The former president employs red herrings and shifts the burden of proof to avoid directly addressing his actions and statements related to the violent mob that attacked the Capitol; instead he makes irrelevant claims about immigration and blames others like Pelosi, while lacking substantive evidence to counter the accusation that he did not act appropriately to quell the unrest after initially encouraging his supporters to march to the Capitol.

1. whataboutism • Trump employs the (red herring) version of whataboutism:

What about all the people that are pouring into our country and killing people? ... Those people are killing many people, unlike J-6.

This deflects the question about his actions on January 6th by shifting the focus to immigration issues.

2. quotation out of context • Trump overstates what Nancy Pelosi said in a taped conversation pertaining to January 6th:

Nancy Pelosi rejected me. It was just two weeks ago, her daughter has a tape of her saying she is fully responsible for what happened.

As fact-checkers have pointed out, Pelosi had only partial responsibility for Capitol Security, and no direct authority over Capitol Police. In her remarks that Trump is referring to, she mentions "responsibility" but never says she was "fully responsible", because in fact she wasn't.

If Trump had said something like "responsibility for security that day was shared among numerous parties including not just me but also Nancy Pelosi, who has admitted as much," then there might not be a fallacy here. But instead of making a properly nuanced statement, he attempts to shift responsibility for the violence entirely onto Pelosi by misquoting her.

3. red herring with loaded language • Trump distracts from the main topic with an emotional anecdote that he describes with invective language:

Ashli Babbitt was shot by an out-of-control police officer that should have never, ever shot her. It's a disgrace.

The death of Ashli Babbitt is unquestionably lamentable, but Trump leverages it to distract again from the original question of the moderator. Trump meanwhile attacks the character of the police officer who shot Babbitt rather than addressing the circumstances or justification of the shooting itself.