When Donald Trump visits Washington on Thursday to meet with lawmakers near the Capitol, he will be greeted with a video of a mob of his supporters rioting there on January 6, 2021.
The Democratic National Committee plans to launch a mobile billboard ahead of Trump’s visit that aims to follow the former president as he moves between meetings with Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The billboard plays an eleven-minute video montage of the riot and Trump’s speech before it. The video was released by the House committee investigating the attack.
Four Republican senators who voted to convict Trump at his subsequent impeachment trial on charges of incitement of insurrection told NBC News they will not attend the meeting with Trump due to “conflicts.”
DNC spokesperson Alex Floyd said: “Donald Trump is on Capitol Hill for the first time since the American people saw him rally his supporters to storm the Capitol and launch a violent insurrection to overthrow our democracy. Trump has only doubled down on his dangerous record since then.”
Trump has been bolder in recent weeks in his embrace of the Jan. 6 rioters, including the more than 1,000 already convicted in connection with the attack.
At a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, Trump called those who took part in the riot “warriors” for the first time.
“Those J6 warriors were warriors, but they were actually, more than anything, victims of what happened. All they did was protest a rigged election,” Trump said, continuing to claim without evidence that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.
In the years since the attack, he has called those suspected of participating in the riot “hostages” and “patriots” and said he would “absolutely” consider pardoning those convicted. Trump released and sold a song made in collaboration with jailed rioters, “Justice for All,” which he still regularly plays at his rallies.
President Joe Biden’s campaign has accused Trump of making the Jan. 6 attack “a cornerstone of his campaign,” suggesting it reflects a “predilection for political violence and anti-democratic principles.”
The Biden campaign has started using police officers who were present at the attack as surrogates as it seeks to keep Trump’s alleged role in inciting the attack at the forefront of voters’ minds.
Last month, the former U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Washington Police Officer Daniel “Danny” Hodges began campaigning on Biden’s behalf in six battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“Donald Trump is the greatest threat to our democracy and the safety of communities across the country today,” Dunn said in Pittsburgh last week. “He has encouraged and continues to encourage political violence. He welcomes it. He is in favor of it. My fellow officers and I experienced this type of violence at the hands of a gang of MAGA extremists on January 6.”
In addition to a video montage of the attack, the DNC plans to run a new ad focusing on Trump’s controversial comments about it and his recent corporate fraud conviction in New York. That ad will follow Trump as he takes part in a private meeting with members of the Business Roundtable, a powerful business lobbying group in Washington.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
