Trump opened his Thursday rally in Texas with the recording of the national anthem as sung by the “J6 Prison Choir”—a recording on which Trump recites the pledge of allegiance—then launched into an explanation of what the audience had just heard.
“Well, thank you very much, and you know what that was,” he said. “That was, I call them the ‘J6 hostages,’ not prisoners. I call them the hostages, what’s happened. And it’s a shame. And you know, they did that, and they asked me whether or not I would partake and do the beautiful words, and I said yes, I would, and you saw the spirit, the spirit was incredible.”