Rep. Ann Kuster (D-NH) did her best AOC impersonation, claiming in exit interviews that she was leaving Congress in part because Donald Trump tried to get her killed during the Capitol protests on January 6th.
Kuster made the comments both with Roll Call and the Boston Globe.
In her remarks to the former, the six-term congresswoman noted that she was retiring as a means to set an example for her septuagenarian or octogenarian colleagues who stick around too long.
“I had so many different factors going into it, but one of them is I’m trying to set a better example,” she explained.
That said, there was another reason she decided not to run for another term.
“And then there is a part of it related to Donald Trump coming back,” she explained. “I was one of the last members of Congress in the gallery on Jan. 6, and as it turns out, we have the security footage that shows it was only 30 seconds from when I was able to evacuate that the insurrectionists were in that hallway hunting for us with zip ties and bear mace and who knows what else.”
“I just felt like, he tried to kill me once. I’m not available for it again.”
In the interview with the Globe, Kuster reiterated her reasoning but attempted to downplay the murder claim by suggesting it was tongue in cheek.
“I’ve said somewhat facetiously, he tried to kill me once, I’m not available for that again,” she said. “What we went through on Jan. 6 and his attempt to overthrow the government took a toll. That was that was really hard, and not just personally, but on my ability to work across the aisle.”
Kuster announced that she would not seek reelection to the U.S. House back in March. There was no indication at that time that Trump was a lock to get back in the White House, giving him an opportunity to plot his revenge on a woman whose name he’s probably never heard.
Kuster’s last stand will be January 3rd, 2025. Trump’s election will be certified, ironically enough, on January 6th.
The New Hampshire congresswoman has consistently been a big fan of hyperbole regarding the protests at the Capitol in 2021. Kuster’s office released a video on the eve of the third anniversary of her party’s version of Pearl Harbor.
The video showed her and a pair of House Democrats on the third floor of the U.S. Capitol and three protesters wandering down the halls shortly thereafter. It was, she claimed, evidence of “the threat that Donald Trump poses to our democracy going forward.”
And it prompted her to wonder how close she was to being bear-maced to death.
“I’ve often wondered, ‘What the hell would have happened?’ I don’t know, rip us limb from limb?” Kuster said. “You know, what are the zip ties and the bear mace all about? They were prepared to take members of Congress either hostage, or kill us right then and there, or at least make us go to the hospital so that we couldn’t have come back to vote that night.”
One has to imagine Kuster turned the comments off on that video for a reason.
In her exit interview with Roll Call, the outgoing Democrat lawmaker went on to suggest Trump beat Kamala Harris because voters “don’t follow (policy issues) that closely.”
She believes people will be seeing benefits from the Biden administration over the next four years while being too ignorant to realize it was the Democrats that made it all possible.
“People are going to be driving over brand-new bridges and new highways and cutting 45 minutes off their commute and getting home for dinner on time, and nobody’s going to say, “Oh, thank you, Joe Biden,” she lamented.
“They’re probably going to say, “Thank you, Donald Trump,” because they don’t realize that it just takes so long.”
