"Because there is nothing wrong with a peaceful protest, which is what he called for and expected. It's also what he got: Only a small fraction of the protestors engaged in any violence."

But, as you said, he had warned (and been warned) about the potential for violence. It was well-coordinated by folks like the Proud Boys and Trump gave them an infantry to work with. He had no reasonable expectation for a peaceful protest or that hundreds, if not thousands, of people wouldn't invade the Capitol and disrupt the proceedings, which in your mind supposedly would have been a bad thing for him strategically.

"LAHoo: I don't think he or anyone else could have predicted the precise fallout from events as they were transpiring, and, to this day, no one really knows what happened. No one could have said at 1PM what things would look like at 1:30PM. No one at 1:30PM could have said what things would look like at 2PM, etc. Protestors were LET IN to the Capitol and allowed to mill about. No one could have predicted that. Two unarmed women were killed by police. No one could have predicted that. An on and on. Regardless, no one knows what Trump was thinking about the goings-on, so it's pointless to speculate."

One woman, not two, was killed by police while trying to break through a window with a clear path to members of Congress, violating a clear order. The officer also had no way to know if she was armed. Protesters were most definitely not "let in" given the number who entered through broken windows, beat their way through security, and the like. If any barricades or doors were opened it was as a strategic pressure release, not an invitation for a merry tour. And beyond that, as soon as Congress evacuated, right around 2 PM, he should have panicked and realized it was ruining his plans. They obviously wouldn't be coming back into the House until things were resolved. He posted his video at 4:17. That's 2 hours where he had all the information he needed and he chose to do nothing, which by your logic would go against his interests.

Your comment about it being pointless to speculate is sort of conceding that point. There's no defense of his not acting to stop the riot and no logical argument that holds up to scrutiny of his being upset about what happened if he actually was. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion--which is backed up by many contemporaneous accounts--that he was quite happy with how things were going. The only thing, IMO, that would have made him happier is if he hadn't been essentially forced to make the statement when he did. He would've liked a few more hours of mayhem to postpone things until the next day.

[Post edited by CMUHoo at 10/31/2023 8:15PM]