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23 Jan 2025

Republican strategist ‘upset’ Trump pardoned Jan 6 rioters

Europe Editor and Presenter

We speak to the Republican strategist Douglas Heye.

Matt Frei: Let’s start with these pardons. I mean, there are a lot of people, including in your party, in the Republican Party, who are just disgusted by the fact that these people have been pardoned when they were assaulting police officers. And you’re supposed to be the party of law and order.

Douglas Heye: Yeah, it’s obviously contradictory. And one of the things that we’ve seen is a lot of Republicans have spoken out and a lot haven’t. And if Donald Trump had just convicted some of those who were on the Capitol grounds or maybe even gone in but not engage in violence, the party would have been able to as a whole sort of write it off. But some of these being very violent offenders, there’s still concern. Matt: Are you upset? I’m very upset about it. And I worked in the Capitol and on that day, I packed a go bag in case I was going to have to evacuate about a ten minute walk from the Capitol. So it affects me personally.

A lot of the police officers are those – you just heard Harry Dunn, I know Harry, I’ve known him for years – and so it’s very troubling. But in our political system, I think we should also remember as well that one of the things that Donald Trump does very well is he plays the role of a matador and he laps his red cape to distract everybody away and have them follow that. And when Democrats are talking about this, what they’re not doing then, or the media, is talking about those issues that got Donald Trump elected, talking about jobs and the economy.

Matt Frei: He says, you know, obviously he wants interest rates to come down. He wants to lower the price of eggs. But he’s spending a lot more time talking about January 6th and grievances.

Douglas Heye: Yeah, and I think he knows that if that is the focus, he can do other things that don’t get as much attention.

Matt Frei: What about the challenge from a federal judge in Seattle today? And it might be the first of many challenges to the end of birthright citizenship.

Douglas Heye: Look, ultimately, most people don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. And one of the things that Trump does that…

Matt Frei: That Trump won’t succeed?

Douglas Heye: Trump will not succeed. Basically, this is enshrined very clearly in the constitution. There have been challenges to this in the past, going back 100 years ago, that the Supreme Court has just wholly rejected. And what Donald Trump does often is he gets into a fight that whether he wins it or not, he knows that his base will reward him for engaging in the fight. Winning it is almost secondary.

Matt Frei: But, you know, he won the election. He won’t be able to have another election as president unless he tries to change the constitution. Do you think he might?

Douglas Heye: He will talk about it. It won’t happen.

Matt Frei: You’re sure about that?

Douglas Heye: I’m pretty sure, yeah.

Matt Frei: What about, you know, the coins, the money that he raised in his own with his own name and his wife’s name? This is the kind of stuff that if that happened in Latin America, you would be saying, look, typical banana republic behaviour.

Douglas Heye: If it happened with a Democratic president, we’d be saying it, Donald Trump would be saying it.

Matt Frei: Are you okay with that? You used to work for George Bush, who was controversial in his own way.

Douglas Heye: No, of course not, of course not. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I voted Mike Pence because he did the right thing on January 6th. There are Republicans who at best want to look away and not pay attention to this. It is troubling. It should be troubling. But again, I say those issues that got Trump elected, if you want to defeat Donald Trump, that’s where you have to be. And especially because if Donald Trump isn’t going to stand for election again, then he has nothing to fear as far as electoral impacts. He can do whatever he wants.

Matt Frei: Is America becoming a banana republic under Donald Trump?

Douglas Heye: No, but there should be reasons for concern. And what you’ve outlined are those reasons?

Matt Frei: And, you know, the Republican Party seems to be completely in hock to him. When will the Republican Party actually stand up and say, you know, not on our watch, we don’t stand for this?

Douglas Heye: We tried to on January 6th, 7th and 8th, and so forth. And ultimately, that went away. So I don’t see a whole lot of real opposition within the party. I do hear it privately, but you hear it very sparingly, publicly. You’ll hear on some issues, but when it’s kind of wrapped around the core of Trump, Republicans don’t want to go after him on anything like that.

Matt Frei: And just finally, golden age for America?

Douglas Heye: We’ll see. But one of the things that I thought was interesting in Trump’s remarks to Davos is how we talk about Europe. And especially if you look at what Germany has done over the past 15, 20 years with energy production. Is the next 20 years going to be a golden age for Germany or Spain? No.

Matt Frei: I think actually many people there might even agree with you.