Fox Information and Tucker Carlson criticized for Jan. 6 riot spin

Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-NY) listens as Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) speaks at a information convention on the upcoming Senate procedural vote codifying Roe v. Wade speaks on the US Capitol constructing on Could 05, 2022 in Washington, DC .

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Senate Democrat and Republican leaders, together with different lawmakers and the White Home, on Tuesday criticized Fox Information and its host Tucker Carlson for broadcasting footage of the lethal Jan. 6 riot in a method that described it as a peaceable go to to the US – represented the Capitol.

US Capitol Police Chief and Capitol Police Officer’s longtime good friend Brian Sicknick, who died a day after he and different officers had been attacked by members of the pro-Trump mob, additionally slammed Carlson for his broadcast Monday evening.

In sharp feedback, Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., castigated Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. for giving Carlson and Fox Information unique entry to 44,000 hours of Capitol safety footage.

The backlash got here shortly after Carlson aired the footage Monday — greater than two years after tons of of supporters of then-President Donald Trump flooded the Capitol grounds and breached the constructing’s entry factors. They stormed the ground of the US Home of Representatives, disrupting a joint session of Congress and delaying affirmation of Joe Biden’s election as US President by hours.

Carlson used choose clips from the footage McCarthy gave him to create a false narrative of the assault that portrayed members of the mob as light onlookers, Schumer stated within the Senate.

“Final evening thousands and thousands of Individuals tuned in to one of the shameful hours we’ve ever seen on cable tv,” Schumer stated.

“Disregarding the dangers and totally conscious that he’s mendacity, mendacity to his viewers, Fox Information host Tucker Carlson final evening ran a prolonged phase arguing that the January 6 assault on the Capitol was not a violent riot was,” Schumer stated.

“Me and so many others who had been right here on January 6, 2021, ‘are simply indignant at Tucker Carson and Kevin McCarthy at present,’” Schumer stated

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, when requested by reporters about Carlson’s broadcast, stated, “I feel it’s cop…” and known as it “inexcusable.”

Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., informed reporters, “In my opinion, it was a mistake by Fox Information to painting this in a method that’s fully at odds with what our chief regulation enforcement officer is saying right here within the Capitol thinks. “

McConnell was referring to a letter Tuesday from US Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger to members of his power.

Manger had written that Carlson’s touch upon the “herry-picked movies … gives no context concerning the chaos and violence that came about earlier than or throughout these much less tense moments,” in accordance with NBC, which obtained the letter.

Senator Kevin Cramer. RN.D. informed reporters, “I feel that breaking in glass home windows and doorways to get into the US Capitol towards orders from the police is against the law.”

Cramer discovered that members of the mob had entered the Senate chambers after lawmakers had fled to security and opened the senators’ desks.

“To in some way put this in the identical class as a permitted peaceable protest is only a lie,” Cramer stated.

White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated: “Anybody who has seen this video [from the day of the attack] would strongly contradict Carlson’s characterization of the occasion.

“Anybody who has seen this video with their very own eyes and seen what occurred that day may have a special opinion,” Jean-Pierre stated at a press convention. “It was one of many darkest days of our democracy and all you must do is watch these movies.”

Lawyer Normal Merrick Garland declined to remark particularly on Carlson’s broadcast.

However Garland stated at a information convention: “I feel all Individuals noticed what occurred on January sixth and most of us noticed it when it occurred.

“It was a violent assault on a basic tenet of American democracy that energy is handed peacefully from one administration to a different,” Garland stated.

He famous that greater than 100 cops had been attacked that day and that 4 of these officers died of suicide within the months that adopted, with a fifth, Sicknick, dying the day after the assault after being sprayed with a chemical substance.

“We charged greater than 1,000 individuals for his or her crimes that day, and greater than 500 individuals have already been convicted,” Garland stated. “I feel it’s very clear what occurred on January 6.”

In his Senate remarks, Schumer stated that after delving “deep into the waters of conspiracy and cherry choosing,” Carlson informed “safety footage” the brazen lie that the assault on the Capitol, which all of us noticed with our personal eyes, in some way not was not an assault in any respect” by tons of of Trump supporters.

Tucker Carlson speaks throughout the 2022 FOX Nation Patriot Awards at Laborious Rock Stay on the Seminole Laborious Rock Resort & On line casino Hollywood on November 17, 2022 in Hollywood, Florida.

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Carlson “tried to argue that it was nothing greater than a peaceable sightseeing tour,” Schumer stated. “Are you able to think about?”

“To say that January sixth was not violent is a lie, a lie pure and easy,” he added. “I don’t suppose I’ve ever seen a prime-time cable information anchor manipulate his viewers the way in which Mr. Carlson did final evening. I don’t suppose I’ve ever seen a presenter deal with the American individuals and American democracy with such contempt.”

Schumer additionally spoke to Carlson’s superiors straight from the bottom, together with Fox Information CEO Rupert Murdoch, urging them to order Carlson to not produce a second phase based mostly on the safety footage Fox plans to air Tuesday evening.

Carlson stated throughout his broadcast Monday, “The footage exhibits no riot or riot in progress.”

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“As a substitute, it exhibits the police escorting individuals via the constructing, together with the now notorious ‘QAnon Shaman,’” Carlson stated.

He didn’t present graphic footage captured by safety cameras all through the constructing, during which rioters attacked police guarding the Capitol, entered the Senate chamber and workplaces of Congress, together with the workplace of then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and plenty of different scenes of chaos.

A Fox Information spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from CNBC.

Schumer stated McCarthy was “as a lot” at fault for the present as Carlson.

“Speaker McCarthy’s determination to share safety footage with Fox seemed like a mistake from the beginning, however after final evening it’s trying like a catastrophe,” Schumer stated. “Speaker McCarthy performed a treacherous, treacherous sport by serving the arduous proper.”

Carlson had stated in January that McCarthy, who was on the time struggling to garner assist for his election as spokesman for far-right Republicans, may enhance his possibilities by releasing “all” Jan. 6 safety footage, not simply the footage beforehand disclosed by a choose Home of Representatives committee.

When McCarthy did this, after changing into announcer, he allowed Fox Information, and solely Fox Information, entry to the footage.

He later defended that call, saying he was giving Fox Information an “unique” supply and evaluating it to unique gives from different networks.

“So we have now unique, then I’m going to distribute it to the entire nation,” McCarthy stated in late February.

Schumer stated that by giving the footage to Fox Information, McCarthy “enabled the massive lie and additional undermined our treasured democracy.

“If individuals don’t consider that elections are as much as par, that’s the start of the tip of this daring experiment in democracy that has lasted greater than 200 years,” Schumer stated.

Schumer didn’t add that the assault on the Capitol got here after weeks of false claims by Trump that he, and never Biden, truly received the 2020 election.

Trump had urged a crowd of supporters outdoors the White Home on Jan. 6 to march to the Capitol and combat towards a joint session of Congress assembly that day to verify Biden’s election.

Manger, the chief of the Capitol Police, known as out Carlson in his letter to the power for his feedback about Sicknick, who died a day after being sprayed with a chemical just like bear spray by a member of the mafia.

Carlson had proven footage of Sicknick main individuals out of the Capitol who had entered the constructing illegally.

“This video reverses probably the most highly effective and politically helpful lie Democrats have informed us about January 6,” Carlson stated Monday. “They lied concerning the cop they stated they worshiped. … In the event that they had been keen, then their dishonesty knew no bounds.”

Sicknick, who collapsed within the Capitol within the hours after the riot, suffered strokes and died of pure causes, the Washington, DC, chief health worker stated in April 2021. However the coroner additionally informed the Washington Put up that “all of this occurred.” performed a task in his situation.”

Manger wrote of Carlson in his letter: “Final evening’s most annoying allegation was that the demise of our late good friend and colleague Brian Sicknick was unrelated to his January 6 heroic actions.”

“The division asserts, as anybody with frequent sense would, that if Officer Sicknick had not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick wouldn’t have died the following day,” the chief wrote.

Sicknick’s accomplice, Sandra Garza, stated in an announcement to NBC, “I’m appalled that this new footage was featured on Tucker Carlson’s present and that he’s downplaying the significance of Brian’s demise.”

“He’s not a physician or psychiatrist and doesn’t have the experience to know how a serious traumatic occasion can have an effect on the physique and mind so profoundly,” Garza stated. “The truth that he acts as an professional is ridiculous.”

— CNBC’s Emma Kinery contributed to this text.

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2023-03-07 21:33:31

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