Conservative attorney George Conway said Tuesday that people will not criticize former President Trump because they know “he’s a danger.”
Conway, a prominent critic of the former president, said on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” that he regretted supporting Trump in 2016, in response to a caller who accused Conway of promoting “left-leaning political lies” and being “fooled by Trump.” Conway called his support of Trump a “mistake of judgment” and an “intellectual mistake.”
He said while some people “know better” than to support Trump, they are just hesitant to speak out against him.
“There are people who know better in the Republican Party. Basically, they know that he’s a danger. They’re just too afraid to speak out,” he said. “Or they’re too afraid to admit error. And that’s what I think a lot of what we see in Trumpism today, is about is that people are afraid.”
The caller also described the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol as a “parade,” claiming that video footage of the riot showed “police escorting people, shaking hands [and] fist pumping.” Conway pushed back on the description, pointing to the police officers who were injured that day, the property damage the attack caused and the deaths that resulted from it.
“This caller says, ‘Oh, Jan. 6 was a tourist visit’ in essence. OK. I have met Capitol Police officers who have been who were assaulted. One of them basically had to go and be, you know, basically had to leave service because of the injuries that he suffered. People died that day; property was destroyed,” he said.
Conway said that if Trump “had his wish” and joined his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, “so many more people would have been hurt.” Conway also said that if Trump had done so, no one would be able to say that the former president “didn’t incite an insurrection.”
Trump was indicted earlier this year on charges stemming from his attempts to stay in office after losing the 2020 election. The indictment from special counsel Jack Smith paints Trump as the center of an effort to prevent the transfer of power and ultimately charged him with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., among other crimes.