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Donald Trump and his Republican allies are “petty bitches” for refusing to display a congressionally approved plaque honoring police officers who protected the US Capitol when the president’s supporters attacked the complex on 6 January 2021, says one of the cops in question, Michael Fanone.
Speaking recently on the show hosted by political broadcast journalist Jim Acosta, the famously candid and oft profane Fanone said he also had a suggestion about where Republican US House speaker Mike Johnson could position the commemoration. “I think that it would be … perfect … if the plaque was shoved up his ass,” said Fanone, who retired from the Washington DC police force after being wounded during the January 6th attack.
Fanone’s remarks in part demonstrated the discontent among many in law enforcement about the way Trump has handled the aftermath of the Capitol assault, which was meant to keep him in the Oval Office after his first presidency ended in defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election won by the Democrats.
After triumphing over Kamala Harris in November’s election, Trump started his second term in the White House by issuing unconditional pardons and commutations for more than 1,500 people charged with roles in the 6 January 2021 insurrection – which was linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of officers who were left traumatized having defended the Capitol.
Among those to benefit from Trump’s mass clemency were Capitol attackers who targeted police officers. One was a man who pleaded guilty to driving a stun gun into Fanone’s neck and had received a 12-year prison sentence before Trump pardoned him.
That all happened after Congress, during Biden’s presidency in 2022, passed a bill calling for the placement of a plaque on the front of the Capitol in honor of the authorities who fought to protect the building against those assailing it in Trump’s name. But Johnson and other lawmakers had long delayed the plaque’s installation when Acosta had Fanone on his show and asked about the hold-up.
Fanone replied: “A lot of officers … probably do want to see this plaque placed in the Capitol, you know, according to the law.”
Unfortunately, Fanone said, the Republican party has had “a very difficult time adhering to the law” – and he alluded to Trump’s having been convicted, only months before winning his second presidency, of criminally falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
Fanone also said that many of the officers with whom he served at the Capitol on the day it was attacked by Trump’s supporters are “not going to be begging for some award”.
“I have a message for Mike Johnson as to where they should place the plaque, and I think that it would be a perfect presentation if the plaque was shoved up his ass,” Fanone told Acosta. “They’re certainly not going to beg Mike Johnson to put this plaque up. And so, you know, me telling him to shove it up his ass – that’s coming from a whole lot of cops that fought their asses off on January 6.”
Fanone added that he believes “most Republican leaders are petty bitches – just like their dear leader Donald Trump is a petty bitch”.
Trump supporters are almost certainly bound to be unsurprised by such invective from Fanone, the author of the 2022 memoir Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.
Fanone and other officers were called “fucking cowards” in February by the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group Enrique Tarrio, who confronted them at a summit of anti-Trump conservatives. Trump by then had pardoned Tarrio from having to finish a 22-year prison sentence that he received for seditious conspiracy as well as other charges in connection with the Capitol attack.
A Trump White House social media account on Friday nonetheless posted: “Many politicians say they back the blue – then betray them. Never President Trump.”
One of the first comments to reply to the post, timed as an observation of national police week in the US, read: “Trump backs the blue unless they work at the Capitol building.”
Echoing that sentiment, Fanone separately told Acosta that officers at the Capitol on the day a pro-Trump mob attacked them “know how Republican lawmakers feel about them”.
“They know how this country feels about them,” Fanone said. “They’re tired of being pandered to.”
