “He said to pass that on to the guys inside that they’re on his mind, and when he gets in they’ll get out.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt drew a connection between the prosecutions of Trump and his supporters. Local authorities brought two of the cases against Trump with no evidence of coordination, and a special counsel acting independently of the White House brought the two federal cases against him. Asked in an email whom Trump was referring to when talking about “hostages” and promises of pardons, Leavitt did not directly answer.

“President Trump will restore justice for all Americas who have been unfairly treated by Joe Biden’s two-tier system of justice,” she said.

Since January, Trump has made reference to Jan. 6 “hostages” more frequently at his rallies, mentioning the term so far at every rally this month, the Post analysis showed. He has advanced other arguments that have also alarmed experts and critics.

Dating back to November, Trump has sought to portray Biden as a “threat to democracy,” seeking to turn the tables on Democrats’ arguments against him and concerns among some experts that a second term would be more extreme than his first. He used the phrase in most of his speeches in January, and in every speech in February and March, according to the Post analysis. He has also increasingly used the word “criminal” more at each rally – up to eight times a rally on average in March.

Trump opened his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas, last year, while saluting to the song with Jan. 6 defendants titled “Justice for All.” He routinely plays it on the patio at Mar-a-Lago, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about private interactions. Trump played it at Mar-a-Lago the night he was arraigned last spring in New York. He also saluted the song at a November 2023 rally in Houston.

At a recent rally in Greensboro, N.C., Trump discussed his legal problems in similar terms to how he has described people charged with or convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6. “I stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissident and as a public enemy of a rogue regime,” he said.

“The J6 hostages, I call them because they’re hostages,” he added at the same rally. “They’re put in jail for extended periods of time, for very long periods of time. They’re hostages. You heard them singing. You heard the spirit that they have, the spirit is unbelievable. That song became the number one song.”

Although the cause of Jan. 6 defendants has become popular in the MAGA movement and among Trump-aligned Republican officials, others who condemned him after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol criticized his use of that term or avoided the topic altogether. Asked this past week if it was appropriate for Trump to call the defendants “hostages” or “patriots,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who recently endorsed Trump, replied: “I’m going to avoid talking about the presidential election.”

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in December found that 58% of Americans said protesters entering the U.S. Capitol threatened democracy, compared to 12% who said they defended democracy. Fifty% categorized the protesters as “mostly violent,” while 28% said they were “equally peaceful and violent” and another 21% said they were “mostly peaceful.” The poll also found that 72% of Americans say punishments of people who broke into the U.S. Capitol have been fair, though that declined from 78% in 2021. (A smaller majority of Republicans said the punishments were fair.)

A Post analysis published on the third anniversary of the attack found that federal judges have sentenced more than half of the roughly 1,200 people charged with breaking the law on Jan. 6. For nearly every defendant convicted of a felony, judges ordered prison time. About half of those convicted of misdemeanors received some jail time. The Post found that in the vast majority of the sentences up until that point, judges issued punishments below government guidelines and prosecutors’ requests.

“Calling them hostages is offensive in the extreme,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who voted to convict Trump twice in his impeachment trials. “He says outrageous things day after day and people just get used to it and dismiss it as being him the way he is.”

 

Scott Clement and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.

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