When a moderator asked Donald J. Trump about Jan. 6, 2021, at the presidential debate, the former president slipped immediately into a now-familiar revisionist history of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He falsely claimed that he had nothing to do with the assault, blaming it on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the police officers who protected the building that day against a mob of his supporters.
But then Mr. Trump made a brief but telling remark: He used the pronoun “we” to describe some of the rioters, grammatically placing himself among those who have been charged with storming into the Capitol.
“We didn’t do —” Mr. Trump started to say before he began again: “This group of people that have been treated so badly.”
It was a fleeting moment, but one that captured Mr. Trump’s reluctance to part ways with the final explosive act of his presidency, even in a general election in which it offers little political upside.
For years, Mr. Trump has helped craft an alternate history of that day, one in which the violent attack was a “love fest,” the jailed rioters were “hostages” and their prosecution was a part of a larger story of persecution — of both Mr. Trump and his supporters — that has been at the core of his argument for a return to the presidency.
But as he courts voters beyond his loyal base ahead of the November election, he and his campaign have engaged in an awkward push and pull over how closely to associate with the riot’s legacy. A recording of jailed Jan. 6 defendants singing the national anthem no longer plays at his rallies. When some defendants, including a man whom federal prosecutors have described as a “white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer,” gathered at Mr. Trump’s Bedminster golf club for a fund-raiser, the former president, who has attended similar events, sent his support in a video message instead.
“Our hearts are with you,” Mr. Trump said in the video. “Our soul is with you.”
The former president’s close-but-not-too-close relationship with the Jan. 6 cause is a tacit acknowledgment of his personal attachment to an issue with questionable political benefits, and of the country’s stark partisan divide over the Capitol riot, a divide largely of Mr. Trump’s own making….