In remarks to the Milwaukee Rotary Club on Tuesday morning, Johnson argued that it was inaccurate to call the deadly attack an “armed insurrection” because there were no firearms seized from the Capitol that day, despite plenty of evidence of firearms in the crowd.
“The ‘armed insurrectionists’ stayed within the rope lines in the [Capitol] Rotunda,” Johnson added, making air quotes gestures with his fingers. “I’m sorry — that’s not what an armed insurrection would look like. I don’t think they’d be able to reopen Congress about six hours later and complete the counting of electoral votes if there literally had been an ‘armed insurrection.’ So again, I realize that term has been used to inflame the situation.”
Johnson did not mention that many rioters went beyond the rope lines, ransacking congressional offices, damaging sculptures and art, and causing about $1.5 million worth of damage. At the insistence of top lawmakers, Congress reconvened about six hours after the attack, despite there still being shattered glass, broken furniture, “corrosive gas agent residue” and “garbage and debris everywhere.”
Johnson’s comments Tuesday were swiftly condemned by hundreds of people, including several Democratic lawmakers and at least one member of the Biden administration.
“Ron Johnson continues to downplay the violence of Jan 6, glossing over how the mob seriously wounded police officers,” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) tweeted. “January 6 was a deadly attempt to overturn the election. To call it anything else is a disservice to the brave men & women who protected our democracy that day.”
“To call what happened on Jan. 6 an ‘armed insurrection,” I just think is inaccurate,” Sen. Ron Johnson says at Milwaukee Rotary Club just now.
Johnson argued few weapons were confiscated but protesters “did teach us how you can use a flag pole” pic.twitter.com/28E3W7G3eg
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) October 4, 2022
“It WAS an armed insurrection,” tweeted former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who has since left the GOP. “[Johnson] is wrong. And in November, the people of Wisconsin should tell him he’s wrong.”
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D), who is running against Johnson for Senate, said Johnson was “still covering for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.”
“This is NOT who we are or what we stand for in Wisconsin. It’s time to vote him out,” Barnes tweeted.
Johnson also came under fire for a portion of his comments in which he said that “protesters did teach us all how you can use flag poles, that kind of stuff, as weapons.” In video of the Jan. 6 attack, law enforcement officers outside the Capitol were shown being harassed, beaten and sprayed with gas substances by members of the mob. One of the Capitol police officers who responded that day, Caroline Edwards, said she was struck in the head with a bike rack. She later described the scene as “carnage,” recalling how officers were on the ground, bleeding and throwing up. In one video from the attack, a rioter can be seen bashing a fallen police officer with a pole flying the American flag.
“You mean the January 6th attackers ‘did teach us how you can use a flag pole’ to brutally beat police officers, @SenRonJohnson?” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates tweeted Tuesday in response to Johnson’s remarks.
In a statement, Johnson’s office claimed that the senator had said “summer protesters,” not “some of the protesters,” and that he had been referring to people protesting the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020.
“This clip is completely and deceptively taken out of context to push a political narrative,” Johnson spokeswoman Alexa Henning said in an email. “He acknowledges the left-wing rioters know how to use flag poles and other metals objects and water bottles as weapons. But there is a distinction between that and an armed insurrection.”
Johnson was “in no way condoning this action,” Henning added.
This is not the first time Johnson has downplayed the severity of the Jan. 6 attack. Several Democrats last year called on Johnson to step down after he told a conservative radio show that the Capitol rioters hadn’t scared him — but that they might have had they been Black Lives Matter protesters. On Tuesday, Johnson reiterated part of those sentiments.
“I did say I was never afraid on Jan. 6 because it’s true,” Johnson said. “I was in the Senate chamber, they closed the doors. My assumption was that a couple of crazy people got by security. … About five, 10 minutes later they opened up the door and said go back to your office. And I went back to my office and then I saw the violence.”
Johnson’s comments came as a trial began this week for several members of the extremist Oath Keepers group, who allegedly traveled to Washington and staged firearms near the Capitol before forcing entry through the Capitol Rotunda doors in combat and tactical gear in the Jan. 6 attack. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and four co-defendants face seditious conspiracy and other charges; they have pleaded not guilty to felony charges alleging that they conspired for weeks after the 2020 presidential election to unleash political violence to oppose the lawful transfer of power to Biden.
Spencer S. Hsu, Tom Jackman and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.
