Media’s Beloved Jan. 6 Cop Insurrection Rant Slams Trump’s Guard As Gardeners — Then Admits It Works

On MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Nicolle Wallace invited Michael Fanone, a former D.C. Metropolitan Police officer who was on duty at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 — not to honestly discuss President Trump’s recent National Guard deployment, but to repeat January 6 propaganda and ridicule Trump’s decision to send in the Guard.

Fanone’s own words expose a glaring contradiction: he mocks the deployment as useless while admitting it uses a proven crime-fighting tactic.

Fanone described January 6 with dramatic exaggeration:

“I mean, it, you know obviously in on January 6th, 2021, you had an active insurrection. You had thousands of violent Americans assaulting police officers, um, you know pushing through barricades, damaging property, um, making their way into the Capitol complex in an attempt to, um, subvert an election.”

His claim that “thousands of violent Americans assaulting police officers” and an “active insurrection” inflates reality. Most protesters carried flags, phones, or cameras — not weapons — and many entered peacefully after barricades were removed.

“Subvert an election” through selfies? His words paint a dire but misleading picture, yet MSNBC amplifies them for ratings.

Fanone then ridiculed Trump’s National Guard deployment as “purely performative”:

“What’s happening right now is purely performative. I mean, if you take Washington D.C. for example, I mean I was out in the streets of Washington D.C. I saw what the deployment of the National Guard looked like. And you pretty much had two things happening. You had National Guard troops that were acting as gardeners, that were engaged in picking up trash, that were mowing the lawn, that were using, you know, weed wacker. And then you also had National Guard troops that were armed tourists that were taking in the sights of, you know, downtown Washington D.C...”

He added:

“And it when you talk about, you know, Pam Bondi cited all these crime, you know, statistics and the amount of arrests that were made, um, you know, during that time period and how crime went down dramatically. Well, I mean, listen, every year at the Metropolitan Police Department, we have a summer crime initiative and we select neighborhoods in Washington D.C. where there’s, you know, spiking crime and violent crime particularly. And we deploy every single asset that we have available to us to include, you know, utilizing federal partnerships. I mean, it’s overkill but does it reduce crime? Of course it does. When there’s a cop on every single street corner, you know, criminals are not stupid. It displaces the crime.

“I mean, obviously, when you — if you were to go back and do a study and say, like, okay, look at the streets and the, you know, outside of that area, crime goes up significantly. But in that area where we’re focused on, it goes down, and they can report that to the, to the public.

“Um, it’s the same premise here in Washington D.C. You had this, you know, deploying the National Guard, which really had no public-safety function whatsoever other than the fact that they, you know, had a command presence in an area. But then you also had the deployment of all these federal resources, which, you know, I would argue, as somebody who worked in numerous federal task forces while I was a police officer — that’s a good thing. Um.”

Fanone never directly praised Trump’s deployment, but his own explanation confirmed the logic behind it. He admitted that concentrated law enforcement “reduces crime” and “displaces the crime.”

In trying to mock the deployment, he ended up validating it.

If “a cop on every single street corner” reduces crime because “criminals are not stupid,” why call the National Guard’s presence “purely performative”? He even likened it to D.C.’s “summer crime initiatives,” where heavy law enforcement lowers violence. Yet Wallace ignored this contradiction, letting Fanone’s attack stand.

Fanone’s words fuel MSNBC’s circus, hyping “insurrection” while dismissing Trump’s efforts as “gardeners” and “armed tourists.” Yet his own admission — “Of course it does. When there’s a cop on every single street corner, criminals are not stupid.” — proves the National Guard’s presence fights crime.

Cities face surging crime and unrest, and Trump’s deployment is a tactic Fanone knows works. His refusal to credit it, while pushing “thousands of violent Americans assaulting police,” shows bias, not analysis.