President-elect Joe Biden and incoming VP Kamala Harris are being accused of “gaslighting” for claiming a double standard by cops in how they handled the US Capitol protest.
Biden and Harris said Thursday police would have been more aggressive in quelling Wednesday’s unrest had it been a Black Lives Matter protest instead of supporters of President Trump.
Biden went so far as to call it “totally unacceptable” that DC cops used kid gloves, allowing the rioters to breach the Capitol.
“This is complete nonsense,” conservative writer AG Hamilton said of the claim on Twitter.
“It’s gaslighting that requires ignoring what we actually witnessed on a nightly basis last summer,” Hamilton said, referring to widespread anti-police protests last year.
Podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey tweeted that the comments by the incoming president and vice president only further inflame racial tensions in the country.
She took particular aim at Harris.
“They really just know how to make everything so much worse,” Stuckey told the network. “This is untrue, divisive race-baiting, and absolutely no one in the media will call her out for this lie.”
“This is the same woman who tweeted out a BAIL FUND for rioters who burned down Minneapolis,” she added.
Julio Rosas, a reporter with townhall.com who covered BLM protests last summer following the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, said on Twitter that the double standard claim was “simply false.”
“As someone who has covered many of the riots last year, I can say this narrative is simply false,” Rosas said. “Tear gas, pepper balls, pepper spray, and flashbangs were all used (at the Capitol), just as they were used on rioters in 2020.”
Capitol Police were overwhelmed when hundreds of demonstrators stormed the building following a Trump rally in the nation’s capital.
The fiasco prompted Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to resign Thursday.
During his press conference Thursday, Biden maintained that Capitol Police showed more restraint than cops did during multiple protests by BLM supporters.
“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” he said.
“We all know that’s true, and it is unacceptable,” Biden said. “Totally unacceptable.”