WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis says he won't be watching anything about the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, which he said would be "nauseating."
The governor made these remarks Thursday morning in response to a reporter's question at the end of a press conference about the day's events, in which supporters of former President Donald Trump attacked police, threatened House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and put up gallows threatening to hang Vice President Mike Pence. The attack interrupted the electoral count, formalizing Joe Biden's 2020 election win.
Trump, at the time, is said to have watched it unfold on TV.
DeSantis said the day was like "Christmas" for the New York and Washington, D.C., media.
“You’re gonna see the DC/NY media – I mean this is their Christmas, Jan. 6 – okay? They are going to take this and milk this for anything they could to try to be able to smear anyone who ever supported Donald Trump," he said.
He went on to compare the deadly attack at the Capitol to the 2017 shooting during practice for the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity.
In that shooting, five people were shot and injured, including then-House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and two Capitol Police officers.
DeSantis, who was a U.S. Representative in Congress prior to becoming Florida's governor, said he was on the field when the accused shooter arrived and came in contact with him as he and others were leaving.
Only later, he said, did he hear about what the man, who reportedly was a supporter of Bernie Sanders, did.
Of that day, he claimed “that was like a one-, two-day story. That was not something the capital-based press wanted to talk about. Why? Because it totally undercut [the media's] preferred narrative.” Coverage continued in the wake of the shooting, including the wounded officer's first pitch, Scalise's recovery and an FBI investigation.
He said coverage on the Capitol attack allows the media "to create narratives that are negative about people that supported Donald Trump.”
“Look, if you obstruct a proceeding, [I’m] all about hold[ing] people accountable. If you’re rioting – hold accountable," DeSantis added, alluding to his anti-rioting bill passed in 2021.
"But let’s just be clear here – when they try to act like this is something akin to the Sept. 11 attacks – that is an insult to the people who were going into those buildings. And it’s an insult to people when you say it’s an insurrection and then a year later, nobody has been charged with that," DeSantis said.
TEGNA'S Verify team found 700 people have been charged for their role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and more than 170 of them have pleaded guilty to various charges, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and federal court filings.
Many of those charged have been charged with felonies, but so far, those convicted of crimes committed on Jan. 6 are mostly convicted of misdemeanors.
The New York Times says charges such as sedition or insurrection are more "politically fraught" and harder to prove, which is why many of the accused rioters face charges like obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress.