January 8, 2021
Watch: Trumpers Wave LGBTQ Flag at Capitol Protest While Trump's Gay Toadie Grenell Continues to Spread Falsehoods
READ TIME: 3 MIN.
Seen amongst the Confederate flags and Trump banners outside the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon was at least one LGBTQ Pride flag.
LGBTQ Nation reports that in one "video of Trump supporters outside the Capitol, a white person holding a rainbow flag and a Trump flag on the same pole can be seen. The person with the rainbow flag is one of the few people who wore a facemask at the riots, presumably because they were more afraid of being identified than their fellow insurrectionists."
Also seen in the crowd was this protester with a "LGBT for Trump" banner patterned like an American flag.
"It is not clear at this time whether the people spotted with rainbow flags are LGBTQ themselves, simply want to support LGBTQ people, or were waving the rainbow flag for other reasons," LGBTQ Nation adds.
But for the most part there is little commentary by LGBTQ Trumpers on social media. There was, though, an appearance on Sean Hannity's show on Wednesday night by Richard Grenell, the most prominent out person to have been part of the Trump administration.
In his introduction, though, Grenell role as LGBTQ spokesperson for Trump was not mentioned, instead he was introduced as "former acting director of national intelligence." During the campaign, he made numerous appearances with Trump's daughter Tiffany at Gays for Trump events. But he chose to ignore addressing LGBTQ issues or identify himself as gay when addressing the Republican National Convention this past summer.
The Richard Grenell segment appears approx. 45-minutes on this YouTube clip.
In the segment about Trump being locked out of Twitter for twelve hours in which he appeared with ex-congressman and Fox contributor Jason Chaffetz, he condemned the violent protest at the Capitol. "Let's start by saying we have to condemn this violence. It is a very sad day. We had the moral high ground by condemning all the violence last summer and into the fall. And now we have to be very clear about condemning this violence," he told Hannity.
He then went on to contextualize his condemnation by comparing the insurrection to BLM protests, imploring Trump supporters to take the high road. "The other side didn't do that. They pick and choose when they condemn it. We have to be consistent. I am very proud of the fact that we have a bunch of conservatives that have been very loud and critical of this terrible violence. Every single person should be found and prosecuted."
Grenell next went on to continue the falsehoods about the election, as well as blame the violent actions by protesters were by "bad apples" "Transparency in the election is going to be helpful if you want the public to understand what is at stake and whether or not the vote was real, then you have to come clean and give us the information that people are asking when they have suspicions. We when see that dead people were voting, we know that was a fact, and yet we were dismissed. So I think the frustration that these peaceful protesters have are focused in the right direction in that they are complaining about the process. The bad apples, the few whoever they are, they must be found out and prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Grenell's claims about the election being rigged have been largely discredited and Congress authorized President-elect Joe Biden's win last night after the capitol building was cleared.