Former President Trump marked the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by casting the migrant surge on the southern border as the "real" insurrection. Just over a week before the Republican nomination process begins with Iowa's kickoff caucuses, Trump did not explicitly acknowledge the date at his first events, per the AP. But while campaigning in Iowa, he continued to claim that countries have been emptying jails and mental institutions to fuel a record number of migrant crossings, even though there is no evidence that that is the case.
"When you talk about insurrection, what they're doing, that's the real deal. That's the real deal. Not patriotically and peacefully—peacefully and patriotically," Trump said, quoting from his speech on Jan. 6, before a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol as part of a desperate bid to keep him in power after his 2020 election loss. Trump's remarks in Newton in central Iowa came a day after Biden delivered a speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania , where he cast Trump as a grave threat to democracy and called Jan. 6 a day when "we nearly lost America—lost it all."
Trump also continued to bemoan the treatment of those who have been jailed for participating in the riot, again labeling them "hostages." More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes connected to the violence, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. "They ought to release the J6 hostages. They've suffered enough," he said in Clinton, in the state's far east. "Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release 'em, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe," he said. (Former President Obama is reportedly urging the Biden campaign to step things up against Trump.)
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