Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed a caller named Troy to the newsmakers line who gave a first-hand account of what he saw go down at the Trump rally and the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon.
Leahy: If you were at the Capitol, please call us what you saw and what happened at the Trump rally and then at the Capitol building itself. (Call-in number) We are joined now by Troy who was there at the Capitol and is headed back home after being there. Troy, welcome to the Tennessee Star Report. Tell us what you saw.
Caller Troy: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. What I saw was there were literally and definitely over a million Trump supporters there to support the President and support the Constitution. And there was absolutely no violence among all these people. We had a peaceful event. There was no trash left behind. Patriotic flags and Trump flags all over the place. It was actually the first time I’d been to a Trump event. And it’s the first time I’ve been to a major political event like this.
So there was absolutely nothing that happened amongst all the Trump supporters. You know, when we walked up to the Capitol Trump didn’t say anything that was inciteful. What he said was let’s go up to the Capitol and have our voices heard for this election. This election was clearly stolen. Anybody with two eyes and half a brain can clearly see all the fraud that happened by the Democrat Party. (Inaudible talk)
Leahy: Troy, walk us through what you actually saw once the Trump rally ended. The Trump rally would have ended about 1 p.m. Eastern time I think which is right about when they were beginning to hold the joint session to consider the Electoral College votes submitted to them by the electors, the separate states. Did you walk from the mall to the Capitol how and how long did that take you? What time did you arrive at the Capitol?
Troy: Yes, we walked from the mall to the Capitol. I’d say it was a good 20 to 25-minute walk. We stopped to take pictures. I talked to a few people. And as we’re approaching the Capitol I’d say maybe I got within a quarter-mile of it and I got an alert from the Gateway Pundit and that was the first indication that I saw there were people breaching the perimeter of the Capitol and people were inside.
Leahy: Now, about the breaching of the Capitol. I don’t know if you can tell us first hand what your experience was, but it seemed to me that there was a very limited and a very small police Capitol Police presence outside the building when these tens of thousands of protesters showed up. Did you have any sense as to what level of presence the Capitol Police had?
Troy: No, unfortunately, I didn’t get close enough because of not wanting to get involved with it because we knew Antifa was there. I could see Antifa people in the Trump crowd. I saw people wearing Kevlar helmets with knee pads and elbow pads all dressed in black. This is what a typical Antifa scumbag looks like.
Leahy: Let’s follow up on that. I don’t know if you’ve subsequently seen any of the videos. But you’ve got this police barrier there in front of the Capitol. I don’t know though. It looks like they’re only like half a dozen police there. But there was a crowd that surged forward and overwhelmed the police. I saw some videos of one guy a bearded guy taking a board or something and breaking a window and then people crawling through that. You weren’t close enough to see any of that, were you?
Troy: No, I wasn’t but I’ve seen those videos and those guys are all dressed in black. That’s typical Antifa wear. The picture of the girl sitting at Nancy Pelosi’s desk, that’s a typical Antifa person. You know all of that is a bunch of BS in my opinion. There’s a picture of the guy with the Viking helmet on they have, and you know people on the internet found pictures of that individual at various Antifa rallies. The notion that a bunch of Trump supporters did this after a peaceful day of supporting our country and our Constitution is a bunch of crap in my opinion.
Leahy: Yeah. And you know to me this is what doesn’t resonate with me. I mean I’ve been involved in organizing the Tea Party back in 2009. I’ve been to hundreds of Tea Party rallies. There’s never been any violence from Tea Party people. And I’m looking at these tapes and these individuals that are you know, breaking windows and crawling into the Capitol and they don’t look to me like your typical Tea Party or even a MAGA supporter person. Was that your take as well?
Troy: Yes. It’s clear to me that these were not Trump supporters. I even saw some videos this morning of some skinny kids all dressed in black pushing around cameramen who were there to report on things. You never see Trump supporters do that kind of stuff.
Leahy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. Well, obviously it’s been reported. And of course, you have a Trump rally, and tens of thousands of people go to the Capitol and they’re all either wearing Trump-related gear many of them and then the Capitol is breached. You can see why those are the reports initially that come out. How many people ultimately were in the Capitol? How many breached the Capitol? And it looked to me like at least 500.
Troy: Yeah, there was a bunch. As I said, I wasn’t close enough. And I would also state that leading up to the rally there were reports going around the internet people had text messages from Antifa groups saying that hey, you know when you wearing your Trump gear make sure you wear your hat backward so that we know who you are.
Leahy: Interesting. Interesting. I saw a lot of people wearing red Trump hats.
Troy: So there were two more videos that I saw from inside the Capitol on Twitter feeds where you see the D.C. police like standing in front of a wide-open door, but kind of egging people to come in. And then there’s another video.
Leahy: Would that be the D.C. police or the Capitol Police? Because the Capitol Police have jurisdiction there.
Troy: Yeah, I guess it was the Capital police. I’m here with the video set that was put on by an internet group called Monkey Works. And somehow they got hold of these feeds. They have a lot of sources out there. And there was another Twitter feed.
Leahy: We got 30 seconds. Troy, where are you from, by the way? Where are you going back to?
Troy: I’m going back to Spring Hill.
Leahy: Good. Well, safe travels Troy, and thank you so much for that first-hand report.
Listen to the full first hour here:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Capitol Protest” by Elijah Schaffer.
“You know, when we walked up to the Capitol Trump didn’t say anything that was insightful.”
Oh Brother smdh………he meant “inciteful”.
You’d think whoever typed that would be a bit better educated.