This week the world learned about the “Bonnie and Clyde of MAGA World,” aka Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lynn Lawrence. (No, not the incredibly famous, Oscar-winning actress.) They were longtime “Stop the Steal” rally organizers who, at least at one point, believed that the “Big Lie.” They claim they were horrified by the events of Jan. 6, which they helped organize, and which they abandoned mid-show once it was clear it would turn violent. And they’ve been cooperating with the Jan. 6 committee and doing interviews, where they denounce their former favorite former president.
But both of them didn’t appear on live on TV together until Wednesday night. They went on MSNBC’s All in with Chris Hayes for a joint interview, in which the host tried to get them to open up more about what led to the Capitol siege. It didn’t always go smoothly. Sometimes it was chaotic. Early on Stockton took umbrage with their host saying Paul Gosar promised to pardon them for what they did — charges he’s called “misinformation.” But speaking of which, he happily went to town on Trump for pardoning Steve Bannon for the scammy “We Build the Wall” campaign (in which Stockton and Lawrence played a part) but not its founder, Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage.
“Of course Trump pardons the one guy, of the guys who were indicted, who has all the money and political connections to fight it — the triple-amputee war hero who wasn’t a lawyer, wasn’t a political operative,” Stockton told Hayes. “Brian in particular got left out to dry. So Trump pardons the only guy that he thinks he can get something back from, and that’s been the hardest thing for me and Jen to deal with.”
Stockton also discussed the Jan. 6 rally that led to the Capitol riot. He said there was “internal conflict” about whether it would remain at the Eclipse, as Stockton and Lawrence wanted. But they didn’t realize it had changed to it was too late.
“We kind of lost that battle, and we didn’t realize we lost that battle until President Trump told people to walk down to the Captiol,” Stockton said. “For us, it was devastating, it was very deflating. It’s one of those snap-to-reality moments where you look back over all the previous warning signs that you ignored.”
They said the rally was supposed to be about inciting a mob. “It was portrayed to us that if the electors were seated for President Biden, that Trump would recognize the results,” Lawrence said, adding that that word was Trump “wanted the largest crowd ever” for what would then be his farewell speech. “That was our plan, so the minute we realized — oh my God, you’re marching those people? We have nothing in place. What are you doing?”
The interview didn’t always go well. When Hayes tried to end it on an upbeat note, in which Stockton and Lawrence would, he clearly hoped, say without reservations that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, they got some reservations.
The Chris Hayes interview with the 1/6 rally organizers goes completely off of the rails when Dustin Stockton starts talking about MSNBC and “Russia memes.” pic.twitter.com/fJwOe4LpD2
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) December 16, 2021
Stockton immediately launched into some “whatabout”-ist nonsense about the press coverage of Trump’s alleged ties to Russia in the 2016 election. Eventually he admitted that certain bogus claims were indeed bogus, but even that took some doing on Hayes’ part. It’s a reminder that the MAGA “Bonnie and Clyde” may still be, at least in a sense, outlaws.
(Via Raw Story)