NBC reporter Ben Collins said Friday that rioters who took part in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S Capitol were “surprised” when the National Guard didn’t “turn on the Capitol police” and take over the government for former President Donald Trump.
Collins appeared on MSNBC’s special coverage of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial and was asked by host Katy Tur if he was seeing any regret by the crowds that took part in the Capitol attack and if they felt like they were “duped.”
“There’s kind of two lines of thought here. With the QAnon folks who believe that there is a judgment day coming and all that stuff, they’re too deep into it. That’s a religion at this point and they are just pushing back the date,” Collins said. “Their new date is March 4th. They keep saying there’s something going to happen then where Donald Trump is going to be revealed to be the president. They think there’s two presidents right now. It’s all ridiculous. But there are people who are bailing and jumping ship, especially people who were there for those sorts of reasons.” (RELATED: QAnon Is ‘Part Of The Fabric Of The GOP’: Conspiracy Theory Researcher Says Republican Sen. Sasse’s Warning Is ‘Way Too Late’)
The QAnon movement has become a prominent topic in politics, and many of its followers were part of the crowd of Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol. Some followers now say that Trump will return to the White House on Mar. 4 and that the ongoing impeachment trial is “part of the plan” to make this happen.
“They believed Donald Trump had some sort of master plan in that day. That’s why you saw a lot of those people in there, and they were just awaiting directions,” Collins continued. “They thought that the great awakening was coming and that Donald Trump would — basically the National Guard would turn on the Capitol police and they would take over the government that day, and they were waiting for that to take place, and they were surprised that it wasn’t.
“So, you know, now they are in the hard light of day, you know when you are faced by investigators about why you were there it sounds so ridiculous. And that’s what a lot of them are finding out right now. This was all a lie,” he concluded.