Screenshot / YouTube, MSNBC ; Screenshot / YouTube, CBS News, Cropped by Resist the Mainstream

Former lead Bush advisor Karl Rove expressed vehement condemnation towards every individual involved in the protest against the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021, insisting that they should be apprehended and incarcerated.

Rove also stressed the importance of holding Trump accountable for his role in the events of J6 and urged Democrats to capitalize on the issue in their campaigns against him.

Rove engaged in a discussion on an MSNBC panel Wednesday with network host Ari Melber regarding the most effective strategies for Democrats to challenge Trump in the 2024 elections. Rove ardently advocated for prioritizing January 6 as a focal point for President Biden's reelection campaign.

“If they were smart, they’d take the Jan. 6 and go hard at it. And they would say, ‘He wants to pardon these people who attacked our Capitol,'” Rove said told MSNBC’s Melber.

“One of the critical mistakes made in this campaign is that Donald Trump has now said, ‘I’m going to pardon those people because they’re hostages,'” Rove said.

Rove criticized former President Donald Trump's assertion that he would pardon those involved in the Capitol riot, dismissing the notion that they were “hostages” and branding them as “thugs” and “sons of bi***es.”

“What those people did when they violently attacked the Capitol in order to stop a constitutionally mandated meeting of the Congress to accept the results of the Electoral College is a stain on our history,” he added. “And every one of those sons of bi***es who did that, we ought to find them, try them and send them to jail.”

Rove vividly described the chaos that unfolded during the riot, recounting instances where some individuals were armed with automatic weapons at a hotel in Virginia, eagerly anticipating their involvement.

He detailed how the rioters rampaged through Congress, hunted down Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and chanted violent slogans.

Rove questioned the former president's alignment with individuals who violently assaulted law enforcement officers and attempted to seize control of the Capitol, expressing bewilderment at Trump's stance.

Trump's pledge last month to release the incarcerated January 6 rioters, whom he referred to as “hostages,” drew criticism from Rove, who underscored the severity of the charges faced by over 1,350 individuals implicated in the attack on the Capitol.

“It is a mistake on the part of the Trump campaign to allow the president's impulses to align himself with the people who assaulted the Capitol, rather than people who stand for law and order,” Rove emphasized.

Rove also highlighted a lesson for Democrats in the aftermath of the J6 events. He argued that the Republican Party's failure to hold Trump accountable should not deter the Democratic Party from making it a central focus of their campaigns against him.

Trump's efforts to portray the accused rioters as “hostages,” however, did not dissuade a major Michigan police union from endorsing him, highlighting the ongoing political division over the handling of J6.