Trump argued his Jan. 6 speech was no different from a rapper hyping up a crowd, but a federal judge just dismantled that comparison point by point

A federal judge has rejected President Donald Trump’s argument that his January 6 speech was no different from a rapper performing for a crowd. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta dismissed Trump’s claim that his “Stop the Steal” speech was constitutionally protected free speech, allowing a civil lawsuit filed by Democratic lawmakers and Capitol Police officers to move forward.

According to The Daily Beast, Trump had presented a hypothetical involving a rapper similar to Eminem who performs aggressive songs and shouts things like, “Fight the man! Fight Establishment! Don’t let them tell you what to do! Fight like hell!” The crowd turned violent, and Trump argued that if his January 6 speech was considered incitement, this hypothetical rapper should also be held responsible.

Judge Mehta rejected the comparison, explaining that for it to hold up, the rapper would have needed to spend weeks telling fans the “Establishment” had stolen something from them, known in advance that fans were planning violence, and directed thousands of them to the exact location where these figures were working. Only with these additional facts, the judge concluded, would the scenario begin to resemble January 6.

The January 6 attack left lasting damage that five years of political shifts have not erased

On January 6, 2021, Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol, warning them they would lose their country if they did not “fight like hell.” A mob then stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the congressional certification of the 2020 election results. 

The violence left 140 police officers injured and led to the deaths of five people. Five years later, Trump is back in the White House and has pardoned all those who took part in the attack, including many who assaulted police officers.

Amanda Carpenter, a researcher for the group Protect Democracy, said the government has not just normalized January 6 but has radicalized it into a loyalty test for top government officials. She believes that a willingness to rewrite the history of that day, particularly by pardoning violent rioters, has become a core part of how the Trump administration operates.

Meanwhile, Trump’s approach to foreign policy has also drawn scrutiny, his handling of sensitive international negotiations has raised similar questions about his decision-making. Michael Fanone, a former Washington D.C. police officer who suffered a heart attack after being attacked with a stun gun that day, said that Trump “did what he set out to do,” fundamentally changing the country, and that “the American people let him do it.”

Trump continues to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election. At a White House Christmas party on December 14, he stated, “The election was rigged in 2020.” In reality, Trump lost the 2020 election by 7 million votes, with narrow losses in key states including Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia. 

When his lawsuits to overturn the results failed, he and his allies in several states attempted to create fake Electoral College slates for then-Vice President Mike Pence to accept as legitimate. American democracy was preserved because Pence refused to go along with Trump’s demands. 

Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who led the criminal case against Trump for his actions around January 6, said the country was fortunate that Americans never had to find out what might have happened if Pence had complied.

Smith’s prosecution ended when the Department of Justice dismissed the case after Trump won back the White House in 2024, following the established rule against prosecuting a sitting president, reports Huffpost.

Marc Short, who served as Pence’s chief of staff, noted the irony that many Republicans would not have accepted it if Kamala Harris had decided which electoral slate to accept four years later. Short and Pence, along with his family, had to take refuge when Trump turned his supporters against Pence with an angry social media post.

Trump’s domestic conduct has also affected his standing with key allies abroad, with France pushing back on Trump’s NATO demands as tensions over his foreign policy approach continue to grow. Police officers who defended the Capitol remain less optimistic about the state of American democracy.

Aquilino Gonnell, a former U.S. Capitol Police sergeant, warned that if the memory of January 6 is fully rewritten by Trump and his supporters, the country will have normalized anti-democratic authoritarianism. Fanone grimly concluded, “As my kids would say, ‘We’re cooked.'”